What's the best language to learn and why is it German?

>>9054768
It is if you want to sound like an Orc.

>>9054768
german is definitely the best language to learn if you want to sound like a man with a speech impediment chewing tin foil

After watching Downfall, I think I need to take a break from hearing German. But it's always good to have another language.

>>9054780
>>9054790
>>9054802
Fickt euch ihr Neger

>>9054768
>not spanish
Step it up.

It's okay but I seriously can't be arsed to learn a language spoken in one country and some neighboring countrylets. For the same reason I cannot push myself to study italian, or japanese, even though I engage in weebshit sometimes

>>9055110
Germans aren't fun to talk to anyway. Austrians are a little more relaxed. The Swiss are terrible. I just learned it for all the memes there are to read anyway.

>>9054768
Language learning priority for English-speakers:

1. Latin
2. French
3. German
4. Italian
5. Spanish
6. Russian

Was ist die Endlösung der Judenfrage?

>>9054768
the language of love

speak it well and you will be fortunate

>>9055188
For what retarded reasons is latin top priority, again?
Roman literature isn't even good, you read Ovid, and Virgil, and you're sort of done

>>9055207
Ästhetik

>>9055188
How did you reach this conclusion?

>>9055188
1. Attic Greek
2. Homeric Greek
3. Biblical Greek
4. Hebrew
5. Latin
6. Sanskrit
7. Coptic
8. Old Church Slavonic
9. Gothic

>learning living languages
>not being a pleb

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>>9054873
Ash nazgh durbatuluk!

>>9055243
Biblical greek is koiné

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>>9055188
>Learning Latin without learning Etruscan first.
ISHYGDDT

>>9054790
>he has only heard German in war movies and funny youtube memes
Chill, burger.

>>9055207
Livy's History of Rome is must-read

>>9056552
Its not poetry, it's not even fiction (he obviously bs'd a lot though), particular language doesn't matter.

>>9055205
this

#1 English
#2 Japanese
#3 dead languages
#4 constructed languages
#5 everything else
#6 Nordic languages

>>9056613
>Japanese
kys

How do you learn German? What are some good books?

>>9055207
>who is Catullus
>who is Horace
>who is Propertius
>who is Tacitus, Seneca, Caesar, Cicero
And Latin is top priority because it's fucking easy as shit for an English speaker

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>>9056613
>Japanese

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>>9056621

>>9056620
>>9056627
Baka

>>9056626
>who is Catullus
A retard who wrote poetry about dicks.
>who is Horace
some guy
>who is Propertius
Never heard of
>who is Tacitus, Seneca, Caesar, Cicero
Politicians, historians, generals, philosophers, not writers. Cicero is known for his remark about latin being fucking shit compared to greek

Official reading order
>English
>French
>German
>Italian
>Latin
>Greek

>>9056657
Beside Dante, why is Italian before Latin and Greek ?

>>9056627
Read neetchie and then you can talk about truth.

>>9056657
>no Spanish
>no Russian
>Latin higher than Greek
How can one man be this wrong?

You only need English.

I'm curious about learning Russian, but it is not a commonly learned language in these parts (if anywhere). It'd be a massive effort and likely little reward. But you know, that might be changing, day by day.

>Not Spanish
>Can talk to 90% of the world if you know both English and Spanish

>>9056920
>implying billions of Asians know either

>>9056908
It's not useful outside of media consumption and it's not going to change in our lifetime. Unless you're posting from an Internet cafe in Uzbekistan, you will never need Russian professionally.

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>>9054768

>>9056853
Russia only has a few meme authors.

Spanish is the shit-tier babby version of French/Latin and is useless for literature unless you have a hard-on for Cervantes.

>>9056801
Dante is justification enough for learning Italian.

>>9056974
>either retarded or pretending
Okay.

>>9056920
Why would you want to 'talk to the 90% of the world', again?
90% of the world is retards.
Most popular languages are spoken by the shittiest people of the most boring, trashy cultures. Spanish unlocks to you the wonders of talking with your local drug dealers and border-hopping chicanos, chinese allows you to enjoy the wonders of dystopian commie hivemind, arabic lets you get blown up by ISIS while praising Allah, Hindu welcomes you to the pooland.
European languages are the only languages that matter.

>>9056980
>muh Bible fanfiction
Are you one of these faggots who urge people to study spanish "just for Borges"?

>>9057013
We're moving onto levels of edginess never thought possible. Consider >>>/pol/

>>9054768
All you need is English

>>9057020
Dante is one of the greatest poets of all time. He is worth it.

>>9056801
Calvino, Eco and every other opera out there

>>9057013
This.
>Spanish has millions of speakers and yet has only produced a handful of great writers
At this point I'm convinced that the Moor gangrape of Spain left them with a lower IQ due to Arabic admixture.

The Spanish are the niggers of Europe.

>>9057060
I don't care about /pol/ m8. It doesn't take a racist to see that european culture is vastly superior to any other. Wasting your time on languages and literary corpus of other regions is irrational. It's their job to catch up, study our languages, and marvel at the beauty of western canon, not vice versa

>>9056908
I'm currently learning Russian and really enjoying it. It's not nearly as difficult as I thought it'd be.

