Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

General discussion about learning languages
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RyanSmallwood
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Sun Sep 05, 2021 12:11 pm

einzelne wrote:Ex: I had been entertaining the idea of learning Greek for a while and even dabbled with it. But then I realized that in 1000h I need to invest to read, say, Aristotle in the original (it's a very optimistic estimate btw), I can read 100 books about him in all the languages I know (it's a very pessimistic estimate, because when it comes to secondary literature, I read it quite fast). What would make me a better connoisseur of Ancient Greek culture? 1000h of cramming Greek morphology and vocabulary, or 1000h of reading books on Ancient Greece in the languages I already know (which, incidentally, would improve them significantly) and investing my cognitive faculties in pondering about philosophical ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics in the translation while consulting the comments by the brightest minds in the field (which you have to do anyways, if you want to understand them)?
(But then, don't hesitate to satisfy your wanderlust and dabble with a language a little.)


Actually although Aristotle's writings are very abstract and complex to digest, in terms of language level he's often expresses things in a fairly simple and straightforward way, and because of how much influence he's had on other writers, a lot of his key vocabulary has become common in English. I've seen a few translations though that make his writings more difficult than they are in the original. Personally I dabbled in Ancient and Modern Greek for some months and I found Aristotle more accessible than some of the later lessons of Assimil, and the additional repetition makes it easier to absorb. (The New Testament also has some easy books, like the Gospel of John, though I realize not everyone maybe interested in it).

This is another reason why I find Listening-Reading so useful, because I don't know if I'll ever find the hours to get to the point where I can read a new ancient greek text unassisted, but as a beginner I can read the texts in translation while also hearing them in the original and getting some better sense of them and picking up some greek knowledge in passing. Sources of reconstructed ancient greek audio are limited, so I can only use it on a handful of texts (and modern greek also has fairly limited selection, but it provides some additional options for vocab), I dunno if I'll take it to a high level, and I'd probably just read in translation any text I don't have audio for. But anything I read in translation will be easier to try to re-read in the original in the future, and more people may be doing audio recordings so we'll see where I end up depending on where my time goes.

So I'd say I currently don't have any realistic plans to "study" Greek in the sense of getting my raw Greek comprehension to a high level, but there's definitely opportunities for me to get a bit of Greek while pursuring my interest in literature.
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby einzelne » Sun Sep 05, 2021 1:29 pm

RyanSmallwood wrote:Actually although Aristotle's writings are very abstract and complex to digest, in terms of language level he's often expresses things in a fairly simple and straightforward way


I know:) That's why I always start with books on philosophy and physics, when I start reading unadapted books. Metaphysics, for instance, has only around 3k words. Spinoza's Ethics has even less 2200. I think could read Sartre's Being and Nothingness after a year of French, while his novels still require consulting the dictionary.

The question is, as always, free time. And if I don't have it to read Aristotle even in translation... well, knowing that he is not that difficult in the original in terms of language doesn't help much.
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby Le Baron » Sun Sep 05, 2021 3:18 pm

einzelne wrote:I think could read Sartre's Being and Nothingness after a year of French, while his novels still require consulting the dictionary.

Really? Being & Nothingness follows Heidegger's (and all the phenomenologists') example of using ordinary words with extended 'meta-meanings' that aren't apparent or fully explained. It is also very vague in meaning.

What, after all, does this famous passage really mean? :
"Le néant ne peut se néantiser que sur fond d'être : si du néant peut être donné, ce n'est ni avant ni après l'être, ni, d'une manière générale, en dehors de l'être, mais c'est au sein même de l'être, en son cœur, comme un ver."

(Nothingness can only be nihilated [or negated] against a background of being; if nothingness can be given, it is neither before nor after being, nor, in any general way, outside of being, but it is is at the very heart of being, in its heart, like a worm.)

In 50 or so words he says that you can only conceive of the idea of 'nothing' when you have 'something'. That's the real problem with this book and those 50 words are a tiny fraction of its '628 (670+ in the French) closely-printed pages'. In the passage above is the être of être donné the same sort of être as le 'fond d'être'?

I'm not judging your capacities, maybe you are very philosophically inclined, but this book is not made easier by its vocabulary (which imo is not suitable for anyone after a mere year of French!). It's the way the sentences are constructed and the meaning given to the words.
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby Iversen » Sun Sep 05, 2021 4:30 pm

einzelne wrote: I think could read Sartre's Being and Nothingness after a year of French, while his novels still require consulting the dictionary.
The question is, as always, free time.


