/lit/ - Literature

>>18806234
Bonjour !
Buongiorno!
Saluton!
Guten Tag!

Qu'est-ce que vous faîtes aujourd'hui ?

>>18806234
>>What language(s) are your learning?
Chinese
>>Why you start learning it/them?
Final year of uni and no interesting optional modules so I picked 20 credits worth of Chinese instead
>>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
John DeFrancis books
>>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Delete those apps you have on your phone they're completely useless
>>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
>>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
All in the book + wiki pages for clarification on grammar
>>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
Too much of a noob to read anything proper for now

>>18806234
>What language(s) are your learning?
Japanese and French
>Why you start learning it/them?
To read more
>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
By reading more
What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Read more
Are you reading any literature in your target?
Yes, reading pic related atm

>>18806234
>>What language(s) are your learning?
French, Italian, and German
>>Why you start learning it/them?
French I started in middle school. Italian I started to prepare for a college trip to Italy. German I'm learning because it can be useful to a classical musician.
>>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Duolingo, some French and Italian grammars I found on /int/, Teach Yourself German, and DW's "Nicos Weg" course.
>>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Don't be intimidated by French phonology or German grammar.
>>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
Reading Wiki articles and other sites, listening to news and podcasts, and reading stories.
>>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Yep. I don't skimp on that.
>>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
I like Maupassant. Looking for easy-to-medium French books and easy Italian books.

Can somebody recommend a good Quranic textbook? I'm not even sure what the dialect is technically called but I'm working on learning the alphabet now.

>>18806776
An Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic by Thackson

You know that with a single report, anyone can send your thread off to /int/?

>>18806234
>What language(s) are your learning?
Nip. I'll start Italian in a few months.
>>Why you start learning it/them?
Two years ago. Got bussy with work last year and I didn't study as much as I wanted.
>>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Anki, Yomichan, and VNs with text-hook. I mostly care about reading but my listening skill have picked up a lot lately.
>>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Get the VN-core anki deck and start reading stuff as soon as you can, it will painful but you will learn faster. There's easy VNs with easy grammar and vocabulary, but well, they are VNs and most people here will probably hate them too much to read them.
>>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
Reading + anki.
>>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Yes. Do not read Tae Kim and instead check out Cure Dolly.
>>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
Kawabata but it was still pretty hard for me last time I checked.
I've been reading some Dazai. I don't like him much but he's pretty easy.

>>18806795
How is this not about literature? Isn't literature the use of language?

>>18806795
You say this like %80 of /lit/ isn't off-topic shit (philosophy, politics, books for this feel, etc.) that the mods are complicit with keeping on the board because they're faggots.

>>18806234
hello friiends, i would like to know how to learn a new language, currently i am only able to speak engliish and my native tongue of indonesian. i would like to read french or spannish.

>>18806488
Buongiorno!
>>18806597
Nada en particular, anon. Hices unos mandaditos esta mañana y ahora estoy en la casa. Posiblemente haré un poco de almuerzo más tarde.
>>18806648
> I picked 20 credits worth of Chinese instead
That's like 5 or 6 courses. Which apps btw? I'm using Duolingo and it has helped to gain some vocabulary and keep me on track.
>>18806662
What's the book's name haha? Good luck studying French and Japanese, anon.
>>18806753
Can you give the name of the Italian books? I started using Practice Makes Perfect, and was using Modern Italian Grammar before but found it too advanced and convoluted.
>>18806795
No, I didn't know that but be my guest, anon. I specifically asked what literature were anon reading which is related to literature in essence. I constantly see low quality threads about YouTube egirls and a bunch of shit tangentially related to literature, yet their threads reach bump limit. Go and report those ones too.
>>18806828
Good luck on learning Italian, anon. I think once you've some intermediary knowledge of it, you could pick up Spanish too.

>>>/int/ に行ってください you fils de puta

>>18806868
Omniglot.com has lists of some good resources. Duolingo and Memrise are good for beginners but won't make you fluent.

