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Do you read often in foreign languages? | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | Reading | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Snesgamer Groupie Afghanistan Joined 6601 days ago 81 posts - 90 votes  Studies: English*, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Scottish Gaelic | Message 17 of 75 03 January 2010 at 1:10pm | IP Logged |
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I'm currently trying to tackle one of the pinnacles of German literature - Goethe's Faust.
I know a good 93-95% of the words required, but that's not good enough for me, as I don't want to have to rely on a dictionary or translation at all to help me. I'm thinking of skimming through the book really quick and looking up all the unknown words in order to prepare me for the reading. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5659 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 18 of 75 03 January 2010 at 2:12pm | IP Logged |
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I am a total bookworm and I try to read books in the original language whenever possible. Currently, I read a lot in English and Spanish.
I agree that reading in a foreign language is a great way of learning for someone who likes literature. Learning a foreign language is just so much more fun and easier when you can read some good fiction rather than a grammar book! Reading in a foreign language is definitely a great motivation for me and I also believe that it is the best way to increase one's vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| GeekGuy Newbie China Joined 5427 days ago 21 posts - 23 votes Studies: French | Message 19 of 75 07 January 2010 at 12:10pm | IP Logged |
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I never read in foreign languages.Too hard to understand. I love world literature and I have to read them in Chinese. Some of the translations are pretty weired. Anyway, i am totally ignorant of world literature.On the other hand, I am just too preoccupied with my schoolwork. I suppose perhaps I can spare more time after I enter university so I can possibly test my limit. Edited by GeekGuy on 07 January 2010 at 12:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| 843 Tetraglot Newbie Singapore Joined 5428 days ago 16 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Indonesian*, English, Malay, Mandarin Studies: French, German | Message 20 of 75 10 January 2010 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
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I stopped reading books in my native language a long time ago. All books I read are in English, and as a result, my English is a lot more fluent than my native language.
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| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6655 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 21 of 75 24 January 2010 at 8:19pm | IP Logged |
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It's nice to be able to read books in the language they were written in, but I think it's not a good enough reason to learn a language.
Literary translations of novels are generally quite good. I don't think you lose much by reading a novel in translation. One important point which is hardly ever made is that as a non-native speaker you will probably miss out on a lot of nuances due to your imperfect command of the language anyway. This means that you'll "lose" probably more by reading in the original than what is lost in the translation process. And you'll probably spend more time learning the language than you'll ever spend on reading books in that language. So although I'm a fan of Russian and Japanese, I prefer to read them in German, English or French translations. Poetry, on the other hand, is often more difficult to translate, so I could understand why someone who is really into Persian poetry would want to learn it just to be able to read it in Persian. (But on the other hand, how would one know that one's into Persian poetry before knowing Persian?) Edited by Marc Frisch on 24 January 2010 at 8:20pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6693 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 75 25 January 2010 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
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I don't read much literature, but to be able to communicate with my sister who is a Potter-fan and my mother who prefer the words of Tolkien I had to buy and read those two books series - and of course I read them in English. I read as fast in English as in Danish so this is not a problem - and the books are cheaper in English.
I have also maybe a meter or so on the shelf of magazines in other languages (mostly about science, travel or history), and I read or reread short sections in these almost daily to refresh my languages. I would dearly love to read more books about these subjects in other languages than just Danish and English, but my local library doesn't have nearly enough non-fiction in those languages, and I have no intention of reading boring novels just because that's what I find at the library. Watching paint dry on a wall would be more interesting than reading a standard love or crime story. Finally I still have many of my old books from my study years in the 70s, but I practically never touch those. Last time I did so I reread some poems of French romantic poets from Nerval over Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine to Mallarmé - I'm still relatively fond of these poems, and I like that they are so short. The rest of my reading in 'other' languages is plucked from the internet. Edited by Iversen on 25 January 2010 at 12:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tiberius Diglot Groupie Moldova lawinmoldova.blogspoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6278 days ago 70 posts - 85 votes Studies: Romanian, Russian*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 23 of 75 31 January 2010 at 11:25am | IP Logged |
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I think that in order to learn a foreign language reading books in it is a must. No
tetbook would give you so much vocabulary, idioms, grammar forms in use. However, one should make a difference between reading simply for fun and reading for learning. The latter one is much harder and more boring (yeah, I would say "boring" as you're trying to wade through it working out all the new words, intricate phrases and grammer structures). But it pays off... I am now reading two books in foreign languages - one in English and one in Romanian. Even though I understand up to 95 % of the text and can easily read without a dictionary and understand the sense, I plod along very slowly as I try to work out every phrase that contains something worth mentioning and memorizing (new words, useful phrases, new grammar structers, etc.). And I literally feel how my skills in both languages improve with every chapter. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Przemek Hexaglot Senior Member Poland multigato.blogspot.c Joined 6465 days ago 107 posts - 174 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, SpanishC2, Italian, Portuguese, French Studies: Turkish, Hindi, Arabic (Written) | Message 24 of 75 04 February 2010 at 1:14pm | IP Logged |
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Nearly everything I read is in foreign language, the main cause is to catch two birds at at a time
I read the books written in the languages I know e.g. English or Spanish in original, so I have fun reading them and I always learn something new about the language; but not always - lately I read "Old man and a sea" by Hemingway in Italian (I love this book) I learn(ed) some of my languages through English (e.g. Hindi, Turkish) or through Spanish (Portuguese) Everyday I try to read at least one page of a daily paper in one of my language, when I go somewhere on a holiday I return with a bag full of papers or books Usually I read in two-three languages in one day (apart from wathing TV) I read many things in the Internet in the languages in speak/study, even in small chunks; it's still better than nothing 1 person has voted this message useful |
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