I also read some French translations desu

>>25217567
I’m not, actually. I’m just really lazy.

>>25217567
You can be a jack of all languages or a master of one.

>>25217622
No. Learning other languages deepens your understanding of your own.

>>25217567
because like learning languages has nothing to do with intelligence. all it takes is time, discipline, and a good memory. i watched youtube and saw man say hello in 50 languages. big wow.

>>25217567
I'm fluent in my native language and english. That's better than 90% of /lit/ i assume.

>>25217567
I know 4 languages.

>>25217645
Dimwit cope.

>>25217567
I just can't learn another language. Everytime I tried fate conspired against me. My Latin teacher left after 1 year. My college language class conflicted with a mandatory course for my major. I just wasn't born lucky enough. I don't have the need to really drive me to learn on my own and I don't think I'm capable anymore

I've been learning French lately and I think I've learned to dislike it. I came in with zero biases. I was never one of those internet people who hated the French or made jokes. I'm also well aquainted with romance languages. But after studying French for a bit this language really isn't enjoyable to me. I still have to learn it but this is a drag. I don't really find it beautiful either anymore now that I've learned more about it.

>>25217567
Because it makes you irrationally angry

>>25217567
Because I'm English, and I refuse to learn the language of forigeners.

>>25217567
I'm way too lazy to learn another language. I already tried to learn German, but stopped cause laziness. I feel any time learning a language for me is wasted because I know for a fact I'm eventually going to stop. Might as well just keep reading translations.

>>25217731
All the English greats at least dabbled in other languages.

every language is just too fucking hard it makes me so depressed

>>25217567
I know 3 languages and am ESL, english is just the lingua franca of the world and therefore has the best translations with the most amount of resources put into them

>>25217567
Why would you read anything in any other language? There's one universal trade language for all human beings, and the things we used to speak before civilization. English, and all the languages of Not-English respectively. Simple as.

I honestly think English is better than my native language

>>25218621
That doesn‘t follow at all: it‘s more common in many other cultures to have foreign works translated by a poet who parses through a product of original quality while the Anglo-American tradition of translation is much more focused on academic interpretation. You may prefer that with reference given to resources but it‘s often seen as a sterile transformation.

I‘m reading Ibsen in German right now despite it being my second language because he was a favorite of the literary scene there in the late 19th/early 20th century. The English translations I read in school don‘t remotely compare. Similarly where Faust has been notoriously impossible in English for centuries, Nerval‘s translation met Goethe‘s approval by ignoring slavish adherence to the structure which is obviously impossible to replicate without sounding stifled and inorganic.

I am more comfortable reading in English than I am with my TLs so unless a translation only exists in my TL I would rather read a translation in English

>>25218621
>english is just the lingua franca of the world and therefore has the best translations with the most amount of resources put into them

Stop sucking the anglosphere's dick, there are competent people doing stuff all over the world.

>>25218746
He can like what he wants faggot. Man, sometimes all you have to do is mention the English language and there’s instant seethe

>>25217567
Just can't be fucked, aye

>>25218644
Academic interpretation is better.

>>25218758
It‘s boring, dispirited, and its writing is weak.

Dont need anything but the latin translation, dont even need the original.

>>25217567
I have raised a communist in my bosom!

Why learn foreign languages when the good Lord Jesus chose to speak English?

It's either reading translations or limiting myself to the works written in English, and I'd miss out on two much good stuff if I did the latter.

>>25218886
>English
He spoke American, you pagan atheist commie.

>>25217567
What film?

>>25218933
>This image is from the 1975 Swedish animated Christmas television special "Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton" (English: The Tale of Karl-Bertil Jonsson's Christmas).

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>all these monolingual plebeians ITT
/lit/ has fallen. Even weebs who've learned nip to read loli hentai are more commendable than you.

>>25217622
This is true, the way that English is taught to English speakers is guaranteed to make you ignorant of the way your own language functions and severely handicaps any efforts to learn a foreign one. Most people will never develop an understanding of English grammar until they have attempted learning a language where the morphology of a word changes according to case or tense.

>>25217567
The fact that this thread exists at all when a decade or even five years ago the general consensus on /lit/ is that you had to learn French, German, Classical Greek, Russian and Latin to even begin calling yourself /lit/erate shows how academia has lost all social capital and has become something that people outside of its walls have no interest in imitating.
You don't need to read French to "get" Proust or Russian to understand Dostoevsky. If you don't have the dubious honour of being an academic you simply don't really need the original language for the kind of reading an ordinary person is doing. The autodidact disappeared when the academy lost its lustre because he no longer has anything to rebel against.

>>25219053
I just can't learn these things on my own while also trying to survive anon. A decade ago /lit/ was all cutesie undergrad hipsters and none of us knew reality.

I deeply wish I could learn a language but I just can't

>>25219154
And yet you still waste time on /lit/

>>25219154
>cutesie undergrad hipsters
When you put it like that it makes me glad those pseud kids are gone. Or maybe some of you are still here.

