Do you lose your literary reflex when reading a book in a different language?

[mal4mac]

Kiki - why do you think we like the Germans more after the World Cup? Which World Cup? Actually, I don't see that it has affected matters either way. We found our narrow victory in 1966 quite amusing, and are a bit upset about how well the Germans usually do. I don't think most British dislike the Spanish, French or Germans, but just don't see the need to learn their languages. They learn ours, so why bother?! Especially when, as you so amply illustrated, our efforts are generally not appreciated and usually get raised eyebrows...

Clive James learned French by reading Proust - just slowly going through it, learning words and grammar 'as needed'. Took him a decade, but he seemed to have fun, and it at least gave him the material for a really funny essay...

[Madame X]

Mmmm, would you deepen your point regarding one's articulation in a foreign language? Do you mean at explaining things or at just talking freely at another language? for those two are quite different? Arguing and explaining in a foreign language, in an oral manner, is a much more impressive feat than talking freely about something [in a foreign language].

I, personally, wouldn’t really deem anyone fluent, or even competent, in a language in which he couldn’t do much more than talk about the weather (although I know what a popular subject it is ). Talking freely, to me, encompasses the ability to delve into ‘deeper’ discussion, without tripping all over yourself, at will; I think the non-(English language)native posters in this thread, for example, accomplish this admirably. Of course, the natives, too.

[Madame X]

Agreed, but with some reservations. Reading is, I think, much easier a process than speaking. (Cognitive linguistics has shown that reading and speaking the same language use different parts of the brain, which is why some may find doing one easier than the other.) But this is assuming that the foreign language in question uses an alphabet you're familiar with. Have you ever tried reading in Chinese or Arabic? Even if you've studied the language, it's quite easy to lose the finer points of meaning and/or historical allusions in a culture with which you might be unfamiliar.

If Greek counts, then yes. While still in the domain of European culture, I still won’t pretend to grasp every reference, allusion, or special meaning intended to be invoked by any particular succession of words on a page, but I can certainly more or less glean enough practical sense from the text to know who-said-what, etc. But yes, cultural disparities can understandably affect one’s appreciation of a work,…then again, not even all natives are unanimous about who they’d crown the Literary Deity of their country/language so, yeah, at a certain point it still becomes a bit hard to mark the divide between linguistic/cultural incompetence and plain old taste.

This is where I have to disagree. What do you mean by "alien-aesthetics"? I find it doubtful that one can fully master the aesthetics of any foreign-language work in a single day or two. If you're talking about Italian, does this mean you could master the finer points of the Divine Comedy in a day or two?

Hehe, if I were serious your incredulity would be well-warranted, but yeah, seeing as there’s nothing to indicate otherwise, I’ll take the blame for that one. Just to clarify: ‘alien-aesthetics’ can be as simple as the “sound” of a language to a foreign ear; I’m not really partial to Italian which means that the literature, despite me being comfortable with the grammar, simply doesn’t -and, alas, probably never will- go down quite as smoothly as, say, German (which I adore).

[kiki1982]

Kiki - why do you think we like the Germans more after the World Cup? Which World Cup? Actually, I don't see that it has affected matters either way. We found our narrow victory in 1966 quite amusing, and are a bit upset about how well the Germans usually do. I don't think most British dislike the Spanish, French or Germans, but just don't see the need to learn their languages. They learn ours, so why bother?! Especially when, as you so amply illustrated, our efforts are generally not appreciated and usually get raised eyebrows...

Clive James learned French by reading Proust - just slowly going through it, learning words and grammar 'as needed'. Took him a decade, but he seemed to have fun, and it at least gave him the material for a really funny essay...

I have an English husband who definitely has seen a difference in how people think about the Germans since the World Cup 2006 that took place there. From nasty war-makers they went to 'ok person apparently'. And friendly!They couldn't shut up about how friendly they were, and they spoke English perfectly all of them!

What about the need to learn their language so you can actually go and ask something to them without being detected as a tourist. You'll get a lot friendlier service, I tell you. Even better, in France, you will get service as such. Try to go to a small French village and ask something in English... Guaranteed that no-one speaks it. In Germany you'll probably be lucky. And even better reason: to be able to read their books which are WAY better in their original language. Particularly the Germans have a lyrical ability in their mere language that I find not having been done by the English and I am including Byron and Shakespeare in that. There is something about German that is so amazingly beautiful.

Then the froggies like contents. They have marvellous poetry too, but they rather go for the contents of it.

What about learning those two to have a real idea?

[mal4mac]

I have an English husband who definitely has seen a difference in how people think about the Germans since the World Cup 2006 that took place there. From nasty war-makers they went to 'ok person apparently'. And friendly!They couldn't shut up about how friendly they were, and they spoke English perfectly all of them!

What about the need to learn their language so you can actually go and ask something to them without being detected as a tourist. You'll get a lot friendlier service, I tell you. Even better, in France, you will get service as such. Try to go to a small French village and ask something in English... Guaranteed that no-one speaks it. In Germany you'll probably be lucky. And even better reason: to be able to read their books which are WAY better in their original language. Particularly the Germans have a lyrical ability in their mere language that I find not having been done by the English and I am including Byron and Shakespeare in that. There is something about German that is so amazingly beautiful.

Then the froggies like contents. They have marvellous poetry too, but they rather go for the contents of it.

What about learning those two to have a real idea?

