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How to get into the literature of a language? | ||
Tags: Literature | Beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 8 18 March 2010 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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One of the big rewards of language learning is having access to the language's literary tradition. But where do you start if you don't know anything about it? Is that when you're supposed to buy those "history of literature" books in said language? I'm not really so keen on those encyclopedias.
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| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 2 of 8 18 March 2010 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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To get an idea of what is worth reading, you can use literary canons. Here are the ones that I use as references:
http://digi-log.blogspot.com/2006/10/150.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/08/books.booksnews http://www21.atwiki.jp/wikiwiki2/pages/45.html http://www.focus.de/D/DF/DFX/DFX04/dfx04.htm?buchshop=1&prin t=1 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEIT-Bibliothek_der_100_B%C3%BC cher http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/komparatistik/studium/paradigm en.html *urls on this forum are often split up for some reason so delete the spaces when you enter them into the url box. I especially look for books that are highly praised across borders. For example, you can find "Der Zauberberg" by Thomas Mann in Japanese, German, and British canons. That says to me that the book is at least worth giving a shot. Also, if a book in a canon lines up with my interests, that is a good sign that it will be worth my time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5967 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 18 March 2010 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You can try first reading a few selections in translation, to find you what you might like within your chosen literary tradition. It can be very frustrating to try to decipher a text in your target language while not enjoying what you're reading!
Also, bilingual texts can be helpful; I start with short texts, short stories or even parts of longer novels, to avoid getting overwhelmed, in the beginning. I find these very interesting when I compare the two languages while reading, and I can get a good sense of how ideas are differently expressed in each language. The literary canon of the language and literary history books can be good places to get started, but remember that you probably will not like everything written in that language. There are plenty of authors and individual works that I don't enjoy reading. Some of these are worth reading even if they aren't much fun; however, I often don't make much progress with material that doesn't interest me. So, look around, find something that interests you, and keep reading! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 4 of 8 18 March 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Try looking into some chrestomaties. I found a very good one for Russian with a good selection from works of great Russian writers.
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| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5556 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 5 of 8 18 March 2010 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Although it's all a matter of personal taste really, literary canons can certainly be a good way to see what (hopefully well-read and discernible) critics consider to be worthy works and generally the cream of the crop in a language. I tend to look in university reading lists first myself, and then turn to broadsheet lists to cross-check, such as The Times Literary Supplement or The Independent. This all in turn gives the learner of a new language a better idea of what's out there and basically something to aim and strive for.
However, reading something by Thomas Mann can turn out be a very different experience in terms of difficulty when compared to reading Hermann Hesse, as I all too recently discovered. So if you're only just starting off on your golden road to a knowledge of the Great Books, and wish to carry on walking happily along, then it's probably best to begin with something a little lighter and more fun during those initial steps, before eventually graduating to the more challenging climbs amongst the classics. Another place worth looking is on Amazon by the way. Once you have an inkling of the type of novel and author you like, the world's your oyster really. The website not only has cascade after cascade of reviews and information for most books you may be interested in, with recommendations of similar books bought by buyers too, but there's also a feature called "Listmania!" where users can list their favourite reads and top 10 novels for example and make this available to the public. Don't forget you can also check with friends who either know the language as natives or have studied it well. Let me leave you with this particular website: LibraryThing. It's a real goldmine of literary lists and recommendations, a place where you can search for useful tags on the basis of a variety of criteria and even find people with similar tastes in literature to see what they recommend. Here's an example of top tagged German literature from the site which I used recently :) Edited by Teango on 18 March 2010 at 9:03pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5651 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 8 18 March 2010 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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At least as important than the quality of the literature--at least in the beginning stages of reading a language--is the quality of the materials that I can get my hands on for my study purposes. I'm always collecting useful examples of bilingual books, texts with detailed grammatical explanations, and books in both the native language and in English translation. I do this even for languages I'm not actively studying, since such materials are like gold to me when I need them.
I scan Wikipedia and other sources (such as lists of Nobel Prize winners, foreign-language authors who are getting attention in the NY Times, etc.) to get ideas about the great literature in potential target languages. I ask foreign language speakers that I meet about the great and the entertaining books (not always the same!) in their languages. I read reviews. And so on and so on. With a good book in the target language, a good grammar, and a good dictionary, plus whatever other explanatory material I can find, I'm ready to go. From then on it's all about persistence and motivation. If it feels too much like unrewarding hard work, I know I won't continue, so I try to get the right materials together before I start. My own idiosyncratic recommendations would include these: for classical Persian: every bit of it is tricky, for a variety of reasons, but a lesser-known book length poem called Vis o Ramin by Gorgani has proven substantially easier than other works by Nezami, Hafez, Sa'adi, and others. There is a new translation by Dick Davis. I'd suggest Steingass (also available on-line) and Haim's largest dictionaries. for German: I agree with those who suggested Hesse. Siddhartha is great for starters. for Arabic: I do not have wide experience, but we are having a great time with 1001 Nights using Lane's 19th c. translation to check ourselves. He's not perfect (as he bowdlerized certain passages), but he's actually very literal. From what I found, Burton added a lot of language that's not in the original text. for classical Greek and Latin: I have very little experience, but I've begun reading through Longus's Daphnis and Chloe and Apuleius's Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass), which are "novels" of a sort, and which seem to me like a good way to dig into these languages. I have little interest in histories or philosophies, poetry and drama are usually much harder than prose, and these are proving pretty good so far. for andcient Hebrew: the Bible is full of simple stories, and there are plenty of materials to help. for Bengali: I have identified Rabindranath Tagore (early 20th c. Nobel Prize winner) as a target author, but there is also abundant "folk" poetry (which seems to be something like the Sufi-influenced lyric poetry that I'm used to from classical Persian, but written more simply) that I hope will be relatively easy to read. So far I've learned the writing system (which I find very beautiful), and have a long way to go. Teach Yourself Bengali looks very good so far, the Samsad or Bangla Academy dictionaries are fine (as far as I can tell), and, luckily, I live near a v. large university library with a great S. Asian section. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5556 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 7 of 8 18 March 2010 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So very true, Pohaku makes an excellent point here. I do a lot of Listening-Reading in my initial studies, so good quality audio with a narrator you like the sound of, and first class translations with good clear print, are essential. Anything else and you risk switching off and getting frustrated. At the end of the day, it's your valuable time we're talking about, and it should be spent nose to print in enjoyable plots and colourful characters without any unnecessary distractions.
I also used Wikipedia to look for German nobel laureates. Amongst them, I found Hermann Hesse to be one of the more recent in the list. Siddhartha was indeed pleasantly easy going and not too long, which was ideal for an intermediate dunce like me, and Ulrich Matthes (who seems to be the narrator in every German audiobook I buy these days) was also very easy on the ears. Edited by Teango on 18 March 2010 at 10:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 8 19 March 2010 at 9:13am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for all the suggestions!
This is a great idea, although I don't know where to start looking for it. However, I remember one of those language podcasts that seem to be popular these days had excerpts from French literature. Maybe I should look for an Italian podcast and see if they have the same thing.
I feel like I'm only scratching the surface, but already this site is fabulous! Just use the right tag and you get listings of books in any language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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