The Untranslated -- Language learning to read untranslated literature

[zgriptsuroica]

An awesome blog, thanks!

I have had an opportunity to get acquainted with the so-called online polyglot community, and came to the conclusion that although there are a lot of people who can read in multiple languages different translations of The Little Prince and the Harry Potter series or some popular science articles swamped with cognates, very few can boast of the ability to read fluently sophisticated literary fiction in more than five languages.

Well, this is the only tricky bit, I'd say. How many people actually read the highest and most sophisticated literary fiction even in one language? While it is a great achievement, to read the high literature in several languages, I think there is no need to look down upon reading the low literature (it is not just Harry Potter after all), or technical and scientific works. Actually, this "high literature is the only thing that matters" is actually one of the language teachers' mistakes, that discourages people from reading in general.

Also, the author is clearly in favour of intensive reading, not extensive. And I find it remarkable, and it goes well together with his job, education, and general reading style. Scholars simply read even their native language like that. That's one of the reasons why I hated the literature classes btw, not my cup of tea at all.

I love a lot about this blog, but it simply needs to be taken with a grain of salt like everything else. I hope I'll find someone blogging about reading scientific works in several languages. And history works, that might be the most fascinating field of them all, as far as differences between the works in various languages go!

I enjoy plenty of genre literature myself, but I think there's also a valid point to be had about online polyglot communities that call it a day with a language once they find themselves able to hold a conversation about routine topics and read books that are relatively simple in both stylistic and linguistic terms. Some people just chase numbers to be able to say they speak however many languages, getting several up to a low B1 language and never really developing a high degree of mastery in any one of them. A learner of all languages and master of none, as it were.

That said, an ability to read sophisticated literary works is only so useful as a proxy for overall competence in a given language. Within the Japanese learning community, for example, there's something of a stereotypical successful learner who manages to pass the N1 exam, can read difficult books full of obscure kanji with ease, yet would struggle to order a meal or write a book report on Clifford the Big Red Dog in Japanese, since the test doesn't have any components that test your ability to actually produce Japanese.

[Iversen]

Check out Iversen's log

His ...

This comes just after a reference to my log (separated by a 5 year lapse), so I just wanted to point out that lichtraus doesn't refer to me - I can't even read Latvian (yet). But that being said: there are several things in this old topic that still might warrent a comment

Point one: I do actually have an academical exam i 'Modern and comparative Literature', which is ironical since I hardly ever read literature - and I might be less citical of literature if I haven't had to listen to all that theoretical empty waffle. I did however get through a fair number of 'great' literature during that time, and afterwards too when I studied French (and a number of other languages). But as soon as I left the university I dropped literature. The last genres that still could captivate me were science fiction and fantasy - but the good sf and fantasy authors were pushed down into the depots by a wawe of third rate fantasy inspired by video games, and then I dropped those genres too. So what's wrong with mainstream literature about real living human beings? Well, to me it's the topic: human beings! And the people that write about them! The literary authors wallow in ugly deeds and nauseating romantic blabla and conflicts and disgusting characters .. and ... well, honestly isn't there enough of that in the real world? Why should I let evil authors disturb my peace of mind with their inventions? Or if everything is too damned sugarsweet: If I don't like TV advertisments why then should I read Barbara Cartland?

The trouble is that supposedly 'great' literary works also deal with those topics, and they deal with them in much the same way as the not quite as highly regarded works - too much psychology, conflicts for the sake of conflicts and descriptions of types I wouldn't want to see within a mile off my humble abode - so why read it? One reason could be an excellent treatment of language, and yes I do appreciate a rich, well modulated style with surprising turns strewn along the way - but less so if it is wasted on a disgusting plot. I have read tons of French poems earlier in my life and even translated a whole French poetry book into Danish (Gaspard de la Nuit), and I like the works of people like Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé because of the way they can churn up the French language so that I really have to think hard to get the message (same technique me and Dalì and Carrington and Freddie use in our paintings, by the way) - but if the message then just is the usual banal declaration of love it's like opening a box and find that it's 90% empty space. At least os Lusiadas tell me the history of Portugal and Völuspá the history of the world from A to Z.

Another consideration could be the historical significance of a work - like the Beowulf in Anglosaxon or Don Quijote by Cervantes in Spanish or La Divina Commeddia by Dante Alighieri in Tuscan Italian - works you feel you have to read because they have become iconic symbols of a whole culture (and all of which I have read in the original). I do acknowledge this argument, and you could say that it's for the same reason that I have visited physical places like Versailles or Pompei or Macchu Picchu. But then the question is: if cultural significance is the thing, why then haven't I ever watched a football match on Wembley or lined up with the mob along a Tour de France route? Well, because of the topic - I don't like sport. On the other hand: if I like a topic (like castles or zoos or libraries) then I don't care whether all the gurus in the world think I should see or visit something else. Some works are so famous that I do get curious to read or visit them, but not just because a clique of high-brow judges of taste think I ought to.

