/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12039207]

Foreign language thread. What are you learning, why?
Share tips.
Pic related for me. Does anyone have any good tips for immersion? Like things you have done to fully engulf yourself in a language when no one around you speaks it

[Anonymous No.12039219]

Learning German right now. Struggling to find reading materials that aren't a pain for beginners. I don't want to read fucking Harry Potter. I got Das Unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story) which I hear is great, so hopefully that helps.

I've also found it helps to go back and re-read chapters of books after you've painfully been through them the first time around, having to googling everything you don't recognize. It feels really good to be able to blitz through the chapter the second time, which keeps your motivation up and repeats your use of that vocab.

[Anonymous No.12039235]

>>12039207
>Foreign language thread. What are you learning, why?
Currently learning Arabic intensively and just passively learning Old English.
Arabic to read the Quran.
Old English for personal reasons i.e. to read old english poems and write in old english.
> Does anyone have any good tips for immersion?
It's really hard to do by yourself. The only way to do it right is to go where it is spoken, but tbqh after you've learned a second language after that, every language after becomes easier as you start to understand grammatical constructs on a more abstract level.
>>12039219
why are you learning German?
>rereading
yeah, that's a good idea.

[Anonymous No.12039262]

Learning Latin

[Anonymous No.12039331]

>>12039262
What are you using for it?

[Anonymous No.12039449]

Learning Portuguese because my girlfriend is Brazilian and I am going there for 3 months again next year

Its not hard, but its not easy either. My 3rd language though, so probably a little easier than 2nd.

[Anonymous No.12039479]

I'm learning German currently. Of course there's a number of reasons, but a big one is just because I like the sound of the language. It's not practical to learn in most cases--the German speaking world is shrinking and just about every well-educated German already speaks English. But I do think studying German has helped me to appreciate English's linguistic history, and in any case I'm enjoying the learning process more than I did with Spanish.


>>12039219
Im Moment lese ich Märchenmond von Wolfgang Holhbein. Ehrlich würde ich es nicht empfehlen aber ich kann fast alles verstehen. Früher habe ich versucht, Kafka zu lesen, aber mein Deutsch ist noch nicht gut genug. Ich habe mich immer gefragt, ob ich einen Satz richtig gelesen habe.

[Anonymous No.12039480]

>>12039207
Learning German and Spanish. Duolingo is honestly all I use and I would say it's very helpful. Currently I have no desire to practically use anything I'm learning, but I would recommend listening to german songs and videos to try and follow along. If you're really serious, change your phone settings to be in German.

[Anonymous No.12039481]

>>12039207
fuck g*rm*ny

[Anonymous No.12039659]

I’m starting to learn German at the moment. An anon in this thread >>12029450 and recommended Sandberg’s ‘German for Reading’, which has been out of print for a long time. I saw someone on >goodreads say that Hackett had published a second edition in 2015 but it seems just as scarce as the original. I’ll look for a PDF when I get home. The same person also recommended a book called ‘German Quickly’, any opinions?

Also how difficult is it to read Thomas Mann in German? Vague question but I guess relative to beginner literature.

>>12039479
Thankfully German is so rich and has enough literature to keep one occupied forever. Think of all the untranslated little niche things, not only from literal whos but major authors. There’s a lot of untranslated or minimally translated German history texts I’ve seen in bibliographies of books I’ve read that I’d like to check out.

[Anonymous No.12039711]

>>12039659
You can pirate it on libgen pretty easy

I also recommended using a graded reader like Erste Stufe from the Crossgroves just to saturate you with basic vocab.

If I had to reach someone to read German in a short period of time I'd make them do the first 6 chapters of Sandberg, then 2-3 chapters of Sandberg a day alongside one or two graded readers. Then when they're done Sandberg I'd get them to read Harry Potter, which gets progressively more difficult (but still never too hard) while retaining the same core vocabulary so it's fun and easy, and while they're doing that they should review a chapter of Sandberg a day (or so) for repetition of tough grammar concepts and idioms. I bet you could teach someone really good reading-only German inside a month. It's such an easy language if you already have English.

[Anonymous No.12039715]

>>12039207
>What are you learning
japanese
>why?
cuz it's fun
>things you have done to fully engulf yourself in a language when no one around you speaks it
animue

[Anonymous No.12039731]

Láadan and Arabic.

[Anonymous No.12039754]

>>12039711
Cheers for the recommendations anon.

[Anonymous No.12039879]

I was learning German until i got a gf and got distracted and couldnt concentrate through class. It was a miserable repetitive class for pensioners anyway.

My trips to Germany put me off anyway. Anyone who wasn’t homeless was insulted i was treating them like they couldn’t speak English.

I can’t speak German but i can translate it in writing well enough to understand this thread and most online posts. Although i’m worried that most English constructed sentences. I’ll probably get back to it some day jist because i’ve started.

[Anonymous No.12039915]

How hard is it to learn Russian compared to German or French? Is it worth learning?

[Anonymous No.12039925]

>>12039915
I don't know russian, but I've heard from people who've done it that the biggest challenge compared to german/france is the jarring lack of common words. English is what 30% french origin words?

[Anonymous No.12039954]

>>12039915
German or French are babby tier to be honest. Russian is only moderately difficult.
t. weeb learning Japanese