>>25217567
I just don't have the time. I browse /lit/ for 30 minutes once a week. I would have learnt a language in university if I did an arts degree, but I did not. I did law, and I devoted myself entirely to that subject. When studying law, I barely had a moment to breathe. I remember being able to read around 40 classics max a year, which isn't that many if you consider the fact that I am a fast reader who can read uninterrupted for hours. Now that I work full-time, the last thing I really want is to get home to "learn a language" etc. I'd rather read something new, play a game, watch a film or so on. And that is if I have free-time after work and not something pending! I have made some intelligent investments over the last few years, so I may be able to retire within the next decade. Maybe then I will consider learning a new language properly - I'd choose German, because I'd love to read Goethe, Schiller, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer etc. However, it would still be a large commitment.

>>25218999
You are right but that's not what he meant.

>>25217731
You Americans are retarded. Who said anything about knowing ALL languages? Why do ameritards have this all or nothing way of thinking all the time? Absolute brainlets.

>>25217657
ignorant retard

>>25217753
retard

>>25218240
there's no such thing as your language or my language or their language

>>25218773
>t. dimwit who only reads novels

>>25218897
There's such a thing as learning. Alien concept to this site, I know.

Damn, some of you are so eager to get the monolinguals of /lit/ to learn new languages to appreciate the art more. Aren’t you a thoughtful, selfless bunch?

>>25219053
Learning languages has nothing to do with academia. Also, there are two types of learning, learning because you need it, ie for utility; and learning for intellectual cultivation. And why would rebelling against something equate to imitating it, in your own words? Academia sucks, but learning doesn't. Academia and schools in general aren't for learning. Most people haven't even realized that. But even when someone does realize it, the idea that you would lose interest in being an autodidact because of it is false.Yeah, again, schools suck, but the rebellion against that isn't to go "fuck learning", it's to realize you need to teach yourself if you're going to learn something.

>why are you content reading something in the best language ever?

>>25219154
stop equivocating "learning" and "mastering", dumbass

>>25217567
A common refrain Ive heard from great authors is, "The English translation is better than my original"
English is the greatest language, period. No language has its diversity or depth of language. Translating a work to English is like going from playing video games on the wii to playing on the ps5.

>>25219508
Spot on. School made me think learning was boring, probably because I had to do it alongside other people and that pedagogy doesn’t fly with me. I always enjoyed learning at my own pace, in my own time, and things that I actually wanted to learn. And now I’ve sort of embraced the auto didactic lifestyle.
Anyway, for anyone wanting to get into French poetry, start with Mallarme, he’s short and also very simple :)

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>>25219348
The fact we have lawyers this fucking dumb... Thanks for confirming that anyone who studies to have a career is an incurious utilitarian coombrain. Again, don't equivocate learning and mastering, fuckwit. That common equivocation alone really says everything about the English "language" and why learning other languages is a good thing. There are two types of learning: learning for utility; and learning for intellectual cultivation/liberation/truth; and these are mutually exclusive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAp8hX0U-jw

https://youtu.be/upFxaYnrs-A&t=593

>>25219482
I'm too old and too dumb for new languages.

>>25219523
nta and you’re right, especially at that last part. but what’s with your shitty attitude? No one is going to take you seriously if you just hurl insults and buzzwords at someone. Grow up, seething ESL.

>>25219497
It's just seething from ESLs. These 'people' don't love learning other languages, they just hate resent English.
But even the people who do like learning languages need to learn that their niche hobby isn't beloved by all or essential to being educated.

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>>25219529
No you're not. You're just brainwashed. I'll teach you some language right now to prove you can learn languages. Yiddish is written from right to left.

ש = "sh"

י = "i"

ף = "f"

שיף = "shif" = ship

>>25219541
>essential to being educated.
It is though. Learning languages has been integral to every educational system in world history. except america in current year (which produces only retards)

>>25219532
fuck off

>>25219544
Thank you anon. I’m not that guy you’re responding to but I like to see this. I know nothing about Yiddish, is f always p?

>>25219508
>Learning languages has nothing to do with academia
Learning languages to read prose does and as I stated, once academia lost its lustre, people on /lit/ stopped learning languages just to read books in their original tongue.
>Most people haven't even realized that. But even when someone does realize it, the idea that you would lose interest in being an autodidact because of it is false
They have. The autodidact of ten and twenty years ago who has taught himself classical Greek and Latin doesn't exist. You will find more people teaching themselves Japanese to read loli hentai doujins then you will find people teaching themselves a language just to read books because they realised only academics "need" to do that and that academics are fags.

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>>25219560
I don't know much about Yiddish, but it's closely related to German, and the f sound in German/Yiddish corresponding to the p sound in English is indeed a very common thing, picrel is from the book German for Reading by Karl Sandberg. It is related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift.

>>25219562
That only says something about how retarded people here are, not about languages or about learning.

I've picked up and dropped French several times. The main hurdle is I simply don't want to speak it and can't hear it for shit through that accent. Just want to read it, but then I feel information is lost unless you learn it holistically. The tones, ironies, colloquialisms, etc. are hard to pick up in full force unless you're deep in the context of the language, as it is used by people that use it to communicate it every day. Modern French culture is mostly trash just like all the other Americanised economies.

