Any multilingual poetry readers/writers here?

[bckrause]

Hey everyone, my name is Benjamin. I registered because I found a topic from 2006 via Google search about Bengali poetry. It had very few responses, so I'm wondering: is anyone here multilingual, and in what languages? I read Latin and speak Esperanto and English, as well as a little Spanish (not well though). I really love Latin poetry, especially Catullus and Ovid. And reading Pablo Neruda in Spanish is way better than in translation.

I think poetry is at least somewhat untranslatable, so becoming multilingual should be a goal for every poet or poetry enthusiast.

[OrphanPip]

We have numerous multilingual members. Personally, I only speak French and English.

[Alexander III]

I am fluent in English, Italian and French. Though I grew up in various international schools amongst expat communities, and it was not uncommon for my school fellows to be fluent in up to five or six languages.

I agree that poetry and also prose is in many ways untranslatable, which is why some authors in their native country are regarded with reverence but in the world have little reputation.

I assume the members on lit net are diverse enough for them to speak a variety of languages, but I think that after childhood mastering and becoming fluent in a language is a hard process which requires one to actually live in a country were said language is spoken for an extended period of time.

[logophile]

I am unfortunately restricted to English and translations at the moment... I'm teaching myself french at the moment so the antique Voltaire I was gifted can be read!

[inbetween]

mothertoung german, fluent in english, enough french for a holiday (and childrensstories) and enough dutch to ask for the way and buy cheries ^^ (what is also enough for a holiday)

[StephenDaedalus]

Fluent in spanish and english. Decent enough french and italian for reading poetry.

[laymonite]

Welcome! English and French for me.

[lawpark]

English and Chinese for me.

[endgame]

i speak italian,english,french, a little german and understand easily spanish ...

[endgame]

do u speak chinese?? thats simply great :) :) I'd like learning Chinese ...

[endgame]

bravo :) l' italiano è una lingua un pò difficile ... lo hai imparato a scuola?

[Alexander III]

bravo :) l' italiano è una lingua un pò difficile ... lo hai imparato a scuola?

Se questa domanda e rivolta a me - la mia madre e Italiana, allora ho imparato da lei.

Odio scrivere con gli accenti sul computer, e una fatica bestiale :P

Presumo che voi siete anche Italiani ?

[lawpark]

Not that special to know Chinese ... conservatively speaking 1 in 7 in the world can do that. But if you like reading, it is not a bad language to learn - probably has the largest amount of pre-modern written works surviving today. And many of those works are not available in good / complete English translations unlike some other languages.

[Alexander III]

Not that special to know Chinese ... conservatively speaking 1 in 7 in the world can do that. But if you like reading, it is not a bad language to learn - probably has the largest amount of pre-modern written works surviving today. And many of those works are not available in good / complete English translations unlike some other languages.

I there not a massive difference between ancient Chinese and more modern chinese?

I know that the difference between modern japanese and the japanese which was used in the Heian period is rather substantial.

[endgame]

si io sono Italiana ma francamente mi sento più inglese di adozione .. tu di dove sei?

[lawpark]

I there not a massive difference between ancient Chinese and more modern chinese?

I know that the difference between modern japanese and the japanese which was used in the Heian period is rather substantial.

Quite different in the sense that it is hard to understand much of ancient Chinese texts IF one only knows modern Chinese. However, in the education system, actually most students can know enough modern Chinese to read newspaper (i.e. baseline adult-level proficiency) by end of primary school at the latest (i.e. around 10-12 years' old), in the education systems typically ancient Chinese are taught for at least 2-3 years, thus most come out of the system with some ancient Chinese proficiency. And proficiency comes with reading ... for those interested in reading ancient texts, additional proficiency can build up from there; and of course if one pursues higher education on that, there are more training available.

btw, writings from different periods are sometimes quite different. In the education systems, texts written in ornamental style or Buddhist texts from about 200~700A.D. are mostly not covered.

