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General culture in various languages | ||
Tags: Cultural Identity | Reading | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 3882 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 3 08 April 2014 at 7:40pm | IP Logged |
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Hi all,
I would like to learn languages by reading books about history, literature, general culture, etc, (for now I read the harry potter books, but I don't learn anything with this content. I only learn the form-language) so finding a collection containing various topics, written in English, Dutch, Spanish, about the culture, etc, of the language. Something like "c'est pas sorcier" but in books and in different languages. It can also be something like the Pinguin Reader collection that is avaliable in English, which is great for literature, but the level is too low for me now. But finding an equivallent in Dutch or in Spanish would be great! Does anyone know such collections? Edited by guiguixx1 on 08 April 2014 at 7:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3796 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 2 of 3 09 April 2014 at 3:29pm | IP Logged |
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For Spanish, I'm quite fond of the Breve Historia series, published by
Nowtilus. Wide variety of historical topics assuming no prior knowledge, rather inexpensive for the Kindle edition on amazon, clear language and usage. On a similar note, for English there's the "Very Short Introductions" series. I've only read "A Very Short Introduction to the French Revolution", but there's plenty of others available. Is there something similar in French in book form? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6387 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 3 09 April 2014 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
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Quoting my own post from another thread:
Reading L2 books taking place in L2 culture sounds great in theory, but I find that familiar cultures make me feel more comfortable amidst all the unknown words, and it can be easier to tell if I just don't know the word/grammar or it's something cultural. This was what finally helped me start reading in German - a book translated from Finnish. Fictional cultures (HP, LOTR...) only have this effect if you already know them, rather than are discovering them via L2. So I love reading books translated from Finnish or Russian (I own some in German, Italian, Spanish, e-books in Croatian, Polish and Belarusian, audiobook in Romanian). Of course it's great to learn the L2 culture through L2 books, but I find it's better to do that when you're already comfortable with the language. --- I also have much more interest in the British and American literature than in the English language, so I read translations instead of the original. I might not be ecstatic about the American culture but I'm familiar with it. This wikia article also has some links to the previous threads about choosing a book in a non-fluent language. Edited by Serpent on 10 April 2014 at 12:03am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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