Is German really good or are you just 'le natsoc' ?

>>9057110
Depends on what you mean by good.

>>9057123
Well idk but everyone here always praises German language. Like idk it doesn't sound good in my ears. Idk why you guys like it, but yeah i mean this is 4chan

>le natsoc
>le white pride
>nigger go home !

>>9057013
Chinese and Japanese have the best poetry though.

>>9057130
German is beautiful and there is tons of great literature in it. Stop trying to make everything about /pol/

>>9057133
How do you know they do ? Can you speak the language ? Or did you read the english translated books ? How can the goodness of another culture still be as good when translated to other language and be read by people from different cultural background ?

>>9057107
As a slav, it's deeply wounding to me that /lit/ only studies russian for meme novelists like Dostoevsky and Tostoy, while ignoring the golden mine of poetry
How much of the greatest poem ever written can you understand, pham?
http://www.stihi-rus.ru/1/evgeny_onegin-1.htm

>>9057145
Get back to me once I've studied enough Russian to read Russian literature and poetry in Russian.

>>9057145
>Onegin
>greatest poem ever
>tfw ceгoдня cyббoтa и тeбe нe нaдo в шкoлy

>>9057162
Кyкapeкaй oбpaтнo нa двaчик, vatnichka

>>9055188
This is the correct answer.

>>9054780
>>9054790
German is a gorgeous language.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l23aMYabv4
>>9055188
>>9055243
>Hellenophiles

>>9057133
Maybe but it's kind of ancient, and written in a dialect you'll never really understand.

>>9057171
>двaчик
>2017
kys кoмpэйд

>>9057142
>*Hits blunt

I have never understood the appeal of the Romance languages.

Spanish sounds like you're always flustered and tripping over your own tongue.
French sounds pretentious and snooty.
Italian: See Spanish

It's probably a bias growing up in a German-American household, but German can range from calm to passionate without sacrificing intelligence.

>>9057374
I realize these are just your own personal opinions, but as a speaker of German, French and Italian I can't help but notice, how absolutely retarded they are.
>growing up in a German-American household
Forty kekks says you can't do a proper uvular trill consistently.

>>9057399
Not him:
>proper uvular trill
People have difficulty with this? I've always been able to do it, but can only do an alveolar trill that sounds like an idling engine.

Define proper.

>>9057399
I'm in Chicago, so granted, my exposure isn't as great as yours, but Spanish sounds uneducated whenever I hear it.

>tfw growing up my parents either wanted me to speak Spanish to communicate with the masses
>or chinese as a 'business' language
>only heard German at family gatherings when Oma and Opa were present
>tfw Opa died a month after he promised to start teaching me German
>tfw too old to learn how to sound anything but stupid American tourist

>>9057466
>the too old meme
It's called lazy.

>>9057481
Bro, it's been proven that after age 9 (iirc) your accent is just about set for life. I'll always sound like an American to a European.

>>9057490
Then explain to me how Indians can learn to speak in perfect American English when they're trained to work customer service jobs? If they can do it, you can too. And no, they don't learn as kids.

>>9057549
>indians
>perfect English
What help lines have you been calling?

>>9057490
>hurr durr it's been proven
It's called lazy. Yes, it's harder to learn when you're older. No accent doesn't "set" at any age, you dumb lazy shit.

>>9057490
i had the most awful french accent when i was in my teens

i actually practiced it and now its truly not bad. obviously it will never be godly native speaker tier, but its hardly objectionable.

>>9057567
also this

>>9054768
I'm a native German speaker (I'm from Switzerland). French > German > [romance langages] > English

1. French
2. German
3. Italian
4. Russian
5. Japanese
6. Spanish
7. Greek

>>9054768
>tfw you will never be a sub to a beautiful Nazi dominatrix

>>9058003
>2017
>Trump & Bannon's America
Give it time, anon. Don't give up on your dreams!

>>9057060
¿What did you call me pendejo?

>>9057374
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_toTeFr0nk

I hold classical latin as the gold standard of phonetic prettiness. As a native ruskie, I think I'm just more attracted to sharp languages, where you can sound out every out off the top of your lungs. For that same reason, I think spanish and italian are pleasant, while french is horrid with it's overabundance of muffled 'ju' sounds and their throat cancer version of 'R'. On that scale, english and german are somewhere in the middle, chinese takes the cake as the most disgusting language ever, it fucking hurts to just listen to it.

>>9056621
duolingo with google for grammar rules > Children's books > Der Spiegel

>>9055188
>French above German

no language is worth learning unless you don't already speak one

language is nothing but one tool

if you've got a red wrench do you really need a blue one?

>>9057304
>tfw you wish you could understand this comments thread

The obvious answer is:

English for the best translation of the western canon

Italian for the best translations of Opera

Russian because, even though their governments are historically the worst, their writers are historically amazing.

French because misc writing is great.

