Language Learning / Bilingual / Polyglot Thread

Whenever I'm on a flight, I tend to watch movies dubbed into German, and can read in the language too.
 
I prefer to read in my native language if I have a choice; my English is very good (I think) and I've picked up and regularly use a local dialect and code of speech when I speak and write to the point I'm rarely identified as a cultural enricher but it requires too much thought when trying to zone out a little bit such as when reading for pleasure. There is a French-language forum I visit regularly for news but again, it's not something I would choose to read an extended text in if there were other options but I like to keep up with affairs there too.

I've never been able to do things like mental maths in English for much the same reason. I end up doing it in one and then translating it.
 
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I read in English all the time and my Spanish turns worse by day.
If someone knows about a good book for practicing Japanese I would thank you dearly.
 
I can read dumb Megaman comics in Japanese.
 
As a manga fan of almost 30 years, I used to have to try and read everything in Japanese because none of the good stuff came over here. Or sometimes it DID come out over here and VIZ canceled it prematurely like Fist of the North Star and Guyver. I still import the new Rurouni Kenshin and Kinnikuman books as I doubt they'll ever come over here. There are probably scanlations out there, but I don't know where to get them.
 
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Travoltron said:
As a manga fan of almost 30 years, I used to have to try and read everything in Japanese because none of the good stuff came over here. Or sometimes it DID come out over here and VIZ canceled it prematurely like Fist of the North Star and Guyver. I still import the new Rurouni Kenshin and Kinnikuman books as I doubt they'll ever come over here. There are probably scanlations out there, but I don't know where to get them.
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Understand that feeling bro. Some of the manga I read are historical Japanese manga not too westerner friendly like Hyouge Mono. Even if there are scanlation, the manga I mentioned is steeped with the usage of classical Japanese language, the translation is understandably slow.

On topic I prefer reading Japanese books than English books. In occasions I read some light novels that are not available in the west yet.
 
Read some in Korean from time to time. Somewhat rusty, though. Can read a bit in some other languages. Able to pick out some words in Russian. Can recognize a bunch of languages.
 
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I read books and poems that were originally written in German as they were originally written. German poetry translates (to English) in a way that's so atrocious that it's not even worth trying, in my opinion. I'm reading Das Stunden-Buch by Rilke, whose name is apparently short for René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke. I read books originally written in English in [non-Russian Slavic language] or English. Helps me learn. I'm currently reading Harry Potter because it's easy reading and I know enough of the plot from the movies to make sense of parts of the book that have vocab I don't know.

I also have a ton of Russian reading to do, but I struggle to think of any good Russian books. I haven't read it, but perhaps Anna Karenina? Metro 2033 was amazing.

Films in foreign language are difficult. Looking at subtitles makes looking at the actual film difficult. I don't know how deaf people do it.
 
Azafran90 said:
I read in English all the time and my Spanish turns worse by day.
If someone knows about a good book for practicing Japanese I would thank you dearly.
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If you mean textbooks, it's hard to go wrong with Genki 1 + 2. There's also Human Japanese if you prefer software, and the same people have a site called Satori Reader that can help you get some structured reading practice in. If you meant actual native reading material, Yotsuba&! is a great one to start with. It's easy, but will still teach you a lot of everyday vocabulary and sentence structures, plus it's entertaining enough to make reading large sections easy.
 
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I have the first harry potter in Japanese that i try to read some times but my Japanese is childs level so i struggle to get past the first page. I also try to talk to random people online in Japanese but im not great with conversations so i just ask basic shit like "did you have good food?"
 
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I'm fluent in English and Hindi, can read a regional language, and am trying to learn Japanese and French.

I just like languages, okay?!...
 
i read News and shit in english. I dont read books in english, there is just one native english writer who was worth his salt and i know his books in and out...
 
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I try to read/write/listen in english as much as I can since my native language is spanish. Other than that, I've tried learning german and french. Eventually I would drop them after figuring how much I should invest into learning a third language from scratch.
 
war has changed said:
I just like languages, okay?!...
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Which tongues? My favourite ones are French and Ancient Greek.

Stoneheart said:
i read News and shit in english. I dont read books in english, there is just one native english writer who was worth his salt and i know his books in and out...
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Extrapolating from your grammar and spelling, ye do not look like a person who reads much at all.
 
I started relearning Spanish but haven't graduated to fiction yet. The last I read fiction in Spanish was over 20 years ago.

Koresh said:
Inb4 all the weebs show up and ask if their imported doujinshis count.
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I imported classic French comics BDs. Bad idea, comics are the absolutely worst to read in a foreign language. Weebs who try to parse (I assume) bad native Japanese in doujinshis are absolute champions.
 
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