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My First 20 Books in Any Language | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6692 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 1 of 17 09 July 2011 at 5:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been thinking about building a specific library in my target languages, including those on my hit list, which would help to introduce me to reading adult books in the languages. I want them to be the same books across all the languages, so each time I go into the books, they'll be familiar territory. These books would be short books written in very clear styles, from as many of my target language cultures as I can. I have a few already, mostly books that I already own in two or more languages. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for others to complete a list of 20.
What I have so far: 1. The Stranger (Camus) 2. The Little Prince (Saint-Exupery) 3. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (Rowling) 4. Siddhartha (Hesse) 5. Steppenwolfe (Hesse) 6. Ender's Game (Card) 7. Animal Farm (Orwell) 8. And Then There Were None (Christie) 9. The Master and the Margarita (Bulgakov) The languages on my complete hit list are: Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Russian and Japanese, though not necessarily in that order. Edited by Raincrowlee on 09 July 2011 at 5:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 2 of 17 17 July 2011 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've got a collection of translations of "Le petit prince" in many languages. I use this book as a test for basic reading fluency in my target languages. However, I usually find it boring to re-read novels I've already read (one notable expection being "Der Steppenwolf", which I've read 5 or 6 times), so I'm surprised that you would want to build a library of books to read over and over again. For me, the most exciting part of learning a language is to read literary works in their original language (especially poetry), so I try to do that as soon as possible: Why waste time on re-reading translations of things you already know?
But since you're asking for it, here are some of my recommendations (under the restriction that the books should be widely translated and short): - Pippi Longstockings (Astrid Lindgren) - The diary of a young girl (Anne Frank) - The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle) - Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi) - Heidi (Johanna Spyri) - The alchemist (Paulo Coelho) - The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) - Around the world in 80 days (Jules Verne) - The communist manifesto (Karl Marx) - The New Testament - Treasure Island (Robert L. Stevenson) - Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift) - Moby Dick (Herman Melville) I've only included one religious text, The New Testament, since it's rather short. However, religious texts are usually very well translated, so you'll have no problem finding the Quran, the Book of Mormon, or anything like that in your target languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6692 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 3 of 17 19 July 2011 at 2:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your suggestions. I really like the idea of the Communist Manifesto, especially considering that many of my target languages are in countries that have a history with Marxism.
As for rereading, I've done that quite often, even when I was reading just in English. I find that when I read a book again in a new language, I pick up details that I missed the first time, because I have to go through so literally word by word. In addition, because reading in a foreign language makes me read slower, I find that I really start thinking about the story and the text much more the second time around. I definitely look at the Stranger and the Little Prince very differently since I've reread them a number of times. Another reason for building up a library is that my hope is that when I finish 20 'easy' books in a given language, I'll be able to tackle pretty much anything, as long as the vocab isn't too specific. These books would be a ladder to broad reading; they will also give me the pleasure of discovering how well I'm developing in the languages because I'll have a yardstick to compare between them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7146 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 17 25 July 2011 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | ||
Have you considered anthologies of short stories in your target languages? By definition their content will differ and thus they may not be easily comparable between target languages. Yet reading them may reduce the boredom of reading the same text in various translations. I've found a few good collections of short stories in Polish (not translations but originals and they're not really meant for children) and am looking for some in Finnish and Slovak. I was about to suggest books for young adults/teenagers since they're easy enough, yet there are classics among them to the point where adults may recall them. However, they may not be what you're looking for if you'd want to see lots of advanced grammar or specific cultural references. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 17 25 July 2011 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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The idea of such library is a great one.
I cannot say I would read the Communist Manifest even once, the parts I've read were enough. It may be partially caused by the fact that I am citizen of a country that "has history with Marxism" but I as well don't think it has the qualities of other books on the lists. But other than that, the lists look quite inspirating. I thought of few more ideas to add. Tolkien. The LoTR may be too long for this, but for exemple Hobit is not. It is a book for children but written in much more advanced language than usual in this kind of books (Tolkien wrote a great essay about the need to not oversimplify language in books for children). I learned quite a lot from the french translation Pratchett-his works make translators be creative, use various kinds of their language, including colloquial one. As the books are not that old, I would say that the language must be quite up to date. (Actually the czech translation of his books is the only case when I consider translations to be just as good as original) Spanish writing authors. Borges-his short stories are wonderful. I cannot say I liked each and every one of them but most were fascinating. Marquez-Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a great short novel (sorry if I am being inaccurate in English terminology of literature). And his collection of short stories Of Love and Other Demons is worth reading repeatedly as well. French writing authors I wanted to mention Verne but he is already there. Tournier- Le Roi des aulne (The Ogre in English?) may be long and perhaps too long and "serious" for this but The Four Wise Men might be perfect. Russian writing authors brothers Strugatsky- classics of sci-fi. My favourites are Hard to Be a God and Monday Begins on Saturday but all I've read by them (even though I didn't read everything, not sure whether everything was translated to many languages) were fun. Lukyanenko- quite anything. Not only the Night Watch is great It's quite sad that noone added the Asian authors to the list. A great source of inspiration might be the List of Great Book by prof Arguelles. Unfortunately the 20th century is still not on the site (and neither are non-European litterary traditions) but they are promised to appear there some day. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6692 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 6 of 17 26 July 2011 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't read Borges or Marquez since college, those would be great additions. I hadn't heard of the brothers Strugatsky, so I might need to check them out, and I'd only heard of Lukyanenko from the Night Watch movies. I liked those well enough, and the books are good? I think I found a couple more titles for my list....
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6692 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 7 of 17 26 July 2011 at 2:30am | IP Logged | ||
I would think short story anthologies would be the next step after completing my "basic library," when I start branching out into free reading. I did try to read some anthologies in French and Chinese, and it was effective because I didn't have to wrestle with an entire novel, but I want to see how this project goes first. I've already read the Stranger, the Little Prince and the first Harry Potter in three languages, and I am currently going through the Little Prince in a fourth. It certainly does make the wrestling easier. And it makes the jokes more understandable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 17 26 July 2011 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Night Watch? I've heard the film is quite horrible, compared to the book, so I haven't seen it (I don't want to be disappointed by another spoiled story). But the books are amazing. And it is not only the Watch. Some others are just as good or even better. Edited by Cavesa on 26 July 2011 at 4:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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