Or maybe the question is ... why read Sartre at all ?
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby einzelne » Sun Sep 05, 2021 4:52 pm

Le Baron wrote:Really? Being & Nothingness follows Heidegger's (and all the phenomenologists') example of using ordinary words with extended 'meta-meanings' that aren't apparent or fully explained. It is also very vague in meaning.


I might not have been clear enough but I talked about linguistic difficulties only. I didn’t claim that it was easy for me to read it (I haven’t read the whole thing), let alone that I could understood everything.

I read it after having read Heidegger. It was years ago and, if you had some experience with reading philosophical texts, you know that it is useless to discuss quotes taken out of context.

From what I remember, I can only provide some general comments: “Le néant ne peut se néantiser” it’s a direct reference to the famous Heidegger’s dictum (Das Nichts selbst nichtet). And, I think Sartre, says a very simple thing: being and nothingness are not some abstract logical categories, as Hegel would claim it (see the opening of his Science of Logic). True, we cannot conceptually grasp the nothingness without falling pray of some logical paradoxes, but we can experience that (that’s why the chapter with this quote is titled The Phenomenological Notion of Nothingness -> it’s logic vs phenomenology as different philosophical methods to approach the world). For Heidegger, this experience is, of course, our feelings and emotions which rationalist thought notoriously denied the right of the source of knowledge (see his lecture What is Metaphysics?). That’s why he talks about anxiety, boredom as direct experience of nothingness which cannot be grasped in terms logical terms.

What’s Sartre is saying is pretty simple: nothingness is not some abstract notion to ponder about but rather something we can directly experience via our affectivity. So, being and nothingness are not two separate ontological domains, rather, nothingness is immanent to the structure of being (that’s why such abstract questions like "what was first - being or nothingness?" are futile and ill-formed). The worms which make holes in being are we ourselves, humans. Because we can negate certain thing, like, for instance the existing social order (negate -> we put nothingness into action). Here resided our freedom but also our emotional insecurity (again, talking about anxiety, fear, boredom, or procrastination -> these emotions constantly accompany our actions).
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby einzelne » Sun Sep 05, 2021 4:57 pm

Iversen wrote:Or maybe the question is ... why read Sartre at all ?


You had more than once expressed your contempt for philosophy, so no need to repeat it for the N-th time. I got your point.
Last edited by einzelne on Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby Le Baron » Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:12 pm

einzelne wrote:What’s Sartre is saying is pretty simple: nothingness is not some abstract notion to ponder about but rather something we can directly experience via our affectivity. .


It certainly is simple. Sorry to have trimmed the post so severely. I wrote an undergraduate thesis (I did the undergrad PPE course before specialising in economics) on hermeneutics + Sartre/Heidegger and though I don't think either of them are charlatans; I do think their manner of communication is long-winded and obscure for no good reason. Though it may be the Anglo-American audience which suffers from this the most.

With regard to reading however, the issue of word counts and a supposed reduced reading/understanding burden therefrom, is something I can't really agree with. One can create complication even with a limited vocabulary.
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby einzelne » Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:18 pm

Le Baron wrote:With regard to reading however, the issue of word counts and a supposed reduced reading/understanding burden therefrom, is something I can't really agree with. One can created complication even with a limited vocabulary.


I don't deny that. I'm just saying that difficulties are usually extra-linguistic.
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby Le Baron » Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:28 pm

einzelne wrote:I don't deny that. I'm just saying that difficulties are usually extra-linguistic.

Yes that's true. I would hope, however, that I can understand what I happen to be reading or it becomes very difficult to maintain momentum and uncomfortable !
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Re: Learners of multiple languages, when do you decide to stop learning a language(s) and move on to the next one?

Postby einzelne » Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:43 pm

Le Baron wrote:I would hope, however, that I can understand what I happen to be reading or it becomes very difficult to maintain momentum and uncomfortable !


Well, for me good reading always happens to be rereading. You don't read such books as fiction. Secondary literature can also help. But again, you need to have a genuine interest in philosophy. No need to use philosophical texts for learning purposes only because they happen to have a limited vocabulary.
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