Anybody had experience learning Russian and can recommend a beginner's textbook? Textbooks are one of those things I just can't trust online reviews on, with most people being gibbering retards

>>18806234
>What language(s) are your learning?
Japanese
>Why you start learning it/them?
I wanted to become a polyglot back in 2018 and I considered it to be the one I should start with since its pronunciation is pretty similar to that of my native language. Haven't made much progress because of uni and procrastination
>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Already read both Genki books and now I'm using Tobira. I make Anki cards with vocabulary I come across when reading shit. Yomichan is helpful too.
>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Don't take notes and start writing using the grammar you've just learned instead
>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
My text book already comes with plenty of new random words, but it's much better when you find them organically since you already know the context
>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Yes
>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
Not much. I started with this https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/

>>18806795
>>18806899
/int/ sucks

>>18807530
>tfw using tobira too
I can't be bothered to write using the grammar I learned though. I know I should, but I'm making excuses.

Where can I learn basic English grammar fast?
I am starting at ancient Greek in a month and I currently suck at grammar, so to prepare I need to train basic grammatical vocabular. Any recs?

Recently "learned" (two day crash coursed with a free book from archive.org) Italian after knowing two other Romance languages plus Latin, and can now read Italian easily with a dictionary. Then I found myself accidentally reading Spanish. I think I've hit that threshold where all romance languages are basically the same to me now.

I still hate French the most. Italian is very beautiful.

>>18807483
Penguin's Russian Course, the post-Soviet one with the black cover, is the only good one I found. Russian grammar is easy if you already know grammar, but the vocabulary is ridiculous because unless you already know a Slavic language you will have no cognates. If you speak Slav though you will do very well, half the words I learned in Russian my Balkan friends would go "oh that's like our word for..."

The only thing that worked for me with vocab was to take a text I really care about and know well, for me it was the Bible, and make reading it into a larger project that I do every day. I didn't get enough joy from reading literature or academic Russian to make up for the unbearably slow retention of vocabulary.

Things also got a bit easier when I started to notice roots, and learn what some key prefixes mean, like how you can often rely on German ver- to mean "completed" (or "failed"), zer- to mean "to pieces," ent- to mean "estrangement," etc. That helped me construct little families of related Russian words that I could remember by their feel. But it's still slow going.

I only cared about reading but I imagine Russian would benefit from trying to listen and speak it too. However I watched a video by Bald and Bankrupt, the youtube sex tourist and spy who speaks Russian, where he talks about how easy it is to learn if you just throw yourself into it, and then I watched a review of his Russian by a native speaker and she said while it is quite good for everyday purposes, it is heavily accented and clearly not fluent, it's a traveller's pidgin deepened by immersion. So don't go too far into that. Ultimately, the more you can speak and hear and know by heart, the more you can bring that to bear on your reading, and vice versa, so I imagine it's about balancing the two depending on your strengths.

>>18807600
The way I learned grammar WAS by learning Latin and Greek. I think there is a famous book or series of books called "English Grammar for Students of Latin/Greek" you could look into maybe. I've heard it recommended a lot in this connection.

I count my blessings every day that Latin was my first second language. It taught me so much about how to learn languages that everything after it was just a modification of what I had learned there.

>>18806790
It looks good, thanks.

>>18807600
Most beginning grammars will explain the English first so they can compare the differences, if there is any. I wouldn't worry about it too much because you can always look up concepts you don't understand when they appear.

>>18807600
Thanks anon. Spanish is actually my native language. I don't really expect italian to be hard but who knows.
I'll try to use the italian version of LLPI, "L' Italiano secondo il Metodo Natura" to see if the method works for me.

