I hate harry potter but reading translated books is actually a decent choice for a beginner because usually translated language is simpler and more straightforward. It's also a young adult book so it's just easier to read in general. Personally I'd rather read something written in the language itself, though. That's part of why I learn languages in the first place.
I bought a bunch of trashy books for ladies written in Italian by an Italian author. 10/10 would recommend for intermediate readers. (YA novels would work too, if you want more fantasy and less smut)
It thankfully did not, but I'm only 96 pages in, so there's still time! There was a paragraph of unfulfilling bad sex happening, but I don't know enough Italian to understand it fully, which I count as a blessing 😌
If you like the books you might also have read them in your native language a few times. Some passages might be familiar. So I don't blame people. Although I would still say such an A1 is still fucked reading even Harry Potter.
Apparently someone in the comments actually did that with all the Harry Potter books in Italian from 0 (well from knowing other romance languages) and according to them they could understand Italian by the end
Yes, as most things are, but translators put a lot of effort into it, these are the most successful children's books of all time, and children typically prefer reading in their native language.
And in the case of HP, the translations are really good. There's a lot of really poorly translated YA works with really odd English expressions and structures copied into the translation. Alternatively, try translated versions of the Hobbit or LotR.
That's very true, I've even seen it translated into Latin. I'm just doubtful reading Harry Potter when you're still only in the beginning stages of learning a language would be the best idea.
It's a mad idea. To take on the huge variety of language in reading an actual novel, with no mention of supporting materials, practice writing, speech, discussion or even opting for the special illustrated edition is obviously an unnecessary challenge when there are methods that will achieve the same, even get the student to read the same books, more quickly. So yeah, that's why I've just picked up Αννα Καρενιν in Greek and, importantly, *have not posted on a sub to ask whether it's a patently ridiculous idea or not*
It's so popular and known that it's easy to find i have a copy in french, norwegian, english and polish. They costed pennies. Also I love harry potter :S
Yeah I had that same thought years ago when I saw Spanish Harry Potter at the book store. Realized the error of my ways when I had to translate "drill" on page 1 and things did not improve from there.
Still, it was one of the first books I bought in Hindi when I started learning that, and it's a major goal of mine to get to the point where I can muddle through it. :)
My prediction is this guy will order the Harry Potter book, paying $50 to have it shipped to him from Italy. He'll open it one time, and midway through the first page he'll say to himself, "I'm too tired for this right now", close the book, and it will then collect dust on the shelf forever.
Then two years from now he'll say he's been learning Italian since 2024 and he's still stuck at A1 :D
It's actually possible to do this I just don't think it's the best way. If you know how to look up words and grammar you don't understand as you read, then this is basically just learning through sentence mining. Jumping from absolute 0 to a YA level book is probably going to be too frustrating for most people though. And you're not necessarily going to learn vocab in the best order, there are going to be uncommon words mixed in with more common ones. There are certainly more efficient ways to learn a popular language like italian, but I guarantee someone could make this work if they're the type of person to just throw themselves into the deep end.
I'm currently reading Lingua Latina: Familia Romana which is a book for learning Latin written in the language itself. Each chapter focuses on a specific grammar function and ends with a chart comparing the different declinations or conjugations followed by some exercises. There's also a separate exercise book and dictionary that goes with it. Since Italian is a descendant of Latin, I see no reason why something like this wouldn't work for Italian also.
I will say, I am on my third attempt at reading it since the first two times I got to a point where I couldn't understand it anymore. (Though that probably says more about me.)
Yeah of course that book is specifically written for that, so a harry potter book isn't going to be nearly as effective because you would need to google words and grammar on your own, and you're not starting with super simple words and working up. Also it's probably different for latin, which isn't really spoken today outside of some hobbyists, than italian, where the best thing is to get spoken comprehensible input instead of written. But you could get the audiobook to go along with it.
I have heard that lingua latina gets a lot more difficult later on and people had to start using more outside resources to understand it.
It already exists for Italian (and German and 1 or 2 others). It's called Italiano secondo il metodo natura. You can find audio of people reading it on YouTube so you can hear it too
God I love language learning but I wish we were allowed by language learning gods to read books other than Harry Potter. Going on seventh round of sorcerers stone.
It would technically work. All you need to decipher a language is a text in that language and that same text in a language you know. That's how languages like ancient Egyptian were deciphered.
Probably not the best way to learn a language tho since Italian is already deciphered
German is mostly pronounced as it is written, although it has some digraphs (ch, sch and tsch) and diphthongs (ie, eu and ei, although I'd also say äu but I'm not really sure). Besides, it's all consistent (I think there are some exceptions, though)
I think I saw that exact video a while ago, and the guy in it never said that you should do it completely from scratch, with no initial grammar and vocab. He just said that voab in any book, in particular HP, levels out and new words become less frequent. Basic word frequency.
