Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5329 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German
| Message 33 of 75 14 April 2010 at 5:47am | IP Logged |
I have yet to read anything in French or German.
However I often read and write Latin, sometimes Spanish.
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Danac Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5338 days ago 162 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, Serbo-Croatian, French, Russian, Esperanto
| Message 34 of 75 14 April 2010 at 6:46am | IP Logged |
I guess I use English the most, since I use it on the internet a lot, but I also have to read the occasional article or book as part of being a university student.
Other than that, I recently began re-reading "Der Steppenwolf" in German to reactivate my skills, and it helps that it isn't too difficult, i.e. I can read it without relying on a dictionary, which I might not be able to do with just any German book...
Other than that I read a little Serbo-Croatian, but that's mostly beginner's texts and the occasional newspaper article, and even then I still have to rely on a dictionary. It'll be a little while before I can tackle any great works of literature in that language.
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Piotr1981 Diglot Newbie Poland Joined 5223 days ago 26 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2 Studies: Spanish, Italian
| Message 35 of 75 29 July 2010 at 11:23am | IP Logged |
I read literture in English as often as I can. Fortunately, there is a Brithsh Council library in my neighbourhood so I can drop in anytime and find something interesting.
The other language I would like to start reading literature in is Spanish, but it seems that no library in Poznań that I know of stocks books in thit language.
If you include non-literary texts, such as articles, Internet-posted texts etc, I read them daily, although mostly in English. Sometimes I also read newspaper articles in Spanish (mostly from "El Pais" on-line edition) but I don't do it on regular basis.
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Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5298 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 36 of 75 29 July 2010 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
My everyday use of English consists of:
55% reading (internet), technical documentation
40% watching online videos (e.g. YouTube)
5% writing in forums
0% speaking
Occasionaly, I may read something in German, Russian, Italian or Spanish if I visit a website in one of these language. But that's very seldom.
Marc Frisch wrote:
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.
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Well, for you.
I know plenty of passionate literature lovers who learned a language in order to be able to read literary works in the original.
Edited by Derian on 29 July 2010 at 2:01pm
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noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5330 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean
| Message 37 of 75 29 July 2010 at 2:02pm | IP Logged |
I read mainly in foreign languages, primarily Japanese, French and German (but I am trying to read novels in Spanish and Italian). However, a colleague recently lent me an English novel, (I have not read English novels since ages) and I am so pleasantly surprised by how much faster I could read in English, compared to other languages - 120 pages per day!
It did make me wonder, if I were to read all my novels in English, I might have read/covered more novels and literature!
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Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6758 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek
| Message 38 of 75 29 July 2010 at 2:25pm | IP Logged |
Derian wrote:
Marc Frisch wrote:
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.
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Well, for you.
I know plenty of passionate literature lovers who learned a language in order to be able to read literary works in the
original. |
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Ditto. I ain't learning Classical Greek so I can ask for directions while backpacking.
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Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5298 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 39 of 75 29 July 2010 at 2:47pm | IP Logged |
Captain Haddock wrote:
Ditto. I ain't learning Classical Greek so I can ask for directions while backpacking. |
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Hahaha, right on!
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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 40 of 75 30 July 2010 at 11:10pm | IP Logged |
annette wrote:
I'm not some sort of a silly strawman literature
purist - "You have to read Proust in French or it doesn't count!!"
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It really doesn't count.
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