Best second language, /lit/? IMO Ancient tier: Homeric Greek,

>>8554823

>tfw speak German, Spanish, English
>tfw finna learn French and Japanese

only thing left is to do Arabic, maybe Chinese

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>>8554823
>Why? tier: old english, indigenous peoples' languages

>>8554835
To be fair, the mainland Chinese government in the 1950s modified their writing system into something called "Simplified" Chinese (vs. Traditional Chinese which places like Taiwan and Hong Kong still use).

Also, different parts of China speak in different dialects (Cantonese and Mandrin have about as much in common with each other as English and French) although they use the same writing system.

To give an example of the differences, here is "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in
Simplified: 三国演义
Traditional: 三國演義

Just for fun, I believe this is how the Japanese write "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (note that it's a combination of simplified and traditional Chinese characters):
三国志演義

>>8554823
English is my second language.
I am learning French and Russian, though, and I would agree with your placement of those.

I cant wait to be advanced in French, start working on either Italian or something(i am not sure which i want most: japanese, russian, farsi, maybe german)

Spanish somewhere in there too. Not my favorite but id like to be better at it

German... i should learn it but im not that interested in it.

I dont any foreign language the way i like french... except i guess the sound of italian can be close sometimes

Gl on your own magical tongue journeys anons

English, German, French, in that order of relevance. Other languages aren't really worth it.

>>8554925

oh jesus christ im just gonna kill myself desu

for the record I do know that the language in question is called latin

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>>8554856

in all honesty no language is truly "why" tier and old english should have been ancient or great tier but what makes cree better than or equal to, say, finnish? especially in the context of literary study i just cannot compute

>>8554945
It is actually in the context that it really matters, since it is a dead language. It might be a niche language, so to speak, but if we are dealing with literary context here then it is very important.

As for indigenous people language, you would be suprised by the poets who write in an indigenous language. They are also important for anthopology and literary studies.

Is vietnamese lit good? The language itself seems cool.

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>>8554925
sure u did boo

>>8554823
>Why? tier: old english

Triggered desu. Majoring in this shit.

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>>8554843
French will be a breeze compared to the arduous process of learning German. Have fun with Japanese, kouhai, I gave up after a month.

>>8555070
You kidding? German is so much easier to learn for English speakers.

Danish should be great tier for Kierkegaard alone and Old English and Norse should be ancient tier cos Borges was learning them.

>>8554891
The differences between simplified and traditional Chinese are trivial and not really an issue once you know one of them.

Although anon could have been referring to classical vs. modern vernacular Chinese. That is a legitimately big difference.

Fluent EN / FR, B2 DE, B1 PT
Currently learning Turkish. I want to speak Persian (yes, Persian, that's what you should call it) and MSA as well before I'm thirty, and also have a good standard on Classical Greek and Latin. Not sure what else.
By the way, Biblical Hebrew is barely different from modern Hebrew.

>>8555070
French is comparatively simple but ridiculously messy (like English, which gives it quite a bit of its appeal). German just makes so much sense.

Also it's worth mentioning that given any amount of Portuguese you will understand the same level of Spanish (albeit slower) but the same can't be said in reverse.

>>8556187
portuguese gives you spanish and italian comprehension

>>8556187

not really, written Portuguese is easily understood by Spanish speakers and vice versa.
Portuguese and Spanish are two very similar languages that are pronounced very differently.

>>8554823
>Top tier
>French

How come

>>8556345
French literature is one of the best in the world, why wouldn't it be a top-tier language?

>>8554823
>Roman

>excluding russian from god tier

top pleb

>>8555070
>tfw no senpai to be a kohai for

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>>8554925
That was the first thing I thought.

Good tier: Spanish, Italian
Top Tier: Portuguese, Russian, French
alright: British English
Shart in Mart tier: American English

>>8556422

g8 br8 m'l8

if you're serious consider killing yourself

>>8556345

the number of great French writers is overwhelming. France has the best national literature.
France doesnt have a national writer like Cervantes, Shakespeare, or Goethe, because they have so many writers to choose from.

It is the only language worth learning for literature even if you hate the country and the people.

>>8556432
>France has the best national literature.

>>8556337
I'm talking about speaking, although since Spanish orthography is super consistent and Portuguese isn't, I'd bet that the same is true to a lesser extent.

>>8556437
although as a lusofone myself I don't know who would take PT lit over ES lit

>>8556432

France has moliere, Zola, Balzac for starters. I think they have plenty of greats as well as those who stand out beyond them for one reason or another

>>8556432
>France has the best national literature.

lol, i love the euro and west centric ignorant idiots
try china

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>>8556445
>moliere

>>8556445
Zola isn't one of the great French writers, he's not even in that conversation.

>>8556456
wtf i hate arvid and hulda now

>>8556445

Proust, Corneille, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Beckett, Celine, Valery, the list keeps fucking going. I personally prefer spanish and latin american lit but if you just want to read as many big influential canon works as possible, french seems to be objectively the best. german is also great but with more of an edge in philosophy.

I mean, it's a pretty shitty thing to be comparing languages like this in the first place though.

This inspired me to learn German

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay6N33y_UG4

>>8554843
Don't learn japanese, learn latin after finishing french instead. It's the most logical course.

Anyone here have any experience with Hungarian?

>>8556445
Holy shit, Moliere is a real writer? I only saw that movie with Romain Duris

I just had my mind blown haha

>>8556495
>/lit/ - literature

>>8556492
yes it's my mother tongue, hard as fuck but beautiful if you can appreciate it, not sure if it's worth the investment for a foreigner though

>>8556464

He was talking about national Icons, Zola depicted the 2nd empires reign magnificently. Zola is not bad by any means he has wonderful style and is as analytical as George Eliot ever was in middlemarch.

>Best second language, /lit/?

Based on what criteria?

>God tier: French, German

These aren't as widely spoken as Spanish. Spanish would be vastly more useful to you.

>>8556516
Lots of writers deserve the title of French lit icon more than Zola though : Molière, Racine, Montaigne, Rabelais, Hugo, Proust, Flaubert...

>>8556519

I am a Spanish speaker, I like literature in Spanish. But French literature is far superior because Spanish literature was awful for almost two centuries, from the XVIII century after the Siglo de Oro, to the late XIX century in which Spanish literature was resurrected, mainly by the influence of French poets like Verlaine and Mallarme.

>>8554823

What's the best way to practice speaking the language you're learning?

>>8556909
Find speakers and talk to them.

>>8556909
listen to pop music from that country. if you are not from an English speaking country, American/British pop and rock is how you learn to pronounce words.

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I have spanish and english as my first and second language respectively, currently learning French (not that advanced with it, I don't think I'd be able to read a whole book with what I know, without taking the dictionary every minute)

Which one should I take as my fourth language? I was thinking about Italian or even Portuguese (being romantic languages it would be easier for me), but I also want to read the Russians in their language.

>>8557208
If any language is likely to be easier to learn than another, for you that is, I'd go with that.

>>8557208
Russian is easy to learn if you are good at Spanish. Both are structurally similar.

>>8557208

if you only want to learn the language for reading and not for communicating, then Latin becomes a good option too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_literature

>>8557379
lol

>>8556393
This, friendo.

>>8557379
You must be retarded.