trui learns Nederlands and Deutsch

[trui]

It's been a while since I've posted an update, but not much has happened. I haven't done much with my German, though I did subscribe to the Süddeutsche Zeitung a couple weeks ago and I'm quite enjoying reading that. It was the newspaper that was entrusted with both the panama and paradise papers. It's amazing how much I can already understand, and it's been quite useful for learning new vocabulary, and of course keeping up with the news.

I'm still ever debating on what languages to learn in general. German and French are 100% guarantees. I just wouldn't be motivated to learn another language before learning German and French, and my progress with German is very promising. French will be the hardest, probably, but maybe it'll be easier than I think.

Then comes the Spanish dilemma. Spanish is big, and with French it shouldn't be too hard. I even wanted to learn it years ago because I thought it was 'neat'. But I'm completely ignorant as to what kind of literature it offers, and even after looking that up, it's hard to weigh it against other options like Russian, Latin and Greek. Also I'm wondering if it won't be a bit boring after French. Of course the only way to know is to try-- after I've learned German and French that is.

Have any other literature nerds here gone for Spanish who don't live in the US?

[tarvos]

Spanish has great literature from what I remember. Delve into it, yo.

[trui]

Spanish has great literature from what I remember. Delve into it, yo.

*sigh*

You're right. There's too much magic realism to pass up (among other things probably). I wonder if I've been making endless excuses when it comes to Spanish because I'm still a bit bewildered from learning Dutch, and the prospect of learning 3-4 more languages seems unreal to me, or dare I say, magical? Ever since I was a child, it was always my goal to be bilingual. That's it. So I wonder if that original goal has affected my perception of what's possible.

So! Although it's silly to plan things out at this stage (especially since this post isn't in German-- I've got a ways to go yet), I like planning.

Current languages:

English (native, but I need to keep it in perfect shape for my career)
Dutch (still not C1 yet in all skills)
German (just started, but reading every day and doing other practice should get me to an okay level fast)

Future languages:

French (must learn. I'll probably start learning it in 2 years or less)
Spanish (won't be hard, especially after French so I might as well. Magic realism is my main draw to it. I'll be doing this after French, so, in 7 years?)
Russian (It's different and has great literature, so it should be fun)

Maybe languages:

Latin and/or Greek. (Hard and not as fun as the above, so we'll see)
Italian (literature, and I'll already know French and Spanish and potentially Latin, depending on how I order things)

Timeline:

~2015 (started Dutch)
2019 (started German)
2021 (start French)
2026 (start Spanish or Russian)
2028 (if I chose Spanish, start Russian)
2031 (if I chose Russian, start Spanish)

okay, my previously monolingual brain is hurting by this point, so I'll leave it at that.

So if I add up all the languages that I think might be useful and fun to know literature and philosophy wise--

English Dutch German French Spanish Russian Latin Greek Italian ... et al. That's 9 languages. 9! *faints* (and I'm still missing some languages that would be good for literature. It's almost like lots of languages have good literature... but so much to learn...)