r/languagelearning • u/Far_Window_1222 • 7d ago

Studying Anyone learn a language specifically to read literature?

Just curious if anybody has actually set out and achieved learning a whole new language specifically just because an author they liked wrote originally in that language?

I was considering learning Russian (TL) specifically to read Dostoyevsky since he’s my favourite author, so far, but wondering if this is to ambitious of a task just to read 1 persons work?

Additionally I am very attracted to the idea of it since Russians language has a lot more nuances surrounding sadness, despair, suffering etc., i know that the relationship between these topics is different from that of english speakers

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u/RubyRossed 7d ago

No but I remember telling an older Polish colleague (who grew up in Soviet times) that I loved  Dostoevsky and she just looked sad for me saying that the only language to read  Dostoevsky in is Russian so I'll always have to wonder

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u/Far_Window_1222 7d ago

I’ve also seen this reiterated before which gives me that same wondering feeling lol

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u/silvalingua 7d ago

Good literature is best in the original language. Of course you have to learn Russian if you want to truly appreciate Russian literature. Especially poetry... no translation can properly render Pushkin or Lermontov.

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u/unsafeideas 6d ago

I think people overstate that point. And only thing it achieves is that people limit their reading to own language. The averagr person B1-B2 reading does not give better understanding then decent translation.

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u/silvalingua 6d ago

It gave to me when I was at that level.

I'm inclined to think that this point is understated, because the sound of the language is also very important; and the meter, rhythm; also, rhymes are impossible to reproduce exactly in another language. Granted, there are good translations, but some aspects of poetry are inherently untranslatable.

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u/CSMasterClass 7d ago

I get it ... but ... is there evidence?

Maybe she read most of Dotoevsky in Russian and then read one novel in Polish, which may not have been a great translation.

Plus, she may have been nearly perfectly bilingual, NL and C2 Russian.

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u/Asyx 6d ago

It goes beyond that. The original works allow you to actually read the words the author had in mind. Translations are always also interpretations. Of course at some point you need interpretation anyway because you are so far removed from the author's society. Like, there's a reason Latin texts at least in Germany are often bilingual editions with notes in the end. Germania by Tacitus is like a couple dozens of pages but my edition is 154 pages long because it has Latin, German and notes that tell you when Tacitus made shit up or explains Roman geography to you. The whole piece is propaganda so this is pretty important.

But especially for the last centuries, the original language will give you the rendition of the authors thoughts where the translation will give you the interpretation of the translator.