Is it worth learning a second language for reading non-English

>>8392360
Pick your favorite book written in English.

Would you still get as much from it if you read a translation or not?

There's your answer.

Poetry is basically useless in translation, so consider if the language you want to learn has a lot of intetesting poetry.

>>8392524
Well since I don't know any other languages I have no way to actually know if a translation would distort or spoil my favourite book in any way or not.

>americlaps
C'est la vie

>>8392758
Whether or not I'm a pleb is not in dispute. Rather than merely implying that one should learn a second language I was hoping for a convincing explanation of why it is worth doing. Just as one would not spend thousands of hours learning to play the piano without an interest in music, so too the average monolingual anglo will not bother to learn a second language unless given a convincing reason to.

>>8392360
>How much difference does it make to read something in the original language?
It depends. A translation may be good enough that it is better to read that even if you're fluent in the original language.

English is a second language to me and I occasionally read English works translated. Sometimes the translations into my native language are bullshit, sometimes reading the translated version is better for "getting into" a book.

There's no general rule if we're mostly interested in your personal experience reading something.

>Obviously two languages is better than one but is the effort of learning a new language worth the reward of being able to read some books in their native language instead of an English translation?
I'd say: probably not. You're probably never going to get as good a grasp of another language as I've gotten of English and even I sometimes prefer translations. In a way you'll always be translating it, anyway, no matter how well you learn a second language.
But it might be worth it for other reasons, learning is never bad after all.

Depends on how difficult it is for you to learn a new language.
If you read just for enjoyment, english has more books than you can read in a lifetime, so you don't even need to read translations at all. If you read to learn something, translations will do. They do not so much lose content as aesthetics, and not all of them are bad.

Poetry, obviously, only works in the original language, so if you're into that...

>>8392786
>>8393070
Thanks for your insightful answers anons. For my current purposes I don't think I'll get much out of learning a language but it could be an enjoyable hobby.

>>8392360
It's worth it just on its own merits, it's very interesting and satisfying if you have any kind of intellectual curiosity. You have to pick a language you are instinctively drawn to though because it takes years, and you will not care enough if there isn't some reason you like the language.

File: 1460177974424.jpg (91KB, 450x800px) Image search: [Google]

91KB, 450x800px

Not OP, but for someone who has decided to go ahead and learn a second language for this purpose, what is the best way going about it? Hunting down instructional books, using the internet, etc?

German is the most useful language to learn besides English. German philosophy, fiction and modern academic work is unique and often hard to grasp due to their "let's invent terms all the time lmao" approach.

>>8392786
What is your first language and how did you learn english so well that you write better than 95% of native speakers?