|
 |
HTLAL Book Club | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5812 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes  Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 49 of 77 07 February 2009 at 12:41am | IP Logged | |||||
I enjoyed The God Delusion, but couldn't actually finish God Is Not Great :P In any case, I find Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker to be even better ^^ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6139 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 50 of 77 07 February 2009 at 9:46am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Has anyone read Anathem by Neal Stephenson? I found the first 7/9 or so of the book quite entertaining (especially trying to match Arbran concepts with Terran ones) but felt it got a bit messy after they launched into space.
Someone is actually developing a conlang for the Orth language featured in the book. It uses a base-32 number system with an optional set of base-10 numbers which functions similarly to the Sino-Japanese system. Edited by Alkeides on 07 February 2009 at 10:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6461 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 51 of 77 07 February 2009 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Since it seems that we have at least 6 people who would join the discussion of "The God Delusion", either because they have read it already or because they want to read it, let's make that March's non-fiction book of the month.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6071 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 52 of 77 07 February 2009 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes - Until I got into aviations terms like "Carbeurettor", "Aileron", "Downwind", "Fuselage" and "Control yoke" Pooley's Air Pilot's manuals are the reccommended textbooks to learn how t fly. They are used for every Private Pilot's course I can think of. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6885 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 53 of 77 09 February 2009 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
My PPL was done in Sweden originally though, and we used different materials. But, much as I love discussing aviation, I would hate to contribute to sidetracking a thread as useful and interesting as this one. Back on topic, I am not too sure I can keep up the pace with the reading during the first month. It's already the ninth of the month and I haven't really been able to start yet. One possibility would be to concentrate on just one of the languages. And I might want to order the books and get a head start on next month's lot instead. About the book choices, for learning purposes I'd prefer the majority of books to be contemporary works, with contemporary language, rather than classics which can often be dated in vocabulary and style. The first month was an exception of course. There it was a good idea to have older books that are available on-line. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6461 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 54 of 77 02 March 2009 at 5:02am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Well, on March 5th it's time for the next book:
- Ombre Sultane for French - The Great Gatsby for English - Der Vorleser for German - The God Delusion for non-fiction If you don't have them yet, grab your copy now so that you can start reading with us! Also, we now urgently need to agree on books for April, so that people in far-off places have the chance to order the books in time. EDIT: Is anybody up for reading a piece of Esperanto literature? I am thinking of "La infana raso" by William Auld, which was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature from 1999 to 2006. This epic poem about the human race has also been translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic, with varying degrees of success. Edited by Sprachprofi on 02 March 2009 at 7:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JonB Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6256 days ago 209 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Dutch, Greek | Message 55 of 77 02 March 2009 at 11:33am | IP Logged | |||||
I would very respectfully draw attention to the forum rules. These state: "RELIGION & POLITICS No religion, no politics - house rules. Like a barman in a saloon, I ask you not to discuss politics and religion in this forum, but only languages." I'm not sure whether this ban also extends to discussions of a book attacking religion? Perhaps the Administrator, Mr Micheloud, could give advice on this point? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6430 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 56 of 77 02 March 2009 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
As long as the discussion is about the book, rather than religion, what's the problem? Posts which deal with using various religious material for learning languages have generally been tolerated here; I've posted about several (none of which, incidentally, correspond to my own views). I'm far from the only poster to do so; the use of various religious texts and their relation to language learning (as something to start with for languages with little material, or to deepen knowledge with while using parallel material, or to gain cultural insight) has been discussed by quite a number of forum members, including Professor Arguelles. If the thread does drift into discussing religion itself, I'm sure the moderators will lock it; there is a significant history of this. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
