/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6039587]

What language should I learn, /lit/? Japanese, Russian, Arabic, French?

[Anonymous No.6039597]

>>6039587
French is the most relevant of all 4

inb4 weeaboos say Japanese, who wants to talk gook?

[Anonymous No.6039601]

>>6039587
French.

[Anonymous No.6039603]

>>6039587
Slovak.

[Anonymous No.6039626]

>>6039587
Italian

[Anonymous No.6039641]

>>6039587

Mandarin.

[Anonymous No.6040156]

French or Russian unless you're a weeaboo
Arabic is useless unless you're gonna read Al-Jazeera all day, noone speaks MSA

[Anonymous No.6040165]

>>6039587
Italian or French

[Anonymous No.6040167]

Seeing as you're speaking English: French

Why? It will be severely easier compared to the other languages, and because French is globally more useful (unless you intend on moving to Japan, Russia or an Arabic country)

[Anonymous No.6040237]

>>6039587
I am wondering this exact thing, minus the French.
I want to read Russian, because I really like Russian /lit/ so far, but I can never see myself actually going to Russia.
I want to learn Japanese/Korean for dat dere avg asian qt3.14gf
I want to learn Arabic because it's a pretty cool sounding language, and it's very widely spoken, but I can't see myself going to the Middle East or anything either.

I don't know. I might end up not learning any, we'll see.

[Anonymous No.6040308]

>>6040156
"The limits of your language are the limits of your world".
As an Algerian it was easy for me to learn Russian, Italian, Spanish and currently I'm studying English. However Arabic still the only language that broaden my horizons, it's limitless you fag.

[Anonymous No.6040325]

Learn Russian and French, Japanese is for little girls and Arab for lowbrow fags
>^ truth
>^ truth
>^ truth
>^ truth

[Anonymous No.6040363]

>>6040308
Pls, I taught myself Arabic for a bit. I know how the language works essentially, (I am good at languages) and it's very different from everything else I've studied for sure, but it has its merits and drawbacks like any other language. It's definitely very logical in general, but some of these rules aren't so intuitive. Also it has a strange range of sounds.

[Anonymous No.6040383]

>>6040167

The same could be said of German or Latin. French has the largest contribution to the English language, but it's "largest" in the sense that 29% of the words come from French while 26% come from German.

That said some of my favorite books come from France, and some of my favorite books come from Germany, and some of my favorite books come from Japan. Why not just learn all of them? You have time.

>tfw reading Three Musketeers and Steppenwolf and No Longer Human in the same month

[Anonymous No.6040392]

>>6039587
what kind of autist would make a CGI of a minecraft world?

[Anonymous No.6040404]

French > Russian >Arabic > Japanese

[Anonymous No.6040858]

>>6040363
As a native speaker I'm curious to know what a non native speaker would consider Arabic's drawbacks and merits

[Anonymous No.6040882]

>>6039597
There's a ton of great Japanese literature and they're one of the most relevant countries in regards to cinema along with France and Russia. I'd probably even put them above Italy.

[Anonymous No.6040887]

>>6039587
Depends on where you are from, but I'd place Russian and Arabic above Japanese and French, simply due to them being more prevalent and relevant to a possible translator.

[Anonymous No.6040953]

French or Arabic. Don't bother with the other two unless your interests are country-specific.

I've studied both and these are the pros and cons as I see them.

French:
+Good lit and film
+Spoken over a wide/diverse area
+Easy to learn
-Has changed more over time than standard Arabic
-French are much snobbier about language and less eager to help you learn


Arabic pros:
+Good lit - and you'll be able to read modern stuff as well as stuff from 1000+ years ago
+Widely spoken and understood
+Will do more to 'broaden your horizons' and let you think differently
-Lots of colloquial dialects that require extra study
-Much more difficult to master

>Arabic is useless unless you're gonna read Al-Jazeera all day, noone speaks MSA

Everyone understands it and most can speak it decently well.

[Anonymous No.6041011]

>>6039587
Either French or Japanese.

[Anonymous No.6041126]

OP,

What are your interests, what do you want to study and what do you want to do for a living? Also what foreign culture are you most interested in learning about?

Ask yourself those questions to determine your ideal language?

[Anonymous No.6041161]

>>6041126

I'm studying english and maybe environmental studies. want to do law or journalism. i'm interested in all these cultures-i've had a hard time choosing for a while now.

[Anonymous No.6041192]

>>6039587
Polite sage

Where is pic taken? Beautiful landscape.

