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Non-fiction reading tips | ||
Tags: Non-fiction | Reading | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 1 of 6 08 October 2011 at 2:59pm | IP Logged |
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Hello,
with the return of school, I have come to a thought of reading more non fiction in my target languages to 1.improve the languages 2. study other things at the same time 3. get more motivation for studying both. I have very good access to English medical books in library but not that much to the French and Spanish ones (and hopefully I'll be looking for German ones as well soon). I don't even know what authors to look for as most of textbooks used and recommended here are from czech authors or translations from English or sometimes German. I am as well looking for websites about sciences with free access, or sites of universities offering free materials and lectures online. Wikipedia is great but sometimes I'd like to read more about the topics. I can google for these but I am more interested in your favourite sites and recommendations. So, languages I am currently looking for: French, Spanish, (German). Areas of science I am interested in: 1.medicine (mostly theoretical parts now, such as physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, genetics etc) 2.natural sciences (biology, chemistry, perhaps some popular physics easily chewable by someone with gaps in basics) 3.history (I've been fascinated by Ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe since I was a child. But I have found out there is whole universe of Asian history most of which I have never heard of) 4.psychology (not sure whether I consider it a science but some parts are still interesting and even useful) 5.economy (I've always slept during economy classes at highschool. Therefore I could do with a site which would motivate me by the language used and introduce me to the basics as well as I think it is quite important) Ouch, it looks like if I am braging about what all am I interested in and knowledgable about. I didn't mean it this way. Actually I found out that since I've been studying medicine and even a few years before, I have lost interest in many things. I have been focusing on the areas I had to study and in the free time I've been reading fiction for fun, watching series (I'll write another post for fiction tips) and doing other things. But I still believe an intelligent person should be interested in more things than just what earns/will earn you salary. So this is part of my attempt to get back to my ideals. Thanks in advance for any tips. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5718 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 2 of 6 19 October 2011 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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Don't worry, your post doesn't come off as bragging at all.
I don't have the same intrests as you, so my recommendations might not be a hit, but I'll try anyway ;). Have you heard about Oliver Sachs? He's a neurologist and he wrote a couple of books about interesting aspects of how the brain works. I intent to read one of them some time. I'm sure they have been translated to at least one of your desired languages. This one seem interesting also (I have it on my shelf, haven't read it yet) Invisible Gorilla Or this: Dan Ariely In French I don't know much about history but I guess you might come up with some results if you seach for key words on amazon site and then look through comments to see whether it's worth it. Edited by pesahson on 19 October 2011 at 11:03am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4818 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 6 19 October 2011 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
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Seems like a great idea in principle. If you have an underlying interest in the material
being read, there is a lot more incentive to carry on reading it, and one will probably find ways of overcoming any language difficulties, because you really want to get the real meaning out of the text. You've probably got something like this already, but here is a link with most or all of the German unis: http://www.graduateshotline.com/europ e/de.html 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5523 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 4 of 6 28 October 2011 at 10:05pm | IP Logged |
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You should not have too much trouble with sciences I suppose since major works are always
translated. There's also an abundance of popular science literature available. For example I'm currently reading "Una breve historia de casi todo" which is Spanish version of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything". It covers Spanish terminology of most natural sciences in one fell swoop of 500+ pages. Michio Kaku, Hawkings and other luminaries are definitely available for most major languages. Just type in your favourite science author name + Spanish/german/swedish into Amazon search box and you should have no problem finding books to read. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5837 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 6 30 October 2011 at 8:25pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks to Cavesa for initiating this promising thread! I see that one of Cavesa's study languages is German.
I would like to recommend the following book: "Harald Lesch und Harald Zaun: Die kürzeste Geschichte allen Lebens - Eine Reportage über 13,7 Milliarden Jahre Werden und Vergehen" ISBN: 978-3-492-05093-7 This popular science book is a mixture of astronomy, palentology and anthropology. And my second recommendation is: "Naturwissenschaften: Daten, Fakten, Ereignisse und Personen" More than 1500 interesting questions about different sciences such as - Astronomy - Biology - Chemistry - Geology - Geography - Physics are answered to enable a better understanding of scientific relationships. Compact Taschenbuch (= pocket book), ISBN: 978-3-8174-6605-4 Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 30 October 2011 at 8:43pm 1 person has 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 6 of 6 31 October 2011 at 3:20pm | IP Logged |
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Many scientific magazines have homepages which are wholly or partly accessible for free.
When I want to read something on the internet I take a promising word or word combination and see what Google comes up with - and of course I use the langage restricted advanced search for this purpose, otherwise I'll drown in English materials. Actually I sometimes have to exclude English materials by specifying that the results must NOT contain some common English word like "and" or "because". Wikipedia in its diverse versions is almost always on the list, but I have found quite a number of interesting online magazines with free content this way. Edited by Iversen on 31 October 2011 at 3:21pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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