Ultimately English is the lingua franca and we've all found good translations for nearly everything worth reading in English. The only thing that might be missing is worthwhile Asian lit and some SA lit (although westerners have translated most SA lit and recognized for its worth)

>>9054768
Any language is the best language to learn if you are interested in, and want to engage with the people and culture it is used by

I learn German (besides English), but learning a language just for the language's sake is stupid (unless you are a linguist or something)

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>>9058613
>learning a language just for the language's sake is stupid (unless you are a linguist or something)

>>9057490
(Not true, by the way)

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>>9054768
Russian is best language to learn. it is beautiful and strong, but does not sound like dirty mongrel rapist as Romance languages do.

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>>9058613
>learning a language just for the language's sake is stupid (unless you are a linguist or something)
Go back to 9th grade Spanish club you fucking waist of human life.

>>9054768
Because of its efficiency, its facility for creating new concepts and the precision of the language thanks to its grammar.

>>9058712
Is there any painter so overrated on 4chan as Repin?

>>9057466
You're just racist

>>9057145

>learning Russian for about 9 months
>enough vocab to get the gist but still need to lean heavily on a dictionary

I'm going to spend the rest of today reading Pushkin poems and taking down vocab. You've inspired me to do so.

>>9055192
Gas.

>>9058942
Pushkin is pretty shit for learning the language. Half the vocab is outdated and useless. Pick up something more modern, go back to Pushkin later for appreciation purposes.

>>9058942
Be advised, the language of Pushkin is a bit archaic, which mostly concerns many declined and conjugated word forms that went out of use. For example, nobody says 'вoлeю', 'бpeгaх', or 'мнeнью' anymore. You can still read 95% of it just fine, but some words might be confusing.

>>9059073

Any more modern poets you would recommend?
At least in terms of modernity of language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH1SvGMY4Qs

GERMAN!!

>>9058723
>waist

>>9059098
Aхмaтoвa, Бeлый, Eceнин, Maндeльштaм, Пacтepнaк, Цвeтaeвa

>>9059098
I never really moved past the Silver Age (late 19-early 20century), after that period communism happened and literature because extremely censored and politicized (although Mayakovsky is worth it if you love weird shit written by a madman). You shouldn't be worried about reading authors like Pushkin, as I said, apart from a occasional irregularity in the endings, he wrote in a perfectly modern way. The difference isn't as striking as, say, modern poetry in english and Shakespeare

Most flexible and complex language that is still in use, especially useful for philosophy. So yeah, it's the best language to learn, from a literary point of view (German's catalogue of literature is underrated here, can easily compete with french, italian or russian literature)

In terms of "practical use" there isn't much of a reason to learn it. Germans industry is "internationalized" and there aren't enough germans to warrant learning it over Spanish, French or Chinese.

>>9059158
>German is most complex
>le number of speakers argument
Why even talk about things you clearly have no idea about?

>>9059147
>>9059152

Бoльшe cпacибo зa peкoмeндaции

>>9059166
I have though. Can you deny how german is not the most complex and flexible alive language, by arguments? I have a vast amount of people backing me up, one for example the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, who as a South Korean, switched to the german language, due his assessment that it was the perfect language for philosophy.

And the number of speakers argument is only related to a point-of-view regarding practicality, one that i personally do not share, but that i find understandable.

>>9059175
What defines 'complexity' for you? Stacking morphemes together like an autistic game of legos?

>>9059181
That's the act of constructing language, what governs these actions are the complex rulesets that determine whether to stack morphems together or not. And you forget that this is a capability, not a restriction.

>>9059175
German is flexible, Finnish/Hungarian even more so. And no, German isn't complex by any means. I have passion for linguistics and native level proficiency in 5 languages to back me up. Maybe you should actually look into learning some instead of bringing up opinions.

>>9059192
>Maybe you should actually look into learning some instead of bringing up opinions.
As opposed to you?

In what way is finnish or hungarish more complex in terms of grammar? And in what way is German not objectively more complex than english, spanish, french or chinese?

How different are Ancient and Modern Greek?
Is there enough media in Modern Greek to justify learning it or should one just learn Ancient?

>>9059197
>In what way is finnish or hungarish more complex in terms of grammar?
In that the ruleset is both larger and more intricate which is what complexity of grammar actually is.
>objectively more complex
What is that even supposed to mean? There are dozens of different aspects to a language.

>>9059209
Learn Ancient for the literature, learn modern if you're going to live in Greece at some point. Neither are worth the effort.

>>9056153
Thanks for giving me this laugh, needed it.

>>9059227
Is it possible to retroactively understand Ancient Greek if you know Modern?

>>9059408
https://www.quora.com/How-different-is-the-Ancient-Greek-language-from-the-modern-Greek-language-Can-any-Greek-speaking-people-testify-if-they-understand-classical-Greek-of-Homer-et-al

>>9058565
t. Burger
2/10 b8 made me reply

>>9059197
>hungarish

>>9054768
I say latin.

>>9054768
>Arabic
>Urdu
>Somali
>Hindi

>>9059227
>Ancient Greek
>not worth the effort
philistines and dilettantes should be banned