What languages are most important to learn if I want to read

I assume you already know English, so you're already ahead of the game. Regarding contemporary philosophy, French is a nice second language to pick up, even if much of what you'll want to read in French will require extensive education. Even if English is the most important language now, German might also be a nice one to pick up for 19th century lit.

>>10028785
The biggest chunks of fiction are written in French and English. If you want something alternative, German or Russian.

>>10030109
This. Also, the greatest innovations in 20th century poetry were mostly a result of direct and indirect dialogue between Anglo-American and French symbolist poetry.

You study German for Goethe and philosophy.

You study Italian for Dante.

You study Spanish for Cervantes.

Greek for Homer, philosophy, theology and the Bible.

Latin for philosophy, theology, Virgil, Ovid.

But English and French open doors to a much vaster world.

Russian is not worthy of study because their novelists are not significant enough, while their theatre and poetry is absolutely backwards.

>>10030153
What do you learn Norwegian for? Ibsen?

>>10030158
I didn't include them because I figured no one would be interested (I prefer Knut Hamsun). Norwegian is probably not worth the time investment.

>>10030153
I want to add a caveat to what I said.

If your interest is mostly philosophy, then German and Greek are on equal footing with English and French depending on your specialty.

However, for the novel and poetry, the latest developments are always in English or French.

>>10028785
Welsh.

>>10028785
German.

>>10030158
Hamsun

>>10028785
It depends on what you want to read.

Which to learn first anons, Greek or Latin?

File: Black-Eagle-Nez-Perce.jpg (120KB, 639x904px) Image search: [Google]

120KB, 639x904px

>yfw no one says Nez Perce

>>10030470
Most people learn Classical Latin first then Attic Greek, but sometimes Christians learn Koine Greek to read the Bible and never bother learning the others.

Latin was a lot easier than Greek.

Hebrew for the Old Testament
Japanese for the Visual Novels

>>10028785
German loses a lot in translation, so that

>>10028785
Japanese.

Moe is the most significant artistic movement in 500 years.

>>10030767
this

File: charles v.jpg (147KB, 850x1349px) Image search: [Google]

147KB, 850x1349px

I speak in Latin to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse.

>>10030166
No book/author is worth the time investment of learning a language.

Just gonna throw this out there, Arabic is also good if you wanna read about history.

The language that the important literature is written in.

>>10030808

And English to the internet.

>>10030871
Hah. Good response to that stupid quote I've seen a hundred times.

You should first read everything you think is important in translation, and then decide for yourself whether any of that is worthy of further inquiry.

>>10030896
t. kraut

File: 1505033131449.jpg (120KB, 1024x681px) Image search: [Google]

120KB, 1024x681px

>>10030917
Me? German? Hahahah. No. I've just seen that quote countless times and never cared for it until that response.

t. Eternal Anglo-American

File: DSC01254.jpg (239KB, 1600x900px) Image search: [Google]

239KB, 1600x900px

Hawaiian

>>10031274
That's Hawaiian pidgin, not actual Hawaiian.

Hawaiian is not a complex enough language to be able to express the Bible.

>>10031285
>>10031274
I sometimes why people even bother with these translations of the Bible. Do they honestly think some moron who speaks Hawaiian pidgin is actually going to read the whole fucking Bible?

>>10031298
Protestants and Vatican II Catholics (same thing really) are the ones behind stuff like this, and they do it because they are infected by the ideology of modernism and have no respect for tradition or the sacred.

Germany, English, Latin.

>>10031366
with followup of French and Russia.

>>10031298
Its for the sake of proselytizing and missionary work my dude

>>10032614
I read somewhere that it was partly due to a mistranslation of a Bible passage. People had thought Jesus said: "He who hath not read my Father's word in all tongues hath not read it."; it later turned out that an accurate translation would be: "He who hath not read my Father's word in his mother tongue and at least one other language hath not read it."

