No excuse for reading translations

[Anonymous No.17570968]

>b-but i cant possibly learn every language
lets assume youre around twenty and only know english (what have you been doing dumbass? why do you only know english at 20?), meaning you probably have around 50 years left to live. if it takes 3 years to learn a language (which is very generous because many wont even take that long), you can learn around 16 langauges in your lifetime, meaning you could learn
1 arabic
2 french
3 spanish
4 russian
5 portuguese
6 italian
7 chinese
8 japanese
9 latin
10 greek
11 german
12 persian
13 sansrkit
14 hindi
15 dutch
16 hebrew
>i-i dont have the time
yet you find the time browse /lit/ for several hours everyday
>b-but you cant learn a langauge when youre old and frail
more likely than not, its lack of access to quality content rather than age that prevents so many from reaching proficiency in other languages

[Anonymous No.17570975]

>>17570968
I prefer translations frogman

[Anonymous No.17570983]

Why would I learn another language when everything is translated into CHADnglish lmfao.

[Anonymous No.17571032]

>>17570968
First, you have to convince me that original works are categorically better than translations because I'm unconvinced. Tell me why Junger in german is inherently better than Junger in english. Show me how Pushkin in russian is superior to Pushkin in english.

[Anonymous No.17571195]

>>17571032
>Show me how Pushkin in russian is superior to Pushkin in english.
Did you really have to pick THE Russian poet who is widely known for being barely translatable?

[Anonymous No.17571203]

>>17571195
Pushkin was black, he's a honorary american rapper

[Anonymous No.17571315]

>>17570968
OP it takes more than 3 years to learn a language, don`t underestimate the complexity of a whole other grammar and vocabulary system inbound with a culture`s own nuances.

The only way to learn a language well enough to read literature in such a measly period would be to live in a country where its spoken and to dedicate a good portion of your life to studying said culture and language.

[Anonymous No.17571322]

>>17570968
How is being lazy not an excuse?

[Anonymous No.17571342]

>>17570968
Right but I want to read No Longer Human now, not when I can read Japanese in 4 years.

[Anonymous No.17571361]

>>17570968
As a native English speaker I only learn dead languages. I spit on living languages.

[Anonymous No.17571377]

>>17570968
Sure, but don't be one of the pseuds who learns how to say please and thank you in 20 languages and calls himself a polyglot.

[Anonymous No.17571387]

>>17571032
Jünger sounds completely different in German. He's one of those you can't translate at all - at least not into English. Generally speaking things will be lost either way, certainly the aesthetics will suffer, specifically the rhythm( the writer is the genius here, not some random translator).+Russian into English is horrific, the whole thing just sounds wrong. I get the same sense from Japanese when I read it in German, English appears much better suited although I don't know that for sure since I don't speak Japanese.

[Anonymous No.17571438]

>>17570983
this is correct. we anglos only need enough to know enough foreign to order food on holiday

[Anonymous No.17571485]

Feels good having parents who took me and my siblings to Italy and France to vacation as children.

t. fluent in 3 languages without even trying

[Anonymous No.17571491]

>>17570968

Based and Miserable Worm pilled

[Anonymous No.17571551]

>>17571491
I don't understand people like that. Any reader should know that the human being is a constant throughout time. Given the flag it's propably ideological in his case, more concerned about the skin colour, sex or sexual preference of the writer than quality of content. Which again I don't understand.

[Anonymous No.17571552]

>>17571485
Lucky bastard, mine had me spend summers with grandparents, where the only "foreign language" was chicken clucking.

[Anonymous No.17571564]

>>17570968
>read translations
>don't care what pseuds on /lit/ say

[Anonymous No.17571572]

>>17571564
Based

[Anonymous No.17571580]

This is why people should only read non-fiction, essays, scientific papers, manuals etc.
Translations don't hinder those works.

[Anonymous No.17571620]

>>17571552
well we would often vacation in the country too but there would be kids to play/talk with and we would watch cartoons in the native language

[Anonymous No.17571685]

>>17571438

>OI. PEDRO. TENDRAY EL ONGLAYS COMPLETAY SIVOO PLAY. CHEERS ME OLD MUCKER.

[Anonymous No.17571708]

ILL AV UNO BIERO POR FAVOR LASS

[Anonymous No.17571716]

>>17571491

>even I think the classics are shit for modern kids

How can he claim to be a master of language when this sentence is totally ambiguous?

Does he mean that the classics are shit and that modern kids like them because they have shit taste, or does he, conversely, mean that the classics are not good reading material for modern kids?

[Anonymous No.17571721]

>>17571716
he's a pa-sood

[Anonymous No.17571729]

>>17571716
Neither. He just thinks classics shouldn't be forced upon kids.

[Anonymous No.17571730]

>>17571708

Based. You want a scotch egg or a packet of pork scratchings with that, my son?

[Anonymous No.17571731]

>>17570983
Because you can't brag on 4chan how you know 10 languages like a pseud

[Anonymous No.17571748]

>>17571730
OI, DONDAY ESTA EL TOILETTO?

[Anonymous No.17571749]

>>17570968
I'm 20 and I can read in english, spanish, and portuguese. What should I learn next?

[Anonymous No.17571782]

>>17571749
Italiano

[Anonymous No.17571789]

>>17571749
French

[Anonymous No.17571795]

>>17571749
Old Babylonian

[Anonymous No.17571853]

>>17571749
French-->Latin --> German

[Anonymous No.17571965]

>>17571782
>>17571789
>>17571795
>>17571853
Thanks, I guess I'm going with french first.

[Anonymous No.17571972]

>>17571315
This isn't true for romance languages or German, all are relatively easy to learn (at least to the point of reading literature) in a reasonable time frame and without living in the target country. Due to the internet you can speak to native speakers and listen to native speakers every day from your home.

[Anonymous No.17571976]

>>17571965
Based

[Anonymous No.17572029]

>>17571387
"Sounds completely different" is not an argument. Blue is completely different from yellow, thank you for this amusing fact.

[Anonymous No.17572124]

>>17572029
You think sound, including flow, is irrelevant to poetry? Does it not influence the picture that is drawn? Colours aren't a bad example, think about famous pictures but all the colours are off. Jünger in the original is hypnotic, a translator can't imitate that both for lack of talent and because a 'faithful' translation wouldn't allow it. I can only interpret people who think that reading in the original is irrelevant as the same who think the plot is the book when in reality the entire magic happens outside of it.

[Anonymous No.17572170]

Muh reading originals only sounds like a pretentious appeal to authority
>its Original therefore better
As a kind of thought experiment, imagine that you live in a timeline where Herman Melville was actually German Melville, a german immigrant who travelled to America and worked on a whaling ship. Afterwards he wrote Der Mober Schlanger, a masterpiece of german literature to be later translated in english as Moby Dick by some random academic, the text you we all know and love. Now, in this timeline, which text do you think is accepted as the prime source? Obviously Mober Schlanger, right?

[Anonymous No.17572201]

>>17570968
Oh boy i cant wait to avoid people in 5 languages.

[Anonymous No.17572216]

>>17572201
this but unironically

[Anonymous No.17572235]

>>17572170
>bro...what if...

[Anonymous No.17572249]

>>17570968
who can be fucked to learn all those languages? eventually they would all just be a jumbled up mess, you'd constantly be forgetting some of one language while learning and maintaining another, what's the point? you'd have to make language learning your full time job and fuck that

[Anonymous No.17572516]

I'm too dumb for French.