Fiction involving language learning

[Elsa Maria]

This one is about translating, not language learning, but it is a good book for language lovers!

I recently read Translation is A Love Affair by Jacques Poulin. I read it in English, but maybe you could read it in the original French.

It is about the friendship between a novelist and his translator. It is a lovely little gem of a book and takes place in Quebec.

[IronMike]

I seem to recall Umberto Eco's excellent Bardolino had a linguistic take. Been a looooong time since I read it, so maybe I'm mis-remembering.

Edit to add that I just read Mortal Engines and the airship pilots all speak "Airsperanto." (I listened to it in Audible so unsure how the author spelled it.)

[sjintje]

... maybe you could read it in the original French.

Sa traductrice, la jeune Marine, est une Irlandaise aux cheveux roux et aux yeux verts...

I think we know where this is going...

Entre ces deux personnages se tisse une relation amoureuse et ...

[lavengro]

... maybe you could read it in the original French.

Sa traductrice, la jeune Marine, est une Irlandaise aux cheveux roux et aux yeux verts...

I think we know where this is going...

Entre ces deux personnages se tisse une relation amoureuse et ...

Sounds saucy! I'm in.

[Elsa Maria]

I don't know any French, so I had to rely on Google Translate for the above posts, but the Poulin novel is a friendship novel, not a romance. It is a rather sauce-free book, if I recall correctly Speaking for the English version only, of course!!

[badger]

in the children's book "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit", the main character, a German Jewish girl of about eight, who flees the Nazis to France with her family, narrates her struggle to learn French, although it's obviously by no means the main subject of the book.

it's probably nearly 40 years since I read it & I'm not sure I could tell you much else about it, but there's a section where she's talking about having a thought pop into her head in French - just something mundane like "I'm going to go to school now" - without her having to think it in German first, for the first time, & that bit has just stuck with me for some reason.

[Doitsujin]

IMHO, Robert Sheckley's short story One Man's Poison, which can be read online or downloaded from Project Gutenberg, fits the bill. (In it two explorers need to quickly figure out an alien language, or they'll starve to death.)