[Anonymous No.6041205]

>>6041192
>filename

[Anonymous No.6041226]

>>6041205
My mobile doesn't show filenames even when I open the image. Old ass phone.

[Anonymous No.6041229]

>>6041226
Understandable.
It's from the Andes

[Anonymous No.6041445]

>>6039587
Learn Japanese first, as it takes the longest. One you have mastered learning a language, you'll find French quite easy to learn.

[Anonymous No.6041479]

>>6040953
>-French are much snobbier about language and less eager to help you learn

Muh stereotypes

[Anonymous No.6041498]

>>6041192
It is the Mù Cang Chải District of Vietnam. Don't believe the filename.

[Anonymous No.6041509]

>>6040953

>+Will do more to 'broaden your horizons' and let you think differently

elaborate?

[Anonymous No.6041515]

>>6040383
French is grammatically closer to English (Latin and German have declensions, French and English haven't).

So it's pretty much the easier foreign language for and English native, except for the language that themselves derivatives of English and Old English.

[Anonymous No.6041519]

>>6041498
Yeah I saw it posted somewhere and that was the filename there, I honestly had no idea so i just used the same

[Anonymous No.6041522]

>>6040383
>You have time
speak for yourself neet

[Anonymous No.6041547]

>>6040887
You're right for Arabic, but Russian is actually less widely spoken than French.

>>6039587
Here's my rec OP: study first the language that seems more appealing to you. If they're all equal in that respect, then

>you live in the West/are focused on Western culture

French>Russian>Arabic>=Japanese

>you live in/focus on the Middle East or Africa

Arabic>French>Russian>Japanese

>you live in/focus on Eastern or Southern Asia

Japanese>Arabic>Russian>French

>you live/focus on Eastern Europe

Russian>French>=Arabic>Japanese

>pretty much anywhere else

French>Arabic>Russian>Japanese

[Anonymous No.6041560]

>>6040858
Drawbacks: completely different writing system, different phonological index, morhpology and syntax are way different from English, completely different word order most of the time (English is an SVO language, Arabic is VSO), there is no case system (at least in modern spoken Arabic), crazy vowel length stuff, CVVC bullshit, GLOTTAL STOPS EVERYWHERE, and there are a ton of different dialects of Arabic, many of which are not mutually intelligible.

Merits: It's fucking interesting and old as hell, colloquial dialects of Arabic are very numerous, most speakers of Arabic have some sort of education in Standard Modern Arabic due to Muslim liturgy spanning over a billion people, possible to make loads of money working overseas with knowledge of Arabic, nonconcatenative morphology is also really interesting.

[Anonymous No.6041572]

>>6041479
>Muh stereotypes

Stereotypes confirmed repeatedly during my time in France.

>>6041509

I have no background in linguistics so my explanation will have to be unsophisticated.

Basically, different languages allow you to see things differently. Every language has its own way of denoting concepts and showing relationships between these concepts through morphology, etymology, etc.

In Chinese, for example, you can take two characters with different meanings and combine them into a compund character with a third, related meaning. In Arabic, you can take a three-letter root and plug it into a variety of different verb, noun, and adjective forms to create words with distinct (but related) meanings.

French does this as well, but it won't broaden your horizons as much in this respect if it's a closer relative to your native tongue. The vocabulary and grammatical structure are much more familiar to an English speaker than those of Arabic or Chinese would be. You aren't forced to come to terms with as many new concepts or as many new ways of thinking about relationships between concepts.

[Anonymous No.6041590]

>>6041572
>Stereotypes confirmed repeatedly during my time in France.
Mind that your perception is colored, whether you admit it to yourself or not, but your knowledge of said stereotypes and more importantly by what you associate with the language and accent.

But, even if for the wrong reasons, he's right

[Anonymous No.6041611]

>>6041560

You evidently know your stuff.

I'm struggling through an introductory course right now, and al-kitaab being at pains to avoid explicit treatment of grammar is driving me up the wall. Seeing the moving-parts, but not having them explained is beyond frustrating.

Any example/exercise-based recommendations for straight-up grammar/morphology?

[Anonymous No.6041641]

>>6041590
>Mind that your perception is colored

Maybe, but I also have experiences learning other languages in other countries that I can compare it to.

>>6041611

Not him, but al-kitab does begin to treat grammar explicitly. Fairly early in the second book (I think? could be completely off...) There's a big chart listing the main verb forms (awzan). Then there's a grammar blurb in each chapter introducing a specific form and its connotations, etc. in addition to other grammar lessons.