>>18807600
Understanding English Grammar: A Linguistic Introduction

>>18806234
>What language(s) are your learning?
German
>Why you start learning it/them?
Because I live and work in Germany.
>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
I just learn by speaking with natives and looking up things in Google.
>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Grammar is retarded. I'm learning. Artikels are also retarded. It's easy to get to communicative level but hard to learn it fluently. Learn basic grammar rules and just keep learning words, it's best. Don't worry about making mistakes. This language is retarded anyway.
>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
No, books aren't meant to be read in this abomination of a language. Fucking disgusting.

B2 certificate here.

>>18807732
meant for >>18806898

>>18806234
>What language(s) are your learning?
French
>Why you start learning it/them?
I want to learn another language, and I've been hopping around for a while. I know Spanish and English, so French may come easier.
>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Barron's Grammar, 501 verbs, etc.
>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
Barrons
>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Yes
>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
That's the goal, but not yet

>>18807751
Was man nicht weiß, das eben brauchte man,
Und was man weiß, kann man nicht brauchen.

>>18807661
>>18807672
Here, forgot to fill out the thing.

>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Anything I fucking can that works for me, but I prefer old school grammars or grammar textbooks where I can just see the nuts and bolts of the language up front. At this point I usually go right to the conjugation and declension tables and see what I'm in for, then start looking for obvious patterns ("signposts," like any conjugation that is the only one to use a certain letter or cluster of letters to broadcast itself). I tend to skip all the prepared texts after the first few chapters and then just go start translating wikipedia articles I'm interested in, or some other text I care about already. I refuse to submit myself to "This is Julio. Julio is in the orrery. Julio has two marionettes" bullshit anymore. Fuck Julio.

>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
If you are interested primarily in reading, learn basic Indo-European grammar on the model of Latin grammar so you understand what tenses, voices, moods, subordinate clauses and subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, adverbial phrases etc. all are (all easy as fuck don't be scared), then start seeing how every single IE language shares 80% of its DNA.

Get accustomed to learning etymology and becoming an amateur philologist. They often tell you to come up with little stories in your head to remember words, but the best story to remember is the actual story of the word's origins, which will become a general "feel" over time. Wer is "man" in Germanic, vir (pronounced wir) is man in Latin, etc. Go beyond simple cognates and try to get an actual feel for the interconnectedness of things and how language morphs. 70% of the time when I don't know an Italian word I just imagine a Frenchman or Roman is saying the word through a mouth full of cotton and I can tell what word it is.

Shop around for texts to practice on. Some authors are 10 times harder for no reason. Some authors will leave you thinking "what the fuck, why is this so easy?" Start with the latter on a subject you really want to read about and work your way up to harder ones.

Use google translate to cheat constantly, not a dictionary. Dictionaries are fine but google translate will usually (with a bit of manipulation) let you see the infinitive of the verb whose declined form is confusing you, and more crucially, it will show you idiomatic constructions and untangle them when they are woven together in a way only a native can grasp.

>>18807786

The best way to "learn" is to hack your way through a text appropriate for your level while cheating on vocab with a dictionary and cheating on wtf sentences with google translate, and when all else fails, ask a native or have an English translation of the book handy so you can just straight up cheat cheat. The point is to keep your reading process as fluid as possible while you are assimilating easy/medium stuff, and to do this you need to be able to knock the wtf stuff out of your way when you hit it. Of course, still try to figure it out (this is why you need to know the basics of grammar), but don't punish yourself for stumbling over those complex interplays of native-level idioms, is the point.

>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
Constant exposure to texts you actually like, strategically chosen to be by surprisingly easy authors. Nothing works for me except exposure, I've never understood that anki shit or learning random clothing vocabulary, who gives a shit about clothing.

Above all you have to learn idioms, like when "he there what is what he has 4" somehow means "It's 4 o'clock." Create a running list of idioms you encounter. Use Google translate or Google for sites like reverso to help with idioms in context and free/idiomatic English translations of them. Idioms are the second layer of vocabulary that you really need to function on your own in the wild.

This is all the stuff I wish I knew when I started. Above all, exposure is key. 80/20 rule and all that. Shitty discouraging practice today and tomorrow and every other day is worth perfect practice every 2 weeks. Your brain IS designed to absorb this shit, just let it work.