>>25219573
>The tones, ironies, colloquialisms, etc. are hard to pick up in full force unless you're deep in the context of the language
Not really. You dont need to study any of this if you just want to read. It's not that deep. Just study vocabulary and grammar. It's not some mystical experience.

>>25219348
>I'd rather read something new
No surprise that a coombrained incurious utilitarian doesn't want to "waste time" learning languages, and instead plays games and watches movies, ironically. Only someone who never learned a single word of another language thinks learning languages is just copypasting English and hence "nothing new". It's really telling that someone who considers languages a waste of time would not consider video games and movies a waste of time. Thanks again for proving that you can be a college graduate and yet be utterly uneducated in the current year. I thought studying law required some amount of the Trivium, ie classical education, but clearly not.

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>Those fucking kikes. Thank God I'm a based and redpilled 4channer. The good side will win.

>>25219546
Yeah because those older systems were typically controlled by religious institutions that tried to sacralise single languages like Latin, Sanskrit, or Arabic. The medievals and moderns who learned Latin did so because Latin was an arbitrary barrier put up by the schooling system, not because it was necessary in order to understand things.
They didn't have resources like textual criticism, linguistics, or access to a global publishing industry. If a modern academic translation exists for a work then learning the original language is a complete waste of time unless you're doing postgraduate level research on it.
Pseuds who insist on never reading translations are not only full of shit about the nature of translations, but they don't even master the languages they learn just to read works. They have worse language skills than a 13 year old native yet they pretend they understand Dante or Aristotle better than a modern academic translation would allow. It's a preposterous claim.

>>25219588
>The medievals and moderns who learned Latin did so because Latin was an arbitrary barrier put up by the schooling system, not because it was necessary in order to understand things.
Oh, so why did they learn Greek ...?

>>25219575
>it's not deep or mystical
then my English translation will do just fine! insecurities aside, i did find it fufilling, informative and invigorating. how do i reconcile my enjoyment of french language and authors with my detestment of their people?

>>25219523
>>25219582
>I’m smart and belong here!
Kill yourself

>>25219595
What is wrong with French people? lets get past this meme please.

>>25219590
Same reason, the schooling system privileged the language because it pushed an antiquarian attitude. It lacked both the motive and resources for good translation.

>>25219603
>the schooling system privileged the language because it pushed an antiquarian attitude
tautology. youre not saying nothing

>>25219588
The American all-or-nothing mentality yet again. You really are brainwashed. Again, just the common equivocation of "learning" and "mastering" alone tells you everything about English monolingualism. The contrast to being content with reading nothing but English translations isn't to be a master in every language, it's to be learning anything at all in any language at all besides English. Learning languages is a waste of time, and yet you play video games, watch movies and coom, typical American mentality, utterly incurious, utterly utilitarian. You have never learned one single word of a language other than English and yet you speak about learning languages.

>>25219602
I've had bad experiences. I dislike their cold breakfasts, their tacky opulence, how they sit at their cafes, their reverence for 'urban culture'. I'm just not interested in stucco woggery.

>>25219595
>then my English translation will do just fine!
NTA but false equivalence, just because learning to read any amount of another language isn't as momentous a task as you make it out to be, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. American all-or-nothing mentality once again.
>how do i reconcile my enjoyment of french language and authors with my detestment of their people?
There's no such thing as your language or my language or their language. Also, grow up. You're probably the same guy who told me to grow up.

>>25219597
fuck off

This is a thread about reading works in their original not just general enrichment so yeah you kind of do have to master it...I'm not American

>>25217567
Getting more out of original languages requires a familiarity with them you need fluency to attain. Getting fluent in multiple languages is really hard, especially once you’re an adult (language learning is heavily gated).
I’m fluent in two languages and I have reading and writing in an additional two. Even with German as my third language I’d hesitate to tackle dense literature thinking I can squeeze more out of it than a translation could.
Mind you this whole argument treats all translations as equally good which is clearly untrue.

i just never had the opportunity to learn a language in my life and at this point there's nothing I can do to change that

Whys that guy being so mean completely unprovoked

>>25217567
because the only other language I am fluent in is Spanish and I think it fucking sucks. i don't even read them in translation and I'd rather forget the language entirely

>>25219636
English makes him seethe because he was fixed to learn the lingua franca at a young age. And now, he thinks that’s earned him the right to talk down to people despite very likely only knowing his own language and English.

>>25219648
Don't respond to me if you're just going to continue this stupid eye for an eye shit by insulting him back.

>>25219652
You wanted an answer, anon. That’s my answer.

>>25219657
You're immature

>>25219658
I know :)

>>25219603
English and Attic Greek/Latin are totally different tiers of languages. The former are classical languages, the latter is a vernacular/vulgar language. You can't translate directly from Attic Greek or Latin to English and lose nothing in the process. Just three examples of this.