Pretty much all of my courses at home and abroad were taught from al-kitab. Some of the shit it does is frustrating (it introduces certain basic things, like the imperative, really late IIRC), but it's a decent system overall.

[Anonymous No.6041670]

>>6039587
is hungarian worth learning?

[Anonymous No.6041706]

>>6041611
I don't explicitly study Arabic, but I have an MA in Linguistics, and therefore can give a few suggestions on general rules of language. So as far as pointing you to specific texts involving Arabic, there is not a whole lot I can do for you. However, I would start with one or more of these textbooks, most of which can be acquired cheaply:

Language: Its Structure and Use by Edward Finegan
Introduction to Typology: The Unity and Diversity of Language by Lindsay J. Whaley
Understanding Morphology by Haspelmath and Sims
Syntax: A Generative Introduction by Andrew Carnie - this one might not be so practical at first, I would hold off purchasing this until you've done some other work.

[Anonymous No.6041713]

>>6041706
Hah, found a PDF of one of them with a simple google search. Here is the H&S morphology textbook:

https://arkitecturadellenguaje.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/understanding-morphology-second-edition.pdf

[Anonymous No.6041717]

French or Japanese, Russian sucks slav dick.

[Anonymous No.6041742]

>>6041706
>>6041713

جزاك الله خيراً

[Anonymous No.6041789]

only learn arabic if:
-moving for an extended period of time to an arabic speaking nation
-want to study quran in arabic
any arab worth the sand in his shoes can speak french or english. the greatest literary work in arabic is the quran. you will not learn anything without living there, even holding a basic conversation would take years.
studying french would be more useful over all to communicate with more arabs you'd encounter in western nations than any particular dialect if arabic and all the benefits of reading/ speaking french.

[Anonymous No.6041837]

>>6041742
try this ^^ http://learning.aljazeera.net/arabic

[Anonymous No.6041926]

>>6041742
Good luck, brother. Learning other languages will be easier once language functions are explained in detail.

[Anonymous No.6041962]

>>6041789
>the greatest literary work in arabic is the quran
Some (obviously non-muslims) often make specific claims to the contrary and praise more recent poetry instead

[Anonymous No.6042017]

I'm in the same spot as OP, except replace Arabic for German. I don't really know what I should do though. I started on Japanese awhile ago and got the kana and some grammar down, but I've hit a wall with it. What should I learn /lit/, and how would you recommend I learn it?

[Anonymous No.6042130]

learn the one you're most likely going to use like living in a country where everyone speaks it or translating shit

[Anonymous No.6042453]

>>6040953
>getting access to the Qur'an the most advanced and beautiful text on earth in its original language isn't a pro for Arabic

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6043707]

>>6039587
In ascending order of difficulty: French, Russian, Arabic, Japanese.

Japanese is THE hardest language for a native English speaker to learn.

btw, do you seriously not speak French already? What kind of shitty upbringing were you given?

[Anonymous No.6044113]

>>6040858
I am not >>6041560 actually.

The relationship between vowels and consonants and just tashkeel in general is very mathematical and makes sense, but becomes very difficult when the smallest difference can give a string of letters an entirely new meaning (see maktab vs maktub). Also the fucking broken plurals. Yes I get that most words follow the 15 or so rules pretty closely but why would you make it so difficult for yourself? Especially when you already have a system for regular plurals. The consonant root system is super fascinating though. The grammar, such as having suffixes instead of separate relative pronouns is interesting but can be ambiguous and gives the language a surprisingly "floaty" feel. The extensive grammatical gender rules aren't so difficult but there's a lot of it. I like the taa marbuta though. There are a bunch of strange sounds which makes me wonder why Arabic evolved to include rare letters such as ع or the empathics over common sounds like p, g, or v, but it's an interesting feature I suppose. I especially like ق. Honestly there is a lot I could write about this but I have other stuff to do.

[Anonymous No.6044132]

>>6043707
Japanese isn't difficult at all, just tedious. Th grammar is regular as fuck, simple, gender neutral, doesn't even have a definite article or plural. It's probably the easiest language I've ever studied actually. It's also likely one of the easiest languages to listen to and speak as well. The problem is the thousands of kanji you have to learn. It's a huge obstacle for sure but the rest is a cakewalk.

I'd say Arabic is the hardest of these.