The final consideration is that I simply don't want to limit my linguistic horizon to just one or two languages. In principle you could find more than enough materials about Pterodactyls or Roman emperors or lucid dreams or Ivan Groznyj in English, but it would feel like living in a house where you only were allowed to stay in the kitchen (OK, two languages: add the loo). OK, you could survive, but that would be a lamentable existence, and it would be irritating to know that there also were a daily room and a bedchamber and a garden. I have to use translations if I want to read the Gilgamesh epos or Nestor's chronicle or a newspaper in Vietnamese, but it's not the same thing. And with poems translations are mostly not even worth checking out. The only exception I can remember where a translation could compete with the original was a Norwegian (!) translation of Valéry's Cimétière Marin, with rhymes and feet and all the other goodies preserved. Claimed translations which drop those things just show that their perpetrators weren't up to the task. But OK, I have read the Iliad and the Odyssé in a couple of languages, and my preferred Danish Iliad is still one that starts out "Vreden, Gudinde! besyng, som greb Peleiden Achilleus" (Wilster)". It has been translated later by others, but not with that same linguistic 'punch'. If you can't avoid using a translation - then at least choose one that has some purely linguistic qualities.

[jeffers]

I enjoy plenty of genre literature myself, but I think there's also a valid point to be had about online polyglot communities that call it a day with a language once they find themselves able to hold a conversation about routine topics and read books that are relatively simple in both stylistic and linguistic terms. Some people just chase numbers to be able to say they speak however many languages, getting several up to a low B1 language and never really developing a high degree of mastery in any one of them. A learner of all languages and master of none, as it were.

What point is there to be made? That people can study languages for whatever reasons they want to? or that people are wrong for not studying languages for the purpose someone else tells them to?

[lichtrausch]

Point one: I do actually have an academical exam i 'Modern and comparative Literature', which is ironical since I hardly ever read literature - and I might be less citical of literature if I haven't had to listen to all that theoretical empty waffle. I did however get through a fair number of 'great' literature during that time, and afterwards too when I studied French (and a number of other languages). But as soon as I left the university I dropped literature. The last genres that still could captivate me were science fiction and fantasy - but the good sf and fantasy authors were pushed down into the depots by a wawe of third rate fantasy inspired by video games, and then I dropped those genres too. So what's wrong with mainstream literature about real living human beings? Well, to me it's the topic: human beings! And the people that write about them! The literary authors wallow in ugly deeds and nauseating romantic babla and conflicts and disgusting characters .. and ... well, honestly isn't there enough of that in the real world? Why should I let evil authors disturb my peace of mind with their inventions? Or if everything is too damned sugarsweet: If I don't like TV advertisments why then should I read Barbara Cartland

Perhaps you are on the tail end of the people/things interest spectrum? That predisposition is more common among men, and also explains why females are way overrepresented among readers of fiction.

[Iversen]

Well spotted, lichtrausch. We can't all accumulate in one steaming pile of people huggers at the ultra-social end of the scale...

[Le Baron]

Well, to me it's the topic: human beings! And the people that write about them! The literary authors wallow in ugly deeds and nauseating romantic blabla and conflicts and disgusting characters .. and ... well, honestly isn't there enough of that in the real world?

Isn't that the point though? That literature is a mirror and examination of the real world? I would sooner say that fantasy and sci-fi is more divorced from the actual doings of human life and very often just escapist. People can point to what is regarded as the 'quality' sci-fi, but this tends to be examples much closer to general literature, probing psychological and existential problems.

[Le Baron]

I enjoy plenty of genre literature myself, but I think there's also a valid point to be had about online polyglot communities that call it a day with a language once they find themselves able to hold a conversation about routine topics and read books that are relatively simple in both stylistic and linguistic terms. Some people just chase numbers to be able to say they speak however many languages, getting several up to a low B1 language and never really developing a high degree of mastery in any one of them. A learner of all languages and master of none, as it were.

What point is there to be made? That people can study languages for whatever reasons they want to? or that people are wrong for not studying languages for the purpose someone else tells them to?

I see your point, though I didn't read zgriptsuroica's post that way. Rather that there is quite often a lack of balance or roundedness when people are just piling-up languages to meet the polyglot quota.

Not that it's wrong to be able to get by in a handful of languages, not at all, but that this is popularly taken as the measure of 'polyglot' and praised, whereas being able to read quality literature in languages isn't seen as exciting in the same way. People tend to say 'I read Spanish' and this is considered a lower 'passive' activity.

