How do guys cope with the fact you will only ever scratch the surface of books not written in your native language. You're basically a cuck; forced to read the sloppy leftovers of some translator bull who had his way with the novel while all you do is gobble up his cum out of a used up pussy. I'm German so at least I have Kant, Nietzsche and Kafka etc. But I will never be able to truly enjoy English literature because my English sucks. It pains me to know I will never read Dostoevsky they way the man intended me to.
this is what too much time on 4channel does to a nigga. get a grip on your damn self.
>>24105499
>>24105499>How do guys cope with the fact you will only ever scratch the surface of books not written in your native language.wait till to you realize all the books that could ever be written
>>24105502this is literally my first post ever on /lit I live in Australia and cannot ever bring this up because people seem to think there is no world outside of their english speaking bubble, other languages are witchcraft to them and I doubt even "intellectuals" here realise that most books they read have been throughly altered by the translatour
>>24105513be proud of speaking English.it's a pretty powerful language tool that was developed for/by a global Empire.
>>24105513holy dunning-krueger
>>24105499I speak English so I literally don't care. If I didn't speak English I would kill myself.
>>24105534you don't read Dostoevsky, Kafka, Tolstoy, Stieg Larsson etc?
>>24105522Anglotards love this clip it's all they have
>>24105522I am proud of it, I love Australia and the Commonwealth and the USA. My point still stands; If me, someone who has been speaking English for 20 years still feels like he misses out on the fine nuances of English prosa, how the hell do you anglos cope with having to read translated versions of most of the world's greatest novels?
>>24105513you have to be 17 years old or something like that, and a second generation immigrant as well i'd imagine. calm down, dude.
>>24105543where's the lie?it's clinical.treat language as you would a professor of both arts & sciences.English is the best linguistic/semiotic tool we have: it lends itself to the most diverse & distinct amount of signifiers (synonyms) while also allowing for the easy creation of neologisms and thus new ideas (linguistic metaphysics). not to mention the phonetic count that is highly underappreciated (we can make a lot of sounds). it's a good meta-language on it's own as it can easily describe things bigger than itself.I speak like 4 or 5 languages, and English is the only one I bother thinking in.think of it as an Innovation; an invention that was created to account for the scale of people speaking it today (we usually don't think about it this way, we think of it as "random" as if languages developed arbitrarily in a vacuum).
I tried reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra in English and was thoroughly disgusted. It was a vile, wretched attempt to contain a genius into something so much smaller than the original work.
>>24105569>like 4 or 5 languages My negro. Being able to shout mangled, half finished sentences like a debile creature does not count as speaking a language. You have seen my grasp of the english language in this thread so far; I speak German. And I have learned a bi of English, enough to get by. But I would never claim to have a solid grasp, let alone a masterfull one of this language.I fully agree with everything else though. English is kino.
>>24105578Exactly!That's why if you bother to think in that language, you'll start naturally being more fluent in that language. Duh!The opposite also holds true.
>>24105582Like, when you start to dream in other languages, you've hit a threshold of linguistic immersion.
>>24105513I hear plenty of different languages in the Melb CBD, what kind of small WA town are you stuck in krautbro
>>24105569>English is the best linguistic/semiotic tool we have: it lends itself to the most diverse & distinct amount of signifiers (synonyms) while also allowing for the easy creation of neologisms and thus new ideasViewing language strictly from a materialist lense.
>>24105591I'm in Perth to toil away in the mines. I'm in a bit of financial disarray so will have to do that for a few years, sadly. Actually kind of scary how you immediately knew mate. How's Melbourne? There is so little cultural events and things here. Or maybe I'm just not invited, who knows.
>>24105570Try going ong wikipedia and checking out how different articles are written in different languages.We'll invent a word to describe the Rashomon-effect different cultures go thru reading supposedly the same wikipedia stub.
>>24105595>treat language as you would a professor of both arts & sciences.I prefaced this but a line earlier.I can appeal to the materialist's sensibilities and to the idealist's sense of beauty as well.Again, treat language as you would a science and as an artform (even this style I write you in is deliberate)
>>24105499I just search for the most literal translation which is mainstream. I am Mexican and read mostly everything in English, German, French, Russian, Japanese. You could say French translates better to Spanish. But I've noticed comparing the original of the stranger, that the translators happily use non-equivalent words just to make the translation "read better" to whatever shit-hole region they live in. So I'm happier reading the american english version.What I am trying to read in Spanish though, is everything latin that I can find in the Gredos editorial.>>24105570Which translation, Kaufmann?>>24105543It's true. There are more English speaking academics out there. I don't know if my understanding is correct, but as far as academic literature goes, the language is small to be understood readily by people all over the world with different languages. It is brief. I can barely write Spanish without getting the tildes mixed up and I'm Mexican. I have 10 years learning English, I know my English is still shit, and yet I know I'm better off thinking and reading English.
>>24105603>Rashomon effectThat's the word I was looking for. This is what every english speaker experiences when reading nn-english books. And most, if not all, are blissfully unaware
>>24105616I do not remember which translation, I threw the book into the trash to rid myself off it Also, English is spoken by academics because its is so easy to learn, so precise and easy to dumb down. This does not exactly speak for the language in my opinion.
>>24105621This is why it's good to preserve other people's culture's and languages because they can offer a unique perspective that the ingroup lingua franca language like English missed.like I get that there's some stuff that doesn't translate well to English from other cultures, but it doesn't mean that it's ultimately unintelligible. it just means you gotta study that culture/language to understand what they were getting at.justifies having other cultures (instead of a global mono culture) as we can explore more minute aspects of the human condition and civilization rather than have that get lost in babel
>>24105499My English is definitely good enough to read most literature.
