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Best languages for literature? | ||
Tags: Hit List | Literature | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5679 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 1 of 16 28 February 2012 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have always learned foreign languages with the main purpose of speaking with natives
and thereby get to know more about their culture, though I must admit that the literature of languages such as German, Latin and Russian have always fascinated me. Mostly I don't read much since I'm always focusing on improving my active skills in other languages I'm already studying, but lately I've been trying to coincile both things because I feel that I'd be missing a lot if I didn't try to read literature. In your opinion, what are the best languages for literature? And by the way, how many people here study languages solely for the purpose of reading literature? Edited by koba on 28 February 2012 at 1:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Itikar Groupie Italy Joined 4480 days ago 94 posts - 158 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 2 of 16 28 February 2012 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Among European languages I believe French and Greek offer astounding literatures.
But there are few languages whose literatures I end up not to love. Edited by Itikar on 28 February 2012 at 1:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rincewind Tetraglot Newbie Brazil Joined 4511 days ago 19 posts - 35 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish, French Studies: German, Russian | Message 3 of 16 28 February 2012 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm one of those who study languages primarily (not solely) for the purpose of reading literature.
I have read extensively in English and Portuguese, and my main focus right now is French literature, though I'm slowly working my German up and getting a strong enough foundation on Russian to delve into those. If you know English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, that's probably enough to keep you busy for the rest of your life, since these languages possess some of the most traditional literary cultures in the West, but you'd be missing out a lot. That's why my lifetime plan is to keep digging at these aforementioned languages and their literature while trying to pick up other important ones, like Norwegian, Czech, Dutsch, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic... Let's hope I can live at least another 80 years. edit: I completely forgot about Ancient Greek and Latin, which are also a must. Edited by Rincewind on 28 February 2012 at 3:09pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Longinus Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4688 days ago 26 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Polish, Macedonian | Message 4 of 16 28 February 2012 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Like Rincewind, I mostly study languages in order to read. German and Russian are great, but I would also mention Persian. It has one of the oldest, largest and most sophisticated literatures of any modern language, and I'm hoping eventually to be able to appreciate that literature. I'm not actively working on it right now, but will return to it at some point--I've only been able to work through some grade-school primers so far. It is very similar to English, largely analytic, fairly simple grammar, and an immense vocabulary, particularly in the literary language.
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| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4499 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 16 28 February 2012 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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The best language for literature depends, of course, on what kind of literature. Ancient or modern? Poetic, scientific, drama, novels? Many languages have strong literatures--far more than any one person realistically can hope to learn and read. I'm naturally partial to German and Yiddish literature, but ideally I'd like eventually to explore original works in French, Russian, Latin, etc. Ancient Hebrew literature is, of course, some of the most influential in world history, as well.
We mustn't forget either that there are great literary traditions in Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, Bengali, and several other Indian languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5226 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 16 28 February 2012 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Choosing the "best languages for literature" is like choosing the "best colors for clothing".
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| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5540 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 7 of 16 28 February 2012 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. Here's a list of what's considered to be the best books ever written. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_Best_Books_of_All_Time I think everyone has already mentioned all the languages in the list, except for maybe Icelandic or Old Norse. I'm also mostly interested in learning to read languages. I'm not good at literary analysis, though, and I prefer nonfiction. I still like a good story. Edited by Michael K. on 28 February 2012 at 7:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Longinus Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4688 days ago 26 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Polish, Macedonian | Message 8 of 16 28 February 2012 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Black. Everything goes with black. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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