1) "in singula generum" vs "in genera singulorum"

https://archive.org/details/logicorrightuseo00watt/page/119

2) ἐνέργεια vs ἔργον

https://archive.org/details/euclidhismodernr00carr/page/7

3) This annotated translation of Euclid's Elements, a very large part of the annotations by Thomas Heath is just explaining why he chose a certain phrasing in English and what the original Greek is saying or means.

https://archive.org/details/euclid_heath_2nd_ed/1_euclid_heath_2nd_ed/page/n254

>>25217567
Why is it always in one direction? Nobody would give shit to a French guy who only reads translations into French because that's what he's confident in but being a functionally monolingual English speaker just pisses people off for no reason

>>25219663
Which is former and which is latter?

>>25219621
There are private languages just as there are private contexts. Regardless, one doesn't learn a language in a vacuum. It's not rigidly codified, digitalised, especially in something as equivocal as literature. It is not completely (ie. 'all-or-nothing) tied up in culture and people (their language) but it still has plenty of traces of it, and when learning it you tend to cross paths with people/culture more often than not. I'll choose to learn it or not as my taste and interest dictates. I never claimed it wasn't worthwhile.

>>25219624
No. The topic is "being content with reading only English translations". NOT BEING CONTENT with reading ONLY English translations is not the same thing as mastering all other languages, or being able to read the original of every other language without any aids; it is the same thing as STRIVING TO read ANY amount of text in any other language than English. Do you even know how easy it is to read the original of Kafkas's Die Verwandlung or Wittgenstein's Philosophische Untersuchungen in 2026 with all of the tools you have at your disposal for free online? You don't have to be fluent in German to learn to read, with the help of online tools:

>Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. Er lag auf seinem panzerartig harten Rücken und sah, wenn er den Kopf ein wenig hob, seinen gewölbten, braunen, von bogenförmigen Versteifungen geteilten Bauch, auf dessen Höhe sich die Bettdecke, zum gänzlichen Niedergleiten bereit, kaum noch erhalten konnte.

>>25219620
faggot

>>25219686
I'm sorry but I don't follow

>>25219627
learned helplessness from public school

>>25219582
>>25219571
Bahaha you absolute seething retards! Neither of you contribute whatsoever to society and of course you will dwell within your basements, writhing in filth, telling me that the pursuit for truth stems from learning languages! My question is what do you do in your spare time upon handling oral submissions after a long day? What will you ever do that will amount to this level of stress! Nothing, because you are not men of action, but passive parasites sucking and spreading what - your toxin? I never belittled learning another language nor did I ever consider it a waste of time, but I shall mock you retards. I won't be even here to read or respond to your foolishness tomorrow! I'll enjoy the challenge involved in appearing in Court doing something and not being some passive and pathetic parasite getting all defensive about learning a language. Kys retards + I'll enjoy rewatching Ingmar Spergman's Winter Light tomorrow evening with SUBTITLES!

>>25219693
I didn't go to public school

>>25219636
Losing my patience with people who imply that learning languages is a waste of time but playing video games isn't, etc. They really are beyond reasoning with.

>>25219648
No, I don't even count learning English as learning a language.

I've never really been able to find a language i really want to learn to push me through. I've tried before but I just lose interest. I'm not xenophobic like others here but I've just never had a reason

>>25219700
Nobody is implying that nor did they say they play video games in the same breath. These are just kind of assumptions you're making to piss yourself off over nothing

>>25219668
Sorry, I mixed it up. Attic Greek and Latin are classical languages, English is a vernacular/vulgar language.

>>25219706
Sorry for my vulgar language but its all I have. I'm already an expert at making myself feel like shit over my failures I don't see why you all have to twist the knife

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>>25219664
Naturally there are zero monolingual French speakers on this website. There's your answer.

>>25219607
It's not a tautology. The entire attitude of medieval schooling was one of mere deduction from ancient texts. It took the scientific revolution to flip the script and emphasise original research.
>>25219611
I'm not american you subhuman brown faggot. And I learned Italian, but I didn't do so out of some retarded pseud posturing that translations are bad or that language learning is essential. Some people find it fun, but most don't and the average language learning enthusiast is too much of a narcissistic shithead to understand this.
It can provide insights but these are minimal and if you want to cultivate yourself into someone educated and refined you're far better off reading academic works already in English instead of learning foreign languages.
>>25219663
>lose nothing
So what? I didn't say translations are easy and perfect, I said that they're good enough and that it isn't worth the time investment to learn a language to fluency just to get that extra 1% out of a handful of texts.
Translations were good enough for Shakespeare, Kant, Goethe, Cervantes, Pushkin, Hegel, Leibniz, and so on. They're good enough for you and for anyone.

>>25219664
Because brownoids seethe about English. They hate that they're 'forced' to learn it, even though they learn it because they engage with English media and if their shithole countries made their own decent media they wouldn't have learnt it.

>>25219731
language learning hobbyists are as bad as gym guys when it comes to forcing their hobby on others as a mandatory life skill its never enough for either of them and you have to follow the latest trends in their little circles.

>>25219740
Well if this thread is anything to go by, they’re pretty immature and smug, when they don’t really have much right to be. In my opinion, English is a richer language than whatever their own is. Take Hegel and Goethe for example. They valued Shakespeare higher than most artists, and they’re German. But actually no English isn’t a real language because some brown midwits on 4chan said so, okay? And as >>25219731 said, they probably hate English because they sort of had to learn it, poor them I guess.

