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First TL / Parallel Text Books

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
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kanewai
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United States
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Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 10
10 October 2012 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
I'm wondering what the standard books or parallel texts are for people's first attempts
at reading in their TL.

In French there's a definite canon, at least for American students: it seems everyone
starts with Le petit prince, and the standard first and second year books at
college are L'étranger, Candide, and Rhinocéros (Ionesco).

Is there a similar standard canon for other languages? i.e., what is the first German,
Spanish, Japanese, Russian, et al. book that students attempt?

n1: I'm personally interested in Spanish at the moment, but think that a wider
discussion would be more interesting.

n2: I've seen discussions on most popular books, and best books, but not on the best
first books - my apologies if this is a duplicate.

Edited by kanewai on 10 October 2012 at 9:32pm

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Serpent
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Russian Federation
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 Message 2 of 10
10 October 2012 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
In Russia the first books you are required to read in English tend to be by Oscar Wilde - the "fairy tales" and then Dorian Gray. (it's very common to read some collections of adapted short stories first) Later on Maugham is very common (ugh). We also had to read some Bernard Shaw at uni, and now I gotta read "The Great Gatsby" and I've already downloaded it in Italian :P

German learners all read "The Three Comrades" at some point, it seems. Children's literature is also very common, like Emil, Das doppelte Lottchen or Die Ilse ist weg. More ugh.

I've heard "Komisario Palmun erehdys" and "Kuka murhasi rouva Skroufin" are very commonly used at Finnish classes in Russia. I have both (because you can get them cheaply here) but I've not yet bothered to read them...
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Expugnator
Hexaglot
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Brazil
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Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 3 of 10
11 October 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged 
In Georgian I may start with translations (Little Prince, Jules Verne's books, Lord of the Flies), but I've heard about Nodar Dumbaze's books from the textbooks I'm using, so I bet they're a good start.
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atza
Newbie
Yugoslavia
Joined 4267 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes

 
 Message 4 of 10
23 March 2013 at 9:04am | IP Logged 
With so many free ebooks on the internet I prefer to make my own parallel texts using nova text aligner

Here is a site with lots of parallel texts made with it:
http://www.twinreads.com

Aligner is free for long enough to make couple of parallel books and it exports to many formats even kindle and epub for ebook readers
http://www.supernova-soft.com/c5/index.php/products/text_ali gner/
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Julie
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Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French

 
 Message 5 of 10
23 March 2013 at 9:25am | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
German learners all read "The Three Comrades" at some point, it seems. Children's literature is also very common, like Emil, Das doppelte Lottchen or Die Ilse ist weg. More ugh.


I have to speak up and defend at least "Das doppelte Lottchen" (no idea about "Ilse ist weg", though). It was one of my favourite books in my childhood, and one of the first books I read in German (which was entirely up to me) :).
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Steffen
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Germany
Joined 4972 days ago

27 posts - 63 votes 
Studies: German*

 
 Message 6 of 10
23 March 2013 at 1:54pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
In Russia the first books you are required to read in English tend to be by Oscar Wilde -
the "fairy tales" and then Dorian Gray. (it's very common to read some collections of adapted short stories
first) Later on Maugham is very common (ugh). We also had to read some Bernard Shaw at uni, and now I
gotta read "The Great Gatsby" and I've already downloaded it in Italian :P

German learners all read "The Three Comrades" at some point, it seems. Children's literature is also very
common, like Emil, Das doppelte Lottchen or Die Ilse ist weg. More ugh.

I've heard "Komisario Palmun erehdys" and "Kuka murhasi rouva Skroufin" are very commonly used at
Finnish classes in Russia. I have both (because you can get them cheaply here) but I've not yet bothered to
read them...


More reading, less ugh.

Edited by Steffen on 23 March 2013 at 1:55pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
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Czech Republic
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Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 7 of 10
23 March 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged 
Well, the French choices are usually the most used ones. For English, it is usually Harry
Potter. For other languages, it is often a Harry Potter translation. For Spanish, it is
quite often something from Isabel Alende but lately, Zafón's works for younger readers
have become quite popular (and for a good reason).
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
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 Message 8 of 10
23 March 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
Steffen wrote:
More reading, less ugh.
what?

Julie, my remark referred specifically to Die Ilse ist Weg. (Although we read Das doppelte Lottchen as 20 year olds...)


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