>>18807661
Cheers, appreciate the suggestion

>>18807744
400 pages is prolly a bit too much I just want to not be confused when she says modalverb, object etc. In danish public school they use danish words for grammar which really fucked with my language learning when I started in gymnasium and they used latin terms like in english, so i know I'll be confused when I start unless I catch up on grammar.

>>18807672
>"English Grammar for Students of Latin/Greek"
By who, google doesn't help me out.

>>18806898
>That's like 5 or 6 courses. Which apps btw? I'm using Duolingo and it has helped to gain some vocabulary and keep me on track.
10 credits is one semester here, so that's from September to December. I used apps like Duolingo and Memrise, and compared to actually sitting down and studying for the same amount of time it's laughable. If you only have time to study when you're on a train then sure, but if you're using those apps at home then you're better off opening a book

Am I gonna make it?

>What language(s) are your learning?
Chinese
>Why you start learning it/them?
I've suddenly become a cheeb (chinese weeb) and eagerly look forward to the day they become the world superpower
>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
I have an HSK1 course on coursera, theres this app called immersive chinese I find is pretty good at hammering in grammar and new words, and then anki as usual. Id love more resources, I want to speed up my learning process
>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Be patient, it's tougher than eng>spanish, for example, but it's so exciting to slowly grasp an entirely different world and language
>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
This is where i'm struggling. I have the HSK1 course as I mentioned and I'm kindd of just learning words through HSK as I am so new it's hard for me to gain new vocab.
>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Barely. Just looking at sentence structure and trying to find the patterns and logic behind it.
>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
I WISH, I can't wait til I can, and I'd love recs

>>18806234
>>What language(s) are your learning?
Japanese
A bit more than a year, but the first months were very ineffective as I didn't know what I was doing
>>Why you start learning it/them?
I want to see what they are doing over at 5chan
>>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Anki, Genki, Tae Kim, actual Japanese teacher
>>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Get the organised 6k core vocab anki deck from /djt/, it is legitimately really good.
Spend more time on hiragana then recommended. Knowing them is one thing, reading them faster will help you a lot, as furigana will be your friend in early reading. Also do not underestimate katakana, since the nips love loan words it came up a lot more often than I thought.
Also if you are consuming Japanese media and not learning purely from books RTK is a waste of time, as it will cripple your ability to understand the language by ear, as opposed to reading it.
Instead look up the Etymology of any Kanji which you can't pick up fastly. It usually acts as a natural mnemonic far superior to any radical nonsence.
>>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
Anki, reading, stuff teacher says
>>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Yeah, but only recently. Probably a bit too late
>>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
Not yet that good, only children's manga.

>>18808528
>Barely. Just looking at sentence structure and trying to find the patterns and logic behind it.
Been learning Chinese and the grammar is pretty simple, compared to other European languages at least

>>18808633
Yeah that's been my experience so far as well, I wasn't sure if it was simply because I'm at baby tier. But it really is straightforward and logically simple at this level.

>>18806753
>>18806828
>>18807661
>>18808475
Buona fortuna a tutti coloro che si stanno cimentando nello studio dell'italiano.

>tfw you already spent a year and a half in Russia on a scholarship grinding the basics and can now just coast, assimilating new words with the goal of reading classic russian literature in sight

>>18807786
>Wer is "man" in Germanic, vir (pronounced wir) is man in Latin, etc.
It isn't though, man in german is Mann, while Wer is "who"