>>25219731
Id like to learn Italian, if only for Dante. I’m not in any rush but tell me, if you’ve read him in his original language, how does it compare to the best translations?
Oh, you bodied those pseuds by the way.

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>>25219671
Nobody owns language, therefore there is no such thing as your language or my language, language is ideas, nobody owns ideas. You don't have those thoughts about a book in Greek from 2500 years ago. But German 50 years ago is not German today, German 50 years ago is a dead language.

You haven't learned any amount at all of any language other than English. Once you begin learning a language you begin to see that there is no such thing as your language or my language, because language is ideas and nobody owns ideas. For this effect modern languages are probably more powerful than classical languages. All languages are like musical notation, the music itself and like mathematical notation. Nobody thinks of musical notation as being an Italian thing for example, but rather as something universal. Nobody who listens to Mozart thinks of it as an Austrian thing, because it's not. Nobody writing a Euclidean proof thinks of it as a Greek thing because it's not. Likewise French and German aren't French and German.

Ideas are composed of stuff which is universal to the human mind. In picrel you have the archaic form "ward" of modern German "wurde". The relationship a present-day native German speaker has to the now obsolete "ward" is similar to the relationship a non-German has to "wurde" or any word considered part of the current German language.

It's just very intellectually stimulating and rewarding to learn languages, the classical education and the traditional liberal arts were totally centered on learning language, but the utilitarian mindset is egocentric and power-centered and the polar opposite of intellectual curiosity and learning. Public schooling is largely responsible. On the flip side the most efficient antidote is learning languages.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35556004861829

https://archive.org/details/progressivegerma00adle

The liberal education has since the 19th century been reserved for less than one percent of the population, this is the education that liberates you, the rest, over 99% are brainwashed into a utilitarian mindset by a utilitarian education, which is the opposite of a liberal education. See pic here >>25219523

>"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."
-Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, in a speech to businessmen, and from an address to The New York City High School Teachers Association, Jan. 9th, 1909.
https://www.zhibit.org/diemythographer/die-mythographer-die/occasional-letter-number-one-2006

>>25219695
>>25219704
fuck off

>>25219697
You weren't classically educated, that's what matters. It's all the same shit, charter school, Waldorf, Montessori, homeschooling etc. There is the classical education—reserved for less than one percent of the population in the West—and the rest.

>>25219697
Also, charter schools are public schools.

>>25219731
>learn a language to fluency
I said nothing anywhere about learning a language to fluency. Literally in the very post you replied to, and in this post >>25219686, among others, I explained it:
>just the common equivocation of "learning" and "mastering" alone tells you everything about English monolingualism. The contrast to being content with reading nothing but English translations isn't to be a master in every language, it's to be learning anything at all in any language at all besides English.

>>25219736
As I said earlier, learning English for an ESL doesn't count as learning a language, for the purposes of this discussion. Anyone who only knows and uses their native language and English is equivalent to a native English speaker who only knows and uses English, for the purposes of this discussion.

>>25219702
yeah because you're utilitarian, ie incurious

>>25219803
I didn't go to charter school either

>>25219711
>its all I have.
How many fucking times do I have to explain that mastering is not learning, fuckwits.

>>25219818
Well I disagree there.

>>25219784
>there is no your language or my language
Thats depressing. What a cold way to think

>>25219823
either way english is all i have, sorry.

>>25219784
>Italian thing for example, but rather as something universal. Nobody who listens to Mozart thinks of it as an Austrian thing, because it's not. Nobody writing a Euclidean proof thinks of it as a Greek thing because it's not
?

>>25219820
Again, you weren't classically educated. That's all that matters.

>>25219832
still not getting my point fuckwit

>>25219851
Least I learned enough to not be so rude to people

>>25219840
?

>>25219857
yeah well english is the only language ive managed to learn sorry

>>25219840
That part of his post is bizarre.

>>25219771
English being this or that is really besides the point, reading Shakespeare in the original is also irrelevant, the topic is being content with reading nothing but English translations, never ever learning a single word of any language other than English, that's coombrained incurious utilitarian fuckwits like you. There's no such thing as your language or my language. English is not your language. German is not "not your language". The attitude that because you grew up speaking one language that's "your language" and all other languages are utterly uninteresting is the polar opposite of the educated or cultured mind.

>>25219880
I'm sorry but you may be so enlightened that you will never be able to think or hold a logical throughline that human beings can share with you.

>>25219880
i don't mean this as an insult but i genuinely think this is an esl issue on you part especially the whole "not your language not not your language" thing. its badly affecting what you're trying to say and feels incomprehensible

>>25219880
Identify English as my language doesn't mean I think all other languages are uninteresting. That is badly disingenuous.

