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Quoting Works of Literature by Heart | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Cherepaha Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6376 days ago 126 posts - 175 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Polish, Latin, French | Message 1 of 2 19 March 2010 at 11:45am | IP Logged |
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Hello All,
I think it could be very useful for language learners to be familiar with the frequent literary quotes that are used by the native speakers of the languages they are studying. At an advanced level we can aspire to learn them by heart ourselves, or at least be familiar with the quote, so that to recognize the source, when it comes up in a conversation. Even at a beginner or intermediate level they may prove to be the precious jewels to study if one is so inspired. An example of a quote would be a) Hamlet's monologue "To be or not to be – that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind […]" b) or, say for Dante's "Divine Comedy", which specific parts are quoted by heart in Italian conversations? The specific question is: what were you asked to learn by heart as a child, or what excerpts from literature in your languages do you hear people quote every now and then? We can start by using the following format for assembling such a list: 1. Language 2. Author, title of the work 3. Start of the quote in the language it was written in 4. Translation of the 1st line of that quote into English 5. A general comment about the quote 6. If a link to the source language quote can be included, please feel free to include it This way my first two entries for Russian will look as follows: [1] Russian 2. Александр Пушкин, "Евгений Онегин" = Alexander Pushkin, "Eugeny Onegin” 3. Quote: "Я к вам пишу – чего же боле? Что я могу еще сказать?" 4. Quote in Engl: "I write this to you - what more can be said? What more can I add to that one fact?" 5. Comment: Tatyana at 18 writes a letter to Onegin professing her love in the day and age, when such an action could have ruined her prospects in life. This excerpt is generally known as "Tatyana's Letter to Onegin" (There is also a counterpart 'Onegin’s Letter to Tatyana") 6. Rus & Engl: http://www.pushkins-poems.com/Yev311.htm [2] Russian 2. Александр Пушкин, "Руслан и Людмила" = Alexander Pushkin, “Ruslan and Lyudmila" 3. Quote: "У лукоморья дуб зелёный; Златая цепь на дубе том: И днём и ночью кот учёный Всё ходит по цепи кругом" 4. Quote in Engl: "On seashore far a green oak towers, And to it with a gold chain bound, A learned cat whiles away the hours By walking slowly round and round." 5. Comment: The entire Prologue to this tale is frequently recited. Its narrative makes a reference to the typical events and characters of Russian fairy tales and this quote serves as a general reference to everything fantastic and fairy-tale-like. It can also refer to something being an event of a long time ago. 6. Rus: http://www.rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/02poems/01poems/0784.htm?st art=1&length=1 Engl: http://russian-crafts.com/tales/rus_lud.html If people are interested in contributing to this list, I can start compiling everybody's submissions into a single list of quotes at the start of the thread. Thank you to everyone in advance! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6257 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 2 of 2 19 March 2010 at 12:48pm | IP Logged |
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1. German
2. Goethe, der Zauberlehrling 3. "Die Geister die ich rief, [die werd' ich nun nicht mehr los]". The original phrasing was "Die ich rief, die Geister, die werd ich nun nicht los", but that's not how it's quoted. 4. The ghosts that I called, I can't get rid of them anymore. 5. Very often people leave out the "die werd' ich nun nicht mehr los" part and just imply it. In the story there was a magician's apprentice who turned brooms into his helpers to carry water, except when the water was overflowing he couldn't turn them back into brooms again, so the house was flooded. This quote is used for contexts where you call someone for help and he then does more or other things than you originally intended. 6. http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~conrad/lyrics/zauber.html 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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