/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20065920]

Is he right?

[Anonymous No.20065924]

Literally who?

[Anonymous No.20065927]

>>20065920
No, he's a retard
/thread

[Anonymous No.20065937]

Spanish and Mandarin are considered the most useful, but they have a poor corpus outside a handful of great books.

[Anonymous No.20065951]

>>20065927
You can’t /thread your own statement retard.

[Anonymous No.20065964]

>>20065927
spbp

[Anonymous No.20066001]

>>20065920
I remember there being an aphorism by Nietzsche in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches that was exactly about this. So he's probably just echoing the Nietzsche he read.

[Anonymous No.20066128]

>>20065920
He's right.

English is my native tongue, and therefore I must consider it the best language to have ever existed.

German is the second best language to have ever existed, but it's only real utility to me is helping me understand my Mother Tongue.

Language learning does have various benefits, though. And it's retarded to claim that being bilingual/polylingual has no applicability beyond esthetic.

[Anonymous No.20066149]

I only speak English. I know a few French words though, I suppose. I wish I was fluent in another language. I imagine it would be like being another person for a while. Like, I could just think in another language, or read in another language, and I could get away from myself and my world for a while. And maybe the different grammar and words would change me somehow. Make me better.

[Anonymous No.20066259]

I don't know about French but the greatest writer and stylist in Latin is obviously Marcus Tullius Cicero and he was extremely fluent I'm Greek.

[Anonymous No.20066276]

>>20065920
>both my daughters speak fluent Mandarin
doesn't make up for the fact that you had two daughters, so what was the use? they'll still get fucked in the ass by countless men

[Anonymous No.20066278]

>>20065920
No, the greatest French writers were all usually polyglots. Even some of the minor greats knew at least Latin.

[Anonymous No.20066362]

> When billionaire financier of Chinese business who stands to gain from increased Chinese business was asked: “What language should we learn?” He replied “Chinese”.
Shocker.

[Anonymous No.20066556]

>>20065920
He is wrong, there are certainly plenty of reasons to learn other languages besides just aesthetics. Even in the post he is replying to, business would certainly be a reason. Plenty of people know mandarin but knowing mandarin and english would certainly make one infinitely more employable for certain jobs. Immersing yourself more fully in another culture would be another perfectly legitimate reason.

Having said that, aesthetics is really the only reason I would have (hypothetically) for learning a second language. Naturally, I'd love to be able to read some of my favorite authors in their original language. However, the opportunity cost of getting proficient in another language is just too high. I could read quite literally hundreds of books in the amount of time it would take to become proficient enough in another language to appreciate its literature / poetry to the same extent I appreciate English. Thus, I am monolingual. I think it's cool that people are into learning other languages though. My friend speaks a bunch of different languages and is interested in learning other languages for its own sake. For me it would be purely means to an (aesthetic) end.

[Anonymous No.20066871]

>>20065920
Who gives a FUCK what this dude says? All the Twitter screenshots of him I've seen posted here are just contrarianism presented as fact.

[Anonymous No.20066933]

>>20065920
He frequently references works for which no English translations exist, fwiw.

[Anonymous No.20067027]

>>20065937
>Spanish
>poor corpus
no

[Anonymous No.20067057]

>You can’t /thread your own statement retard.

[Anonymous No.20067169]

>>20065920
Traduttore, traditore.

[Anonymous No.20067202]

>>20066556
I've done business in many Asian countries and I don't know any of the language just like cheers and some single lines to get laughs in Japanese when we used to go drinking.
In Korea I knew even less.
China we just basically used gestures and single words
Any real business there was always someone around to interpret but usually not much better than we were doing already, or sometimes you would just hammer things out without clear interpretation especially for gov paperwork we did this.

The only people I met who needed two languages were interpreters or language teachers who specialized in tests like Eiken or Toiec

[Anonymous No.20067223]

Im pretty sure almost every French writer of note got Latin and ancient Greek drilled into their heads as kids

[Anonymous No.20067233]

>>20065920
Yikes, I didn’t expect him to be a brainlet

[Anonymous No.20067318]

>>20067169
I found it quite funny to learn what the verb "traduce" means in English

[Anonymous No.20067332]

>>20067233
he's almost as dumb as Zero HP

[Anonymous No.20067371]

>>20065920
I don’t know, Bronze Age Nigger, why don’t you ask yourself?

[Anonymous No.20067386]

>>20066149
It's worth it anon - trust me. Much better if one of your friends knows it as well. Learning a language is one of those accomplishments you can really feel satisfied with, like ticking a box. 'Getting good' at politics isn't the same feeling of achievement as 'getting fluent'.

t. one of less than 1000 people in Australia who's fluent in Mandarin and isn't from a Chinese background

[Anonymous No.20067461]

>>20066001
>>20067233
The views he is expressing in the pic are taken straight from Nietzsche.

On the unimportance of reading in the orginal language:

Untranslatable. - It is neither the best nor the worst in a book that is
untranslatable in it.
(Human, All Too Human Volume 1 S. 184)

The Ancient Greeks and Renaissance French were master stylists in part due to not learning foreign languages :

Learning many languages. - Learning many languages fills the memory
with words instead of facts and ideas, while the memory is a receptacle
which in the case of each man can take only a certain limited content.
Then the learning of many languages is harmful insofar as it invites belief
that one is in possession of complete accomplishments, and in fact also
lends one a certain seductive esteem in social intercourse; it is also harm-
ful indirectly in that it stands in the way of the acquisition of thorough
knowledge and any ambition to deserve the respect of others by honest
means. Finally, it is the axe that is laid at the roots of a feeling for the
nuances of one's own mother tongue: it incurably injures and destroys
any such feeling. The two nations which produced the greatest stylists,
the Greeks and the French, learned no foreign languages. - Because,
however, commerce between men is bound to grow ever more cosmo-
politan and an efficient merchant in London, for example, already has to
make himself understood, in speech and writing, in eight languages, the
learning of many languages is, to be sure, a necessary evil; but it is one for
which mankind will sooner or later be compelled to find a cure: and at
some distant future there will be a new language for all - first as a com-
mercial language, then as the language of intellectual intercourse in gen-
eral - just as surely as there will one day be air travel. To what other end
has the science of language studied the laws of language for the past
hundred years and determined what is necessary, valuable and success-
ful in each individual language!

(Human, All Too Human Volume 1 S. 267)

Since he says foreign he does not mean the French did not learn Greek and Latin. However, he does say in Beyond Good and Evil that the Renaissance French were incapable of really enjoying Homer due to how particular their taste was (unlike we moderns who have an ignoble taste for everything):

For instance we enjoy Homer again: per-
haps it is our most fortunate advantage that we know how to
taste Homer, whom people of a noble culture
do not and did not easily assimilate-whom they scarcely al-
lowed themselves to enjoy. The very definite Yes and No of
their palate, their ever-ready nausea, their hesitating reserve
toward everything foreign, their fear of the poor taste of even
a lively curiosity, and generally that unwillingness of every
noble and self-sufficient culture to admit to itself a new desire,
a dissatisfaction with its own, an admiration of something
foreign:

(Beyond Good and Evil S. 224)

[Anonymous No.20067586]

>>20065920
If you weren't taught as a child, there's no reason you would learn another language as an adult apart from aesthetics.

[Anonymous No.20067593]

>>20065951
>You can’t /thread your own statement retard.

[Anonymous No.20067705]

>>20067593
/thread

[Anonymous No.20067709]

maybe

[Anonymous No.20067784]

>>20065927
I'd ask you to elaborate were it not for the sneaking suspicion that all I'd get in return would be that BAM "critique" about how many fags there were in the Theban army.