>>25219863
So? Again, mastering is not learning, retards equivocate the two. You can learn some German right now with for example
https://archive.org/details/progressivegerma00adle
or
https://archive.org/details/interlinear-german-reading-book-hahn-thimm-1901-marlborough
or
https://annas-archive.gl/md5/4402dfb824853ccf06d456a09cc8f009
or
https://annas-archive.gl/md5/d041c9cfe501cacecdac11cdc3af46b3
or some French with for example
https://archive.org/details/childsillustrate00keet
or
https://archive.org/details/tudeprogressiv00steruoft
or
https://annas-archive.gl/md5/98ae65df102363389e715697b2832775
or
https://archive.org/details/progressivepro00coll
or
https://archive.org/details/selectionofonehu00perr/page/1

>>25219859
>oh no, he said I'm not classically educated, rude
kys faggot

>>25219918
im not sure why you keep bringing up mastering when i never did
listen, english is all i know and i feel bad for that every day

>>25219924
kys fucking retard

>>25219923
Didn't you just prove me right though

>>25219863
Look, I find him pretty annoying too but do try to listen to what he’s saying you fucking bozo. Though >>25219918 you oughta not force it down his throat if he doesn’t want to learn. Maybe he has no desire to even look at those links you sent.

>>25219927
no, all you've said has proven me right that you're a retarded faggot/woman, fuck off

>>25219927
Most people aren’t, anon. You would have had to have been quite privileged as a child to attend any schools that have that on its curriculum.

>>25219934
it costs nothing to be kind

>>25219939
You’re on /lit/, everyone insults each other’s intelligence. get used to it

>>25219939
I have no interest in being nor any obligation to be kind to incurious utilitarian coombrains. Go back to your circlejerk faggot, or address my fucking points.

>>25219954
Well I'm not incurious or utilitarian and I don't masturbate or play video games. I also am not monolingual. This is why I said you were making assumptions that just pass yourself off earlier.

>>25219954
You love using that don’t you? You seem to misunderstand some English too, when I say “my language” it’s not really an attitude that implies anything but it’s shorter than saying it’s the language I grew up with, you seem to be twisting the meaning yourself to cause yourself more anger. Calm down, you just keep making random assumptions, stop acting so immature, it’s clear you’re just looking to argue and seethe for little reason.

I am not content with translations, I’m terrible at German and yet I still learnt some so I could enjoy some Goethe. I’ll need to learn much more before I can read something like Faust. I think mastering the language though, as opposed to just learning it, pushes you further into the mind of the one you’re reading, where a sort of nebulous understanding of the language can leave many things unknown to you. So it’s more often than not people compromise with translations; you may call them incurious coombrains or whatever but whos to say their curiosity doesn’t lie elsewhere? I know you’re probably gonna state how many academic endeavours pertain to language, and you’re right, but not everything. What are you fluent in by the way?

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>>25219866
You're just retards. The G-clef sign, the half-note sign etc, this system of notation was invented in Italy. That doesn't mean it's Italian or that people with Italian genetics can say it's theirs. Likewise a Greek person who thinks of Plato, Aristotle and Socrates as "his heritage" is a retard, and an Austrian who feels pride when he hears Mozart being played on the radio is a retard. It's called the liberal arts because it liberates the mind (the classical seven liberal arts, which has nothing to do with a modern "liberal arts" education), because everything is free and unbounded in the spirit realm. There's no such thing as yours and mine in the realm of ideas, and this is the realm language is in. Language and its inner workings was at the absolute center of a liberal or classical education.

>>25219985
Then you can be happy that nobody thinks like you. You should write a book with your novel ideas.

>>25219968
>>25219975
You're the immature ones, as well as the uncultured ones. Don't be offended if it doesn't apply to you, fuckfaces. I'm not quoting or paraphrasing anyone when I say "my language", I'm using my own terms, talking about the attitude people have about language, and religion, and ideas in general. You are utilitarian because you can't grasp this. When Aristotle said "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." he was talking about people like you, brainwashed by a utilitarian "education", as opposed to the less than one percent in the West today who have a liberal education.

>>25219995
Then you're arguing with people who just are not here.

>>25219995
You should probably define your terms then. And your thought was entertained and it was unaccepted. You are difficult to understand because of your lack of fluency in English.

>>25220001
No, fuckface, you're the one jumping to conclusions when assuming that I'm quoting or paraphrasing anyone, let alone you personally, fucking retarded faggot. And I didn't mean anything about directly entertaining any particular idea talked about in this thread, I mean more generally, the quote is not about entertaining one particular idea, but about the liberated mind, able to deal with ideas detached from any notions of belonging to one person or another. You're all fucking retarded, keep reading nothing but translations, it's a fit for you.

>>25219995
Anon, you didn’t even read my post and just pointed out where I said you’re immature, which you haven’t done a very good job in defending. You’re such a unique thinker to not adhere to commonly used phrases such as “my language”. Fine, if you’re going to be pedantic, let’s say “native tongue”. Now listen, we’re past that, I’m not acting with hostility, and you’d do well to act in the same manner, unless you really do insist on continuing your whining and insulting. You should also work on your reading comprehension.
Aristotle never said that by the way, looks like the internet fed you lies and you willingly ate it up. You’re starting to look retarded.

>>25219348
>the last thing I really want is to get home to "learn a language"
Yeah because you're an incurious utilitarian. You haven't learned a single word of any language other than English, and are brainwashed, if you think learning a language is not "reading something new" and are contrasting this to supposedly cultured film. Maybe try to actually learn a language before you speak about it. But the fact you choose to play games says everything about you.
>large commitment
Fucking retard. Again equivocating learning and mastering. Learning is a process.