>>10030808
Si loqui cum Deo oporteret, se Hispanice locuturum, quod lingua Hispanorum gravitatem maiestatemque prae se ferat; si cum amicis, Italice, quod Italorum dialectus familiaris sit; si cui blandiendum esset, Gallice, quod illorum lingua nihil blandius; si cui minandum aut asperius loquendum, Germanice, quod tota eorum lingua minax, aspera sit ac vehemens

>God Tier: English
The universal lingua franca, and the greatest language in history because it has been the lingua franca so long that all the other languages have become parochial and stagnant by comparison. Can read almost all major things from other languages in translation. Universal language of commerce, philosophy, science, everything.
>Demigod Tier: German
Most important for philosophy, literature, science, and the humanities.
>High Tier: French
Important for literature, somewhat important for philosophy, the rest is negligible.
>Also High Tier: Latin
Gives you access to thousands of years of literature, mostly notably Classical, Renaissance, and Early Modern.
>Mid Tier: Greek, Japanese
Greek is similar to Latin, but much harder, for much fewer texts. Japanese, though relatively minor and insular like the smaller European countries, unlike those countries has maintained an integral history, with an interesting and unique literary tradition since at least the Meiji Restoration. It will also probably change and be productive in this century, unlike languages like Danish which will simply disappear.
>Below Average Tier: Russian, Italian
Despite common perception, very limited canons. Italian writing is of little interest except to specialists, aside from a few great works (like Boccaccio, Dante, Vico). Russian writing seems more voluminous at first, but almost all of it is tepid social reformist drivel from an exciting but spiritually inert age. One outgrows Russian literature when one reaches adulthood and outgrows the bourgeois worldview.
>Low Tier: Spanish
Lots of literature, but most of it bad. Very little of intellectual importance. South and Central America are nearer to Africa than Europe, as civilizations, and Spaniards are filthy layabouts whose spirit peaked and burned out half a millennium ago.
>No Tier: Other European languages
Not worth the time or the trouble. Any truly important authors will be translated, and because of centuries of isolation, these languages are insular, with pathetic vocabularies and a potential for self-expression that hasn't kept up with the modern world. Some of them are so bad that even the locals regularly abandon them for English or Arabic.
>Honorable Mention Tier: Other classical languages, like Sanskrit, Classical Arabic, or antique variants of Persian, Aramaic, Egyptian, etc.
If that's what you're into.

>Joke Tier: Living Arabic
Not a real language. First, Arabs speak dialects, so you will have to learn a dialect. Then you are even worse than if you had learned Swedish. Or slightly better, because at least you can speak Arabic in Sweden.

>Mistaken Tier: Hebrew
Were you looking for the Jews? All those famous intellectual Jews with their Jewish culture? You want German. Hebrew is for Israelis and JAPs from California.

>Very Mistaken Tier: Chinese
It will take 35 years and you still won't be proficient. Also, Chinese people don't read Chinese literature. They read Chinese Youtube comments.

>>10032774
can you expand on Chinese? thank you for your time

>>10030470
Start with the Lingua Latina https://www.amazon.com/Familia-Romana-Lingua-Latina-%C3%98rberg-ebook/dp/B012HTEEDU/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=

>>10032774
>I'm a retarded american: the post.

>>10033754
He is mostly right though.

What do you want to read? If you're talking about philosophy, theology, science, etc. there's numerous options, but if you just want novels, poetry, etc. French is indisputably on top.

>>10032681
bullshit.

>>10032774
I liked your comments except I don't know why you slighted French. I would put Japanese on the same level as Russian and Italian personally. Here's my revision

>God tier
English
>Demigod tier
French and German
>Old god tier
Latin and Ancient Greek
>Ok tier
Russian, Italian, Japanese

The rest is fine, although you're a little harsh on Hebrew because it should be with Sanskrit, Arabic, etc. But hell, your comments were funny. 9/10 post.

>>10030158
Learning Norwegian carries the benefit of eventually being able to read Danish and, to a lesser extent, Swedish, or you could go the other way and learn Danish to learn Norwegian (essentially more old-fashioned Danish)

>>10032774
Mostly agree except for where you placed spanish. How is it not at least "high tier"?