Your husband must move in different circles to me. In my 'working class Northern' and 'University' circles I've never really encountered serious anti-German feeling at all. We do mock them of course (Basil Fawlty's hotel sketch being the funniest example...) But we mock everyone, none more than ourselves. Even British racists don't really attack the Germans, probably because they don't have a large immigrant community in the UK. Of course, Hitler & gang still come in for a lot of stick (funny and serious!) but most British people are not so stupid as to equate modern Germans with that bunch of criminals.

I don't have a great ability at learning languages, and I don't enjoy it. At school, I'd do "middling well" in French & German after a great deal of effort, whereas I came top in science, maths, History, English etc, with little effort, and I enjoyed those subjects. My bog standard comprehensive was run by insane people and I somehow ended up doing French & German to age 16, when I wanted to do History and Geography, so I also ended up with great resentment against learning languages. I actually failed French on purpose... Ho hum, childish attitude, yes. But I was a child...

All in all, I think learning foreign languages is, to me, like a tone deaf person with bad co-ordination trying to learn to play a musical instrument.

I'm actually trying to learn some Latin, at the moment, so I can understand the words of Mozart's requiem, but it's a hard slog! At the rate I'm going, I think it would take me a lifetime to read Faust in the original German. In the same time I could probably read a hundred masterpieces in translation, or a hundred original English masterpieces. Given I haven't that much time left, I think I'll stick to translations...

[kiki1982]

There was a definite tendency of people not taking Germans seriously, including teachers in schools even as close as ten years ago... You must have a very strange circle then...

Comprehensive education is the worst thing they have done to language learning. You namely do not learn without exercising and without theory. Focussing on speech alone limits one tremendously in trying to read and write. Making the English classes comprehensive means that they hae stopped to teach grammar as such which means that a language like German, ad even French I would say, becomes unlearnable because one doesn't know obejct from subject and hence, cannot know which case or place the words should be placed in.

Latin... Well, take German times two... I'd prefer to learn French, German and Russian (which I am doing now) to Latin. Sometimes illogical and very concentrated language. There are prepositions, but most of them are incorporated in words in certain cases like the Abblative which can be used in a number of meanings. So very strange things occur when you talk about a bunch of people that are fencing the courtyard off with a wall. The wall, the word on its own, would be written in the Abblative case and you would be expected to realise that it was used in the kind of instrumental meaning. And then there are verbs with their direct object not in the Akkusative (normally), but in the Abblative again. So then you have to know that your Abblative is not used for place or something but for the direct object which can be confusing if you have a thing that could be both. Good luck I'd say.

[mal4mac]

I took Germans *very* seriously at school, reading all the popular works by Einstein and Heisenberg that I could find. My physics teacher had a German surname... If they had taught German by getting us to translate Einstein I might have done better... I just hated the stupid French & German textbooks - endless boring sentences to translate like "Jaques and Marie go to the library". Who can be bothered...

[RJbibliophil]

I mean for example when I read German books like the Kafka ones (a language which I'm school and socially fluent), I seem to lose some of my literary instincts; my analysis ability decreases and i'm reading in a much slower pace! I also can't seem to find the right words when writing an essay, analysis as fast as I do in English (my hands are literally thinking when I write in English and not my brain). Also, I also tend to forget easier some of the plots when reading in a different language which is really bizarre considering languages are basically just a set of words that one has to memorize (I know there's still grammar and stuff but I'm simplifying it). For example, even though the meaning of Tag (day in German) is permanently stuck in my brain, i've got a higher chance of remembering 'day'!

Well that is a bit exaggerated, well it's the same notion but with many words.

Does the same thing happen to you people?

Hahaha well that's not the case for me. Even though I speak 5 languages which is uncommon for my young age (16 y/o), I still have a language of preference when I'm thinking which is probably English. Maybe it's because the quantity of languages that I speak that it overwhelms me...I don't know. What I know is that I understand everything completely in all these 5 languages.

I grew up bilingual-- Norwegian American-- but I've spent all my school years in the US. English is the language that I generally read and use and think in. I'm also fluent in Norwegian, but when I read Norwegian books, which isn't often, since there aren't that many good ones, it does take a lot more work. And that is just because I don't know Norwegian inside and out like I do English.

I'm also going to say that language is a whole lot more than just words and grammar. It's something way bigger, encompassing the whole culture of a people. If you don't have the words to think about an idea, you cannot experience it. Language is like life-blood or something.

So to answer your question: yes, I do loose some of my literary reflex when working with Norwegian simply because I have never fully learned that language inside and out.

[Mockingbird_z]

a very interesting discussion you have here.
I have read all of your posts ans I come to think that I must reread all of the books I have ever read in English (the only foreign language I have so far learned) because I may not have grasped the idea of these books.
I am afraid this can develop into a kind of a fobia - "not-deep-enough-reading" fobia.
all I know is that the more you read in a language (and give your reading enough thinking) the more you master your ability of understanding.
it's like never-ending process. Once you started you got to go all the way through.

[scaltz]

a very interesting discussion you have here.
I have read all of your posts ans I come to think that I must reread all of the books I have ever read in English (the only foreign language I have so far learned) because I may not have grasped the idea of these books.
I am afraid this can develop into a kind of a fobia - "not-deep-enough-reading" fobia.
all I know is that the more you read in a language (and give your reading enough thinking) the more you master your ability of understanding.
it's like never-ending process. Once you started you got to go all the way through.

Well being complete is better than being incomplete right? However beware, like Oscar Wilde said: "Reading isn't reading if you don't enjoy what you read." (or something similar).