>>24105628>I threw the book into the trash to rid myself off itkek>This does not exactly speak for the language in my opinion.How do you make nothing of it? >easy to dumb downyou can't say that in Spanish althoughever
>>24105522Why didn't he write in English then? Is there any other nonAnglo who speaks about English in this way
>>24105645Because he prefered Spanish.I still like reading the physical newspaper at the library.
>>24105522Based>>24105554>how the hell do you anglos cope with having to read translated versions of most of the world's greatest novels?why would anglos even care about it?
>>24105645>Is there any other nonAnglo who speaks about English in this wayme
>>24105598You can make a lot of money like that so long as you're careful to limit your expenses. It must be miserable there this time of year though.Melbourne's always a mixed bag but I like it. There are a lot of snobs and freaks but it's also where the culture is. There was a German film festival last year and apparently it's running again this year, so if you get time off you could check that out.>There is so little cultural events and things hereTry looking for live shows or gigs. Australians like that sort of thing and I've heard Perth has a good music scene.
>>24105660like I said earlier, language is also an Art.Spanish is beautiful especially to the people that were immersed in in their whole lives. It's apart of their tapestry.
>>24105499I wonder how guys for whom English isn't a first language imagine the weird telepathy it affords. I like German and French, particularly in terms of sound, but in even those you could never say this.
>>24105676>the weird telepathy it affordsT-the what? When do I get my telepathy for learning English?
>>24105666That’s what I’m doing, not planning to buy any raptors or jetskis anytime soon. Perth is very down to earth I would say, full of cashed-up bogans with a chip on their shoulder. And tons of feral, mostly aboriginal, violent drug addicts roaming the streets. I will look into shows and gigs, thanks anon.
>>24105676>telepathySee. I don’t even know what you mean here. I’m sure a native speaker would though. Such is the life as a cuck.
>>24105707Never unless you were born and raised in certain parts of the UK, the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and New England. A few Australians are pretty fine in that sense, for instance Robert Hughes.
>>24105499Same way I cope with the fact that I'll only ever scratch the surface of books in my own language, and that countless men of great understanding have died recording only a fraction of what they had to say, and still more will languish in obscurity for at least the rest of my entire lifeJust do the best you can and try to give something back
>>24105749not OP but thank you. that is a nice way to cope
>>24105747It's no mystery why AI language models have a weak sense of metaphor, as well as a not particularly good sense of proportion, never mind judgment.
>>24105749Never felt that way, about anyone writing in my own language--at least back to the mid 18th century. Even Lord Chesterfield reads pretty transparently to me, and I sometimes laugh out loud at his images, which hardly any non-English familiars would get.
>>24105730The experience of speaking hegemonic English is telepathy, as non-natives just get filtered.
>>24105569>the easy creation of neologisms and thus new ideas (linguistic metaphysics)English is great for meme making!>>>/tv/207852453
>>24106858>>>/tv/207852781
>I'm germanMy condolences.
>>24105499Make friends with a russian or watch a russian on youtube describe the book in english from his POV that should be good enough
>>24105499Nah. In my native language I've got Strindberg, Lagerlöf, Lindgren, Söderberg, Heidenstam, Tegnér, Jansson and so on
>>24105499because the greatest works are written in english
>>24105499>You're basically a cuck; forced to read the sloppy leftovers of some translator bull who had his way with the novel while all you do is gobble up his cum out of a used up pussy.What the fuck is wrong with you. Seek help
>>24105666It makes me said that Melbourne is where everything is. I live in a city near Melbourne and I'm pretty fond of it but I often need to head to Melbourne to do anything interesting
>>24105499What do you actually want to read?
I’m a native English speaker, so 99.9999% of things worth reading are either written in my language or translated. The two things I’ve come across that I want to read but aren’t in English are both in German. Might either learn it or just pay for a translation desu
>>24105541The first three are midwit traps
>>24105645He’s using fine in the sense of precise, not in the sense of better. What makes English better is that it’s both the most precise AND the most beautiful language, but no non-native would agree because the beauty in language is tied to a feeling of familiarity.
>>24105499Relax, babbelfag; it's not that serious.
>>24105522>vidrelParaphrasing Rothfuss, each english word is a road, each spanish word is a web.I can juggle with Italian like I would do with my balls. I am only able to stroke the shaft of my English. I can do a balls deep self-fellatio when it comes to Old Slavonic, something that Chinese doesn't even dream of. I really think that complexity in language is often times filtered by forced complexity, like the addition of a higher culture (latin, in the case of the Anglos) or, like in China, the symbolic depiction of words being pre-established.
>>24105499You know you can just learn other languages it's not that hard
>>24109342Is that "forced complexity" arbitrary and/or superfluous though? At what point does the technique become art? (utility vs aesthetic).For example, a lot of people would say that binary is a very useful computing language, but not very easy on the ears (ever hear an old modem dial up AOL?); meanwhile Japanese is a lot more melodic/sing-songy because all their letters end with vowels (ka ki ku ke ko カ・キ・ク・ケ・コ); everything sounds like a haiku with that tongue! Anywho, no on really uses Japanese to talk with computers like they do binary (or even jmp to Assembly).
>>24109342>Old Slavonicalso I hear this like every week too.you're not the first anon to go to Divine Liturgia...
>>24105499I don't really care all that much
>>24109976also, protip:it's a lot easier to seduce a women with French than it is with binary.that's a fact.
>>24109344This or compare different translations. If you're going for sloppy seconds might as well go for the best.
>>24105499retard, you dont read dosto for his awful prose, but for the characters' interactionsit's not like he's pushkin
I enjoy the process Whenever I read in a second language I enjoy comprehending the language and I enjoy knowing that my language abilities are improvingYeah, I might not appreciate what I'm reading as well as a native speaker might but the hope is that eventually I'll get close enough