>>25220013
fuck off retarded faggot, I'm not interested in talking to you

>>25219523
>>25219582
>>25220038
What the fuck is wrong with you? Is this a bot?

>>25219695
>>25220038
go back to your rat race, faggot

>>25217567
English is the superior tongue of civilization and empire. Why would I learn the languages of slaves?

>>25219472
Either you‘re implying that translated poetry is remotely viable or that nonfiction doesn‘t depend more than anything on the precise connotations of the author‘s word choices. No historian or philosophic academician would be caught dead relying on a translation of their source material.

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>>25219695
Also, I should add that I'm not a neet, I work full time, and I still learn languages in my spare time. Learning to read a fable in French, German, Italian or Latin is way more intellectually stimulating than anything you do in your spare time.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044086632940&seq=149
https://archive.org/details/progressivepro00coll
https://archive.org/details/selectionofonehu00perr/page/1
https://annas-archive.gl/md5/4402dfb824853ccf06d456a09cc8f009

>>25219784
this is fables too

>>25219731
>. It took the scientific revolution to flip the script and emphasise original research.
They still learned Latin and Greek past the scientitic revolution you retard

>>25219620
Tacky opulence? Are you referring to architecture, such as Versailles?
Also, cold breakfast?

I don't see how despising contemporary French people has anything to do with enjoying French literature.

>>25219695
Lined Mr. Shekelberg‘s pockets award

Great movie though

>>25219736
>english language media is decent

>>25220417
yup, the majority dropped the soisphere for KAWAIII DESU kino. suicide by karen. hate to see it.

>>25220098
no one is more enslaved than incurious utilitarians such as yourself

>>25217567
If it can't be said in English , it doesn't matter.

>>25220252
As I've pointed out, those cultural aspects make it difficult to learn the language. I love French literature. I'm trying to say they're two different, separate experiences.

>>25219784
So you're saying ideas are eternal. Therefore, I should be able to infer them from whichever language I see fit.

Now who's the all-or-nothing ideologue? I've learned a heap of French, I can read I'd say over 50%, but no I cannot read and comprehend an entire novel (yet). Don't know if you're confusing me with others ITT, I never claimed it was a waste of time.

>>25219814
If you're not fluent then you're not getting any more out of the text than a translation.

>>25220181
>cultural changes take time
Yeah no shit retard

>>25221235
400 years since the scientific revolution and every successful education system still prioritizes foreign language instruction. the only places where you won't see it are shitholes like American public schooling. if you're low IQ don't drag the rest of us down with you.

>>25219781
That depends how much you like Italian aesthetically relative to English. In terms of content the best translations are fine. Imo the main advantage is the cultural insight for the development of standard italian itself, and a few others like Goldoni are also part of that conversation. Much like Shakespeare for English.

>>25221243
The only education systems that emphasise it do so to learn English, because it is the lingua franca of education. Nobody is learning anything else except as a niche interest. Keep seething brownoid.

>>25221262
>The only education systems that emphasise it do so to learn English
In Netherlands, Germany, Italy, etc. the smart kids start learning latin and greek around middle school. the retards such as yourself just learn english plus another foreign language.

I am content because it is what it is and out of my control. Close enough is good enough, I love reading translated texts, and I'm ok with dying only having read translations

I can't learn ancient Greek or Latin because I have too many games in my backlog to beat. Its not like literature really is that great a medium once you've read 200 or so classics and every major philosophical work in the west (which honestly should just consist of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein). However I do enjoy scouring through math textbooks in my spare time which is probably a lot more intellectually demanding than learning a language.

I'm not. Not since I've read Woolf's "On not knowing Greek".

>>25220648
incurious utilitarian coombrain

>>25221243
>>25221262
Schooling doesn't exist to enlighten or educate people, that's where you both have a faulty premise. The entire purpose of the Prussian education system, which is the one we have, is to dumb down over 99 percent of the population while giving less than one percent of the population an actual education, a classical education, and that involves reading Latin and Greek.

>>25221278
>it is what it is and out of my control
There is such a thing as learning. Alien concept to retarded uncultured incurious utilitarian coombrains (Americans) such as yourself, I know.

>>25221614
Might makes right. And I would smash your skull all over the pavement with my steel toed boots if you ever spoke to me like that in real life. Let me ask you, why do you care what other people refuse to learn or not to learn? Get over yourself. You’re an incurious ESL faggot (your English is awful by the way so do try to get better at it before you bash it) troll who doesn’t realise there is much more to learn that doesn’t pertain strictly to learning other languages you fucking tard. Kys.

>>25217645
Wrong. Learning otheoir laungeges depletes the powere ones own tong. Read this verey post. This hapened after one singleday french lerning.

>>25221610
>giving less than one percent of the population an actual education, a classical education, and that involves reading Latin and Greek.
You're speaking from American assumptions. In Germany, the Gymnasiums teach Latin and Greek. According to Wikipedia, 28% of students are in Gymnasiums.