>>18806234
>>What language(s) are your learning?
In rough order of how fluent I'm in then: Polish/Serbo-Croatian/French/Hindi
>>Why you start learning it/them?
Autism/I'm yugo diaspora but never learned the language as a child/I had French at school for 6 years and decided to turn my shoddy French skills into decent skills/autism
>>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Input, Language apps, anki for Polish Serbo-Croatian and French. Textbook+ anki for Hindi
>>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
The best way to learn cases is to ocassionally glance at a case chart and then use the wrong case 1000 times/The dialect differences may seem intimidating but they're not too bad/Make sure to learn the gender of each word if you want to sound proper, French people instantly know when you fuck up/Learn Devanagari, even if Hindi speakers just use the Latin script online, because learning Devanagari also doubles as a great intro to Hindi pronunciation
>>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
I put any words I come across into Anki
>>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
You do that right at the start no?
>>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
I've read a handful of Polish classics/ 2 Croatian kids' books/ A few Camus books and while you do lose a bit of comprehension, you do learn a lot of words, and appreciate the structure of your TL more because of it

>>18808643
I think it's like that all the way down, you can tell from how Chinese people speak English, it's very simply, not many conjugations

>>18808536
What’s a good resource for learning about the etymology of a given kanji. The good ones are probably exclusively in Japanese right?

Best way for learning French:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4lJLtpfKDUEUofMMkp9XO0l8vM10BMAh

By the way does anyone know if there is anything like this for Italian, German or Romanian?

>>18806234
조선어 배워

>>18806488
Guten aben

>>18806234
>What language(s) are your learning?
Spanish
>Why you start learning it/them?
Ex was Spanish, we broke up but I kept learning because I enjoyed it.
>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
Books, music, tv, films, Spanish speaking forums, travelling and talking to people, duolingo & pimsleur. Everything I can get my hands on.
>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
Speak and listen more than you read and write. Go to the country/countries where the language is spoken natively and use this to your advantage as much as possible.
>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
Whenever I don't know a word it goes in a cuaderno.
>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
Yes, I have been learning Spanish grammar from the start since I started with applications.
>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
I read a lot of childrens/YA books like the Harry Potter books to start with, mostly because the language was uncomplicated and I could concentrate on new words. It's been about 3 years of learning now and I've reached a capacity there I can read most "easy" Spanish books with ease. I hope someday to read Don Quijote in its native text, I would give myself another 2-3 years of continued studying though.

>>18810850
>I hope someday to read Don Quijote in its native text
thats a good goal friend, I hope you get there one day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zNH-WpOrg
posting this for anyone learning german that's interested

>>18807661
>Russian Bible
Which version did you read? My understanding is that the most commonly read version is akin to KJV in English, aka vocab and grammar may be somewhat outdated.

>>18806234
>What language(s) are your learning?
japanese
>Why you start learning it/them?
i thought it would be cool to become one of those assistant teachers in japan but i think that might fall through because i doubt ill be able to get the form of education needed to apply to such jobs
>What tools are you using to aid you in learning languages?
duolingo and anki
anki in 1000x better, i only still use duolingo because i dont want to lose my streak
>What advice do you have for someone learning the same language?
learn something thats actually easy and of use, like spanish instead
>How are you acquiring vocabulary?
playing dogshit JRPGs and watching Takeshi Kitano films
>Have you started studying the language's grammar?
ive studied the easy parts so far
>Are you reading any literature in your target? How is it?
i read tweets and other anons jap posts

>>18811718
You wanna be a sexpat don't you, you coomer.

>>18807786
>>18807790
Great posts, thank you

>>18807661
>I still hate French the most. Italian is very beautiful.
But Italian sounds like what a mentally disabled yokel would speak Latin as during Roman times.

>>18809949
Wikipedia wiktionary is surprisingly decent. It almost always has the Etymology for the Chinese Hanxi, and half of the time that is identical to the Kanji, and even if not you can usually tell how the Hanxi morhed in meaning to the Kanji.
If that does not work I just google (Kanji)語源.
In the few cases where that does not spit up a result I just rote memorise.

>>18811725
the extreme majority of japanese women look rank
if i wanted to fuck i would have learned russian

>>18808739
tbf he said Germanic, not German. "wer" meant man in old German and the modern German "who" derives directly from that. you can, moreover, still use "wer" to say "somebody"