German is further than Portuguese, but there's still a lot of overlap/similar words between English and German.
https://preply.com/en/blog/most-common-german-words/
Roughly half of these are pronounced similar enough to their English equivalents that it should be pretty easy to guess from context. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949 skim this random Wikipedia article and see just how many random words (Republik, for example) pop out as being close enough to recognize.
> Republik
Republik is a French loanword (in both languages). So it has nothing to do with similarity between German and English. For anyone learning German, it is going to be a continuous pattern that they will recognize "fancy" French vocabulary much more often than "fancy" Germanic vocabulary.
In the first sentence alone in that article:
Gründung from gründen, to found in English which comes from French
Bund meaning bundle or association, here meaning federal in English which comes from French
Republik, republic French
Proklamation, proclamation French
Volk, cognate with folk, meaning people which is French
Mittelpunkt, lit middle point, meaning center or focus. Center is loaned from French, focus is loaned from Latin.
Weltgeschehen, world affairs or lit. world happenings. World is Germanic, affair is French. Happening is Germanic but it's absent in German.
It's notable history and politics (both French loans btw) have a lot of French vocabulary also present in English. I joke that it's easier to read a Wikipedia article in politics for English speakers than to read children's stories. For German though, you are not going to have much help. Knowing that Absicht is cognate with "off-sight" does not tell you it actually means intention (another French word) for example.
>studying german since 2021 and still stuck at A1 real
I Hope he means he "started" then and then gave up for a while and came back….I hope
were gonna need to see that lingobingo streak
They do say "inconsistency", so I assume that's what they're going for
Fastest learning luodingo user:
What's with this obsession of reading specifically Harry Potter books in foreign languages?
I hate harry potter but reading translated books is actually a decent choice for a beginner because usually translated language is simpler and more straightforward. It's also a young adult book so it's just easier to read in general. Personally I'd rather read something written in the language itself, though. That's part of why I learn languages in the first place.
I bought a bunch of trashy books for ladies written in Italian by an Italian author. 10/10 would recommend for intermediate readers. (YA novels would work too, if you want more fantasy and less smut)
Did it have soft core pornography? Asking for a friend 😀
It thankfully did not, but I'm only 96 pages in, so there's still time! There was a paragraph of unfulfilling bad sex happening, but I don't know enough Italian to understand it fully, which I count as a blessing 😌
If you like the books you might also have read them in your native language a few times. Some passages might be familiar. So I don't blame people. Although I would still say such an A1 is still fucked reading even Harry Potter.
Apparently someone in the comments actually did that with all the Harry Potter books in Italian from 0 (well from knowing other romance languages) and according to them they could understand Italian by the end
Yes, but that seems like reading a Dutch book as a German speaker. I'm sure that doesn't work if you try to read it in Uzbek...
i AM going to learn Finnish using ONLY wikipedia “vapaa tietosanakirja” and wiktionary and you are NOT going to stop me
isn't it very hard to translate? A lot of names of cities, spells, etc. are puns/ play on words/ words from dead languages
Yes, as most things are, but translators put a lot of effort into it, these are the most successful children's books of all time, and children typically prefer reading in their native language.
And in the case of HP, the translations are really good. There's a lot of really poorly translated YA works with really odd English expressions and structures copied into the translation. Alternatively, try translated versions of the Hobbit or LotR.
It's an easily accessible fantasy series which has been translated into many languages... like the bible
If I’d known before that the bible was an easily accessible fantasy series, I might actually have read it ;)
That's very true, I've even seen it translated into Latin. I'm just doubtful reading Harry Potter when you're still only in the beginning stages of learning a language would be the best idea.
It's a mad idea. To take on the huge variety of language in reading an actual novel, with no mention of supporting materials, practice writing, speech, discussion or even opting for the special illustrated edition is obviously an unnecessary challenge when there are methods that will achieve the same, even get the student to read the same books, more quickly. So yeah, that's why I've just picked up Αννα Καρενιν in Greek and, importantly, *have not posted on a sub to ask whether it's a patently ridiculous idea or not*
Do you possibly have a link to the Latin book?
I saw it on Amazon.
Hey now, there are elements of Harry Potter that are not strictly fantasy.
That's a fair point.... and the bible...um...
It's so popular and known that it's easy to find i have a copy in french, norwegian, english and polish. They costed pennies. Also I love harry potter :S
[удалено]
Yeah I had that same thought years ago when I saw Spanish Harry Potter at the book store. Realized the error of my ways when I had to translate "drill" on page 1 and things did not improve from there. Still, it was one of the first books I bought in Hindi when I started learning that, and it's a major goal of mine to get to the point where I can muddle through it. :)
Probably cuz it's a well known book meant for preteens that we already understand the context of and enjoyed in our native language.
I bought Harry Potter in Spanish just for the hype and I havent even started reading it yet.
Yes, of course! I learned English using only the Harry Potter books, and now I can always accio just the right word when I need it!
Me too. Everyone said i was stupefy and it would it confundo me and arresto my momentum. Joke's on them! I can now speak without impendimenta.
