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| The depressing truth about learning foreign languages | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 17 2014, 02:41 PM (314 Views) | |
| Klaus | Sep 17 2014, 02:41 PM Post #1 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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In the last days I read a couple of articles written in English. It's not interesting what they are about. It is interesting how well they were written, however: Quite beautifully. Contemplating a little about the huge gulf between my writing and that of a truly good writer, I suddenly realized that, no matter how hard I'd try, there is a level of language proficiency that is impossible to reach unless you soaked it up as your mother tongue. Are there any great writers who wrote in something different from their mother tongue? I wonder whether the difference is in how we learn a language as an adult vs as a child, or whether the difference can be attributed to the different structure of a child's brain. In any case, the notion that there is a ceiling made of concrete in foreign language learning is a bit depressing. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| jon-nyc | Sep 17 2014, 02:58 PM Post #2 |
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Cheers
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Nabokov. He wrote in French and English as well as his native Russian. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Klaus | Sep 17 2014, 03:06 PM Post #3 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Wikipedia says this about him:
I'm not sure whether he counts. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| jon-nyc | Sep 17 2014, 03:08 PM Post #4 |
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Cheers
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Yeah. But the mere fact that he produced enduring literature in 3 languages is pretty rare. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| jon-nyc | Sep 17 2014, 03:09 PM Post #5 |
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Cheers
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Ok, Joseph Conrad. He didn't learn English until he was an adult. I think he wrote in French too, though he may have learned that growing up (along with his native Polish) |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Copper | Sep 17 2014, 03:52 PM Post #6 |
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Shortstop
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There is an endless list of great writers who wrote in Latin. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| brenda | Sep 17 2014, 03:58 PM Post #7 |
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..............
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Klaus, you have no reason to feel anything but happiness with your proficiency in English. I wish my German was as good as your English. |
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“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne | |
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| George K | Sep 17 2014, 04:01 PM Post #8 |
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Finally
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I wish my English were as good as his English. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Red Rice | Sep 17 2014, 05:53 PM Post #9 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Jack Kerouac's first language was French. And of course Irish writer Samuel Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot originally in French. |
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Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool. I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss! - Cecil Lewis | |
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| jon-nyc | Sep 17 2014, 05:58 PM Post #10 |
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Cheers
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Jack Kerouac was a ****ty writer. He was even a ****ty adventurer. You had to be some boring ass 50s dude to think 'on the road' was exciting. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Horace | Sep 17 2014, 05:58 PM Post #11 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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f'n hippies. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Sep 17 2014, 06:04 PM Post #12 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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+1. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| brenda | Sep 17 2014, 07:50 PM Post #13 |
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..............
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Yes! ![]() You are my people! . |
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“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne | |
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| Klaus | Sep 18 2014, 12:59 AM Post #14 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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If you think about Caesar and the like, their vernacular language was also an informal version of Latin. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| Klaus | Sep 18 2014, 01:00 AM Post #15 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Tell me more about it. I haven't even heard of the author. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| Red Rice | Sep 18 2014, 03:24 AM Post #16 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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From wiki:
The prose style of the book seems cliched, self-conscious and tedious now, but it was revolutionary when the book was first written. I disagree with my esteemed forumites: I found the book to be a touching and melancholic work about a man searching (unsuccessfully) for life's meaning while trying to flee his own mortality. To me, it actually seemed reminiscent in theme, if not in style, to Remarque's Im Westen nichts Neues. |
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Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool. I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss! - Cecil Lewis | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Sep 18 2014, 06:17 AM Post #17 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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Basically, it's the template for and archetype of every single hipster road trip movie that's ever been made. So yeah, because of that it's an important book to know. It has influenced quite a few people. But the contribution here is the premise and format, not the prose. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| schindler | Oct 2 2014, 11:56 AM Post #18 |
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Fulla-Carp
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For Klaus: "I don’t see how one can ever know a foreign language well enough to make reading poems in it worthwhile. Foreigners’ ideas of good English poems are dreadfully crude: Byron and Poe and so on. The Russians liking Burns. But deep down I think foreign languages irrelevant. If that glass thing over there is a window, then it isn’t a fenster or a fenętre or whatever. Hautes Fenętres, my God! A writer can have only one language, if language is going to mean anything to him" - Philip Larkin |
| We're all mad here! | |
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