[JBI]

Quite different in the sense that it is hard to understand much of ancient Chinese texts IF one only knows modern Chinese. However, in the education system, actually most students can know enough modern Chinese to read newspaper (i.e. baseline adult-level proficiency) by end of primary school at the latest (i.e. around 10-12 years' old), in the education systems typically ancient Chinese are taught for at least 2-3 years, thus most come out of the system with some ancient Chinese proficiency. And proficiency comes with reading ... for those interested in reading ancient texts, additional proficiency can build up from there; and of course if one pursues higher education on that, there are more training available.

btw, writings from different periods are sometimes quite different. In the education systems, texts written in ornamental style or Buddhist texts from about 200~700A.D. are mostly not covered.

It's obvious why - literary style dominated, they are simply harder, and dangerous. Han dynasty texts are simply easier, and more conforming with the current regimes rule and hence make up the largest portion of texts read in the education system.

The easiest seem to be Warring States texts though, and that is probably why Hanfeizi is the first bit of anything anyone reads - he's also funny in a rather sick way, that helps.

Seriously though, ornate styles that predate Han Yu's essays seem to cause a big problem in trains of thought.

Firstly, 845 the great Tang cracks down on Buddhism, hard. Before that, 756, glory day Tang is ripped apart to never recover.

And there goes your ornate style, along with ornate concepts of grandeur and excellence, the great Tang, with its feast for exotics and heavenly horses, wine and spice, sex and power, verse and artistic expression, as well as esoteric religion and changes of thought. What better way to crack down that failure by creating the first draft of Chinese fascism, and what better mask than Neo-Confucianism.


The reason those texts are not read is the same reason today in Modern Chinese education Mao's essays are not taught - it is way too difficult a jump for anyone spoonfed to take. The education requires a new step that the mind must make - the jump from official doctrine to rigid thinkers like Confucius and Mencius is easy to make - they basically lay the foundations of the mask of control. Something like Tang Chuanqi on the other hand are chaotic.

As for learning the language, it is harder, but seriously, not as hard as people make it seem, just use a dictionary.

[cl154576]

As for learning the language, it is harder, but seriously, not as hard as people make it seem, just use a dictionary.

The main difficulty is that western tongues sometimes cannot make certain sounds.

[JBI]

The main difficulty is that western tongues sometimes cannot make certain sounds.

Well, that is a load if I ever heard one. Perhaps with Cantonese you can make an argument, or with Vietnamese, but Standard Mandarin has one of the most simple phonetic usages in the world. In truth, almost all the sounds are contained within English vocabulary, and the total still hits just over 425 in the Beijing accent, fewer in other accents. With tones the number is hardly over 900 or so.

Now, as for Grammar, the grammar of Standard Chinese is quite similar to English, which gives English speakers a boost. Japanese speakers, or French speakers will need to relearn their word order.

The phonology and grammar are rather easy relatively speaking when we talk bout Chinese. Compared with English it is simple - no inflection and very few sounds.



Now, to what I said before, it was in reference to Chinese students learning classical texts, which is more the study of obscure meanings of characters, and the study of obscure characters and their meanings.

By the way, note that standard editions of all Chinese classics are heavily glossed, many including a Standard Chinese translation. My edition of 300 Tang Poems from Taiwan, for instance even has phonetic transcriptions of every character and a sentence by sentence translation, as well as biographical and discussion notes.

The difficulty is in characters, as mentioned before, at the end of primary school, most students can read newspapers, which takes about 2000 or so characters roughly. Classical Chinese in certain periods, especially really literary stuff between the fall of the Han and the fall of the Tang tends to be very poetically written and ornate, and use lots of artistic words, characters, and constructions. It is prized for its style as well as its content. Song works by prose authors are generally prized for their clarity, sparse use of obscurities, and neo-classical, simplistic style. Yuan works took it even further with writings emerging in the vernacular coming from story books and contemporary theatre.

As a comparison, it is like Augustine's attempt at simple style in Latin as apposed to Virgil's.



As to learning Chinese in general, it isn't as hard as some people make it up to be as long as you are dedicated. The hardest part is getting absorbed into it, there is an abundance of new material available both online and in print form that seriously facilitates the process.