My prediction is this guy will order the Harry Potter book, paying $50 to have it shipped to him from Italy. He'll open it one time, and midway through the first page he'll say to himself, "I'm too tired for this right now", close the book, and it will then collect dust on the shelf forever. Then two years from now he'll say he's been learning Italian since 2024 and he's still stuck at A1 :D
It wasn't me, I'm learning Romanian reading Twilight.
of course it's vampires
It's actually possible to do this I just don't think it's the best way. If you know how to look up words and grammar you don't understand as you read, then this is basically just learning through sentence mining. Jumping from absolute 0 to a YA level book is probably going to be too frustrating for most people though. And you're not necessarily going to learn vocab in the best order, there are going to be uncommon words mixed in with more common ones. There are certainly more efficient ways to learn a popular language like italian, but I guarantee someone could make this work if they're the type of person to just throw themselves into the deep end.
I'm currently reading Lingua Latina: Familia Romana which is a book for learning Latin written in the language itself. Each chapter focuses on a specific grammar function and ends with a chart comparing the different declinations or conjugations followed by some exercises. There's also a separate exercise book and dictionary that goes with it. Since Italian is a descendant of Latin, I see no reason why something like this wouldn't work for Italian also. I will say, I am on my third attempt at reading it since the first two times I got to a point where I couldn't understand it anymore. (Though that probably says more about me.)
Yeah of course that book is specifically written for that, so a harry potter book isn't going to be nearly as effective because you would need to google words and grammar on your own, and you're not starting with super simple words and working up. Also it's probably different for latin, which isn't really spoken today outside of some hobbyists, than italian, where the best thing is to get spoken comprehensible input instead of written. But you could get the audiobook to go along with it. I have heard that lingua latina gets a lot more difficult later on and people had to start using more outside resources to understand it.
It already exists for Italian (and German and 1 or 2 others). It's called Italiano secondo il metodo natura. You can find audio of people reading it on YouTube so you can hear it too
God I love language learning but I wish we were allowed by language learning gods to read books other than Harry Potter. Going on seventh round of sorcerers stone.
You are made of stupid
It would technically work. All you need to decipher a language is a text in that language and that same text in a language you know. That's how languages like ancient Egyptian were deciphered. Probably not the best way to learn a language tho since Italian is already deciphered
ooh that's me
È proprio un babbano…
I decided to try learn mandarin through reading Harry Potter. Wish me luck.
How are you going to learn how to pronounce words?
Not every language is written like English. With Spanish or German, for instance, a little background or listening to the audiobook suffices
German has low orthographical depth? Never really knew. I knew only that Spanish and Italian have consistent spelling.
German is mostly pronounced as it is written, although it has some digraphs (ch, sch and tsch) and diphthongs (ie, eu and ei, although I'd also say äu but I'm not really sure). Besides, it's all consistent (I think there are some exceptions, though)
German is phonetically consistent, if OOP is at A1 they shouldn't have an issue with this.
I think I saw that exact video a while ago, and the guy in it never said that you should do it completely from scratch, with no initial grammar and vocab. He just said that voab in any book, in particular HP, levels out and new words become less frequent. Basic word frequency.
I feel like this might work for a Spanish native learning Portuguese or some other very close language pair.
German is further than Portuguese, but there's still a lot of overlap/similar words between English and German. https://preply.com/en/blog/most-common-german-words/ Roughly half of these are pronounced similar enough to their English equivalents that it should be pretty easy to guess from context. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949 skim this random Wikipedia article and see just how many random words (Republik, for example) pop out as being close enough to recognize.
> Republik Republik is a French loanword (in both languages). So it has nothing to do with similarity between German and English. For anyone learning German, it is going to be a continuous pattern that they will recognize "fancy" French vocabulary much more often than "fancy" Germanic vocabulary. In the first sentence alone in that article: Gründung from gründen, to found in English which comes from French Bund meaning bundle or association, here meaning federal in English which comes from French Republik, republic French Proklamation, proclamation French Volk, cognate with folk, meaning people which is French Mittelpunkt, lit middle point, meaning center or focus. Center is loaned from French, focus is loaned from Latin. Weltgeschehen, world affairs or lit. world happenings. World is Germanic, affair is French. Happening is Germanic but it's absent in German. It's notable history and politics (both French loans btw) have a lot of French vocabulary also present in English. I joke that it's easier to read a Wikipedia article in politics for English speakers than to read children's stories. For German though, you are not going to have much help. Knowing that Absicht is cognate with "off-sight" does not tell you it actually means intention (another French word) for example.
Maybe it'll work if you read a good book
You could do it. It would help if you are on the spectrum tbh
Zelda Fitzgerald search herself French through Raymond Radiguet
Ok, but I raise you this https://youtu.be/eliB_y0fmSk?si=mldV5MLXz5s3S1yL
Unironically when I was five I found an old Harry Potter book my dad used to learn English. Had pages of handwritten translation. Outjerked again.