[Iversen]

When I studied literature back in the early 70s the leftist teachers had one hero, a Hungarian guru named Lukacz who purported to measure the quality of literature on its degree of 'realism'. I didn't like Lukacz, and I wouldn't expect a communist ideologist to share my views upon the state of the world. Realism - no thanks.

I much preferred antirealism, and my preferred SF authors would be people like Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, LeGuin, Julian May (one shelf meter of Pliocene Exile) - and of course also good ol' Verne and Wells... not the kind of authors that tried to make sf into some kind of psychological dystopic horror realism. I have read just about everything Tolkien has written (long after my study years) and also the seven canonical Potter books by Rawlings, which I also have used as learning tools because I own most of them in more than one version (the original English one plus one in a target language). As for Tolkien I have his books in both English and Esperanto and Danish, but I have inherited the Danish translations and never read them. Besides I have read at least one book by Heinlein in an Italian translation. But apart from Homer I don't think I have ever bought one single literary work in a Danish translation - I can already speak Danish, so why buy translated fiction in Danish?? I do own some quality Danish fiction - people like H.C.Andersen, Ingemann, Gustav Wied and Jørgen Riel, but that's because I have inherited them from my late mother, who was an avid reader until her eyesight deteriorated - then she switched to audiobooks. And OK, I have read the Danish authors I mentioned - but many years ago before I restarted my language learning project. I also own a few shelf meters of literature in Romance and Germanic languages, but almost all of that stuff dates back to my study years, and I haven't read it since then.

Instead of literature in my target languages I have a nice little collection of sci mags - though I haven't bought as many the last years as before because they have become quite expensive and I can read things on the internet for free. I have also bought some non fiction books in a variety of languages during my voyages, but books are expensive, and it can be hard to find place for them in my handluggage. The books at the public library are mostly literary if they are in other languages than English or Danish - so at the end of the day I have to admit that I read fewer books now in total than when before I caught the language learning bug. But on a normal day I probably spend at least a couple of hours reading/studying stuff from the internet - and my main source is of course Wikipedia. Some of that non fiction stuff is rather bloody and troubling, but if I can get it served without all the salivating sentimental drivel or deliberately abhorrent angles from standard fictional authors then I can deal with it. After all, I also have a subscription to a paper newspaper, and by golly it can be scary to read about the real world there, but at least it's written in a calm and detached way that make all the scary content almost palatable.

[tastyonions]

I enjoy plenty of genre literature myself, but I think there's also a valid point to be had about online polyglot communities that call it a day with a language once they find themselves able to hold a conversation about routine topics and read books that are relatively simple in both stylistic and linguistic terms. Some people just chase numbers to be able to say they speak however many languages, getting several up to a low B1 language and never really developing a high degree of mastery in any one of them. A learner of all languages and master of none, as it were.

What point is there to be made? That people can study languages for whatever reasons they want to? or that people are wrong for not studying languages for the purpose someone else tells them to?

I see your point, though I didn't read zgriptsuroica's post that way. Rather that there is quite often a lack of balance or roundedness when people are just piling-up languages to meet the polyglot quota.

Not that it's wrong to be able to get by in a handful of languages, not at all, but that this is popularly taken as the measure of 'polyglot' and praised, whereas being able to read quality literature in languages isn't seen as exciting in the same way. People tend to say 'I read Spanish' and this is considered a lower 'passive' activity.

I think it's partly the nature of media today: fluid speech and a convincing accent play rather better on YouTube than someone quietly devouring Cervantes, Baudelaire, and Tolstoy.

[zgriptsuroica]

I enjoy plenty of genre literature myself, but I think there's also a valid point to be had about online polyglot communities that call it a day with a language once they find themselves able to hold a conversation about routine topics and read books that are relatively simple in both stylistic and linguistic terms. Some people just chase numbers to be able to say they speak however many languages, getting several up to a low B1 language and never really developing a high degree of mastery in any one of them. A learner of all languages and master of none, as it were.

What point is there to be made? That people can study languages for whatever reasons they want to? or that people are wrong for not studying languages for the purpose someone else tells them to?

People can study however they want to, but I was thinking more of folks like youtube personalities who don't seem to value much of anything beyond making an arbitrary number go higher. When someone is pitching their magic methods to learn multiple languages and claim to speak many of them so they can sell more of their ebook or whatever, it's rather misleading by any common definition of what it means to know a language when they only have a superficial command of them. It's a bit like saying you've completed studies in biology, physics and chemistry because you took a single class in them during secondary school. It might technically be a truthful statement, but it's misleading. If individuals are content with learning that way, good for them so long as they aren't using it to mislead others. We all have our own interests and goals to pursue as we please in the end.