>>25221641
>Might makes right.
What's your point?
>Get over yourself.
What does "yourself" have to do with anything?
What do you mean by "it is what it is and out of my control"?

>>25221662
Schools all over the West serve no other purpose than to dumb people down, regardless of what's in their curriculum. A "successful education system" is one that is successful at dumbing down the pupils, because that's its only purpose. The premise of your previous discussion was wrong. If they have a tiny bit of Latin and Greek in the curriculum it's to instill aversion to learning these languages later in life.

>>25221670
>Schools all over the West serve no other purpose than to dumb people down
You didn't know public schools across Western Europe still teach Latin and Greek so I'm going to assume you're not in any position to make sweeping judgments about the educational systems of about 40 distinct countries.

>>25221675
>You didn't know public schools across Western Europe still teach Latin and Greek
Faulty inference. I didn't say nor imply that. I did know that. I'm still of the opinion that schooling all over the West since the introduction of the Prussian education system in the 19th century has served no other purpose than to dumb down and enslave over 99 percent of the population while giving less than one percent an actual education. Many people are like yourself deep in the brainwashing and haven't been redpilled on education.

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Imagine being American. Proud of your ignorance and incuriosity. Pathetic people, utilitarian, uncultured, uneducated, only think of language in terms of power, who needs to learn what and who doesn't need to learn what for practical purposes, for utility. Refuse to learn out of pride and ego. I assume that's what the poster above meant by "might is right", because it's a common view of languages. That's what I've been trying to explain in this thread, that there are two types of learning, which are polar opposites, mutually exclusive:
• learning for utility (for practical purposes, because you need it)
• learning for intellectual cultivation
I've also tried to explain that language is in the realm of ideas, and that there's no such thing as yours and mine in the realm of ideas, there's no such thing as your language or my language. An actual education, a classical education, is about moving your mind from the mundane egocentric power-centered realm where everything is about utility and politics and might is right into this realm of pure ideas where everything is free and unbounded, that's what "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." is about. That's why a classical education is also called "a liberal education" or "the seven liberal arts", because it liberates the mind.

>"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."
-Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, in a speech to businessmen, and from an address to The New York City High School Teachers Association, Jan. 9th, 1909.
https://www.zhibit.org/diemythographer/die-mythographer-die/occasional-letter-number-one-2006

>>25221693
Wow! An aristocrat!

I'm sorry but there are 'my language's and 'their language's. To say otherwise is to deny difference in the Other and to propagate the world's stunting into monoculture.

>>25221726
No, you don't own "your language". You may think you do, but that's just delusion. Likewise no language is not your language. As I explained earlier language is like music and mathematics. Nobody owns the concept of an equilateral triangle. Mozart was Austrian, but his music isn't Austrian, Austrians can't say that Mozart is their music or their heritage, if they do they're delusional. Austria hatched the ideas of Mozart's music, but once he had written the score it was out in the ether, free for anyone to enjoy or use. Nobody owns the idea of staccato and legato, nobody is going to arrest you for playing a piece of music in staccato and then in legato on a piano, because these are ideas. If you teach yourself to read a fable in German, which is very easy to do, then that piece of German is in your mind now, it's yours. When a native German speaker in 2026 reads Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s fable "The Donkey and the Wolf" from 1759 and sees the archaic word "ward" which in modern German is "wurde", he's looking at a dead language which is no more his than it's yours or anyone's, and the same applies to any language, current or past. You can adopt an idea, you can discard an idea, but you can't own an idea. Speakers of a current language aren't actually changing the ideas themselves, as in reshaping them, they're simply swapping them, discarding one and adopting another, as language evolves. And an idea previously held but now discarded still exists, and you're free to hold an idea in your mind whether it's held by others or not, whether it's discarded or not, and regardless of at which point in time it was held as the right one.

>>25221610
Latin and Greek has nothing that isn't surpassed by what's in English or even German, and it also has nothing noteworthy that isn't translated. A classical education is a circlejerk meme, you're literally advocating middle ages propaganda.

>>25219459
Saaar

>>25221759
said someone who hasn't learned one word of Latin, Greek and German in his life

>Latin and Greek has
ESL, yet as dumb as an American, how does this happen?

>A classical education is a circlejerk meme
kys, ignorant brainlet

>>25221817
high quality discussion, literally nobody has made any effortposts in this thread except me

μωροὶ παῖδες ἐν συμποσίῳ
>>25221829
Even you. You’re talking to the wind, anon. Repeating yourself isn’t going to get you anywhere with people who aren’t willing to listen in the first place.

>>25221743
You're speaking of ideas and concepts but not of language itself. Maybe you're talking about the structure of language, that it has a rigid codified exchangeability of value. If this is true then English is as good as any for recognising ideas and disseminating them. The only information outside of this would be of a more sensuous nature, where there are nuances and histories and secrets in the language. Shifts and tricks and tones. Isolated, private pockets. Yet, you're not advocating this aspect of language as a reason to learn it, strangely. That would be learning language for language's sake. Instead, you give us 'intellectual cultivation' as the motivator. How is that not ego-driven, desire-driven, utile towards the end of self-improvement and empowerment? You've got yourself caught in an odd tautology.