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clumsy
Octoglot
Senior Member
Poland
lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5176 days ago

1116 posts - 1367 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish
Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi

 
 Message 17 of 60
07 May 2012 at 2:16pm | IP Logged 
If someone is interested jw website offers books in several languages
jw files
I especially reccomend 'my Bible stories' (one with Egyptian women taking care of Little Moses on the photo)
It's writen for children "do you see the picture? what is here lacking? yes, it's a human", so it's easy to follow.
Anothr thing is Jesus Films
A 2 hours movie in an astounding number of langages.
Someone from this forum found out about this website before, on link forum.

aozora bunko - free Japanese books, you can just copy them and download to your e-book reader.

1 person has voted this message useful



Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6468 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 18 of 60
07 May 2012 at 2:59pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
And secondly, there are many people who enjoy these books the most in
their native languages so learning the related vocabulary and enjoying the stories
while learning may be much more important to them than learning "useful" stuff.

I recognize that a lot of people like to read fantasy books, but this thread is about
particularly *easy* novels, and it has to be said that the average fantasy novel is a
lot harder than the average non-fantasy novel, because of the broader vocabulary range.

If you choose a fantasy novel as your first book in a foreign language, maybe you
understand 80% or less of the words (until you learn them), while you'd understand 90%
of a different genre right off the bat. This is something to consider in your choice of
first book. You can say that you love fantasy so much that it's worth the frustration,
but maybe others' preferences are less strong.

When I had trouble working through a fascinating historical novel in Italian and almost
thought that I just wasn't ready to read authentic books yet, I tried a detective story
and found that it was super easy in comparison. It was nowhere near as fascinating of
course, but it gave me enough practice reading Italian and enough additional vocabulary
to tackle my original choice afterwards.

Anyway, if you're ready to read some fantasy in German, the most well-known German
fantasy author is Wolfgang Hohlbein. Some of the books written by him alone are dark,
if you want to be sure to get a feel-good story you could try books written in
cooperation with his wife Heike. Their most famous work is the Märchenmond saga, a core
of 3*500 pages or so, with a lot of peripherals available, just like LOTR ;-)
2 persons have voted this message useful



Michael K.
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5727 days ago

568 posts - 886 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Esperanto

 
 Message 19 of 60
07 May 2012 at 5:25pm | IP Logged 
I'm trying to think of books I read between 5th-8th grade, because I think that's the level most of us want to stick to. The book will use easy vocabulary, but the story will still be interesting because the readers can handle more adult issues.

English:

Little House on the Prairie: The 9 book series covers Laura's life from a 4-year-old to her first four years of marriage. There are also spinoff series that cover her daughter's life (Rose Wilder Lane), and Laura's mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. An interesting series if you like American history.

Cold Sassy Tree: A book about a 14-year-old boy living in the Deep South at the turn of the century, with the main problem of the book being his 57-year-old grandpa marrying a woman 20 years younger than he is. It's pretty funny, but it also has some sad parts. His grandpa dies at the end, the girl he has a crush on marries an older man, and the woman his grandpa married reveals she was sexually abused as a child. I read it in the summer of 2000 for required summer reading.

No Promises in the Wind: A book about two brothers who travel around trying to make money during the Depression. I stayed up 2 hours after bedtime when I was in 8th grade to finish the book, it was that good. It even has a Polish song in it.

To Kill a Mockingbird: I didn't like the story, but it's a classic I read in 8th grade. The court scene and the scene in the woods after the school function are the best parts of the book.

The Good Earth: I actually read it in college, but my instructor said it's on an 8th grade reading level, and it wasn't that hard to read. It's about Chinese peasant Wang Lung and his family trying to prosper as farmers, which after some hardships, they do.

I don't know if any of these books have decent translations in other languages, but if someone wants something easy to read in English, those are my recommendations.
4 persons have voted this message useful



clumsy
Octoglot
Senior Member
Poland
lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5176 days ago

1116 posts - 1367 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish
Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi

 
 Message 20 of 60
07 May 2012 at 6:15pm | IP Logged 
時をかける少女
the girl who leapt through time
It was one of my first Japanese novels (or the very first), and it was easy to read, quite simple vocabulary.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 21 of 60
07 May 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for the advice, Sprachprofi, I'll be ready for my first German book at the end of
summer, I hope. But other than that, I still believe some fantasy books (such as Le livre
des étoiles I have recommended) are suitable as the first book.
1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6437 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 22 of 60
08 May 2012 at 12:04pm | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:

I recognize that a lot of people like to read fantasy books, but this thread is about
particularly *easy* novels, and it has to be said that the average fantasy novel is a
lot harder than the average non-fantasy novel, because of the broader vocabulary range.

If you choose a fantasy novel as your first book in a foreign language, maybe you
understand 80% or less of the words (until you learn them), while you'd understand 90%
of a different genre right off the bat. This is something to consider in your choice of
first book. You can say that you love fantasy so much that it's worth the frustration,
but maybe others' preferences are less strong.

When I had trouble working through a fascinating historical novel in Italian and almost
thought that I just wasn't ready to read authentic books yet, I tried a detective story
and found that it was super easy in comparison. It was nowhere near as fascinating of
course, but it gave me enough practice reading Italian and enough additional vocabulary
to tackle my original choice afterwards.


It really depends more on the author than the genre, in my experience.

5 persons have voted this message useful



mountains
Newbie
Norway
Joined 4591 days ago

12 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Norwegian

 
 Message 23 of 60
09 May 2012 at 7:57am | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
mountains wrote:
A question for Solfrid Cristin or any other
native or fluent Norwegian speakers. I am
looking for some Norwegian material apart from the usual suspects like Harry Potter
etc..

Would particularly like to read Norwegian authors and not translations, so any
recommendations would be much appreciated.



What sort of books are you looking for? Crime stories, classical literature, books for
teenagers, what is your
cup of tea?

Edited for typos. Bad enough to be dyslexic, but when you write a post from an IPhone,
the typos multiply.



At the moment anything that is fast moving and doesn't drag to much, not to complex in
style and nuance. I've been reading comfortably at a teenage level but am ready to
start with adult ficiton. Maby crime novels could be a good entry point, even though
it's not my chosen genre in English.

Watched a film last night from Stavanger, not the best choice for a first film to watch
, as the dialect is quite tricky to follow. Words cut short and pronounced very
differently to what I'm use to, if I didn't have norsk subtitles I don't think I would
have followed very well.

1 person has voted this message useful



maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5217 days ago

564 posts - 839 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

 
 Message 24 of 60
09 May 2012 at 9:23am | IP Logged 
You'll find some easy Spanish podcasts here: includes a few proverbs/expressions on the page I've linked but the home page gives you current affairs if that is your bag.






1 person has voted this message useful



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