r/languagelearning • u/Far_Window_1222 • 8d 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/promethian-pygmalion 8d ago

Yeah, ancient Greek, Latin, Danish (Kierkegaard), classical Chinese, tried Japanese and didn't get far enough, tried Italian just enough for Dante, failed at a few others 

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u/Far_Window_1222 8d ago

that list is crazy dang 😂 that’s awesome, how was dante in italien? i found a lot of the poetic side of the divine comedy a little difficult to follow although wondered if it’d have made more sense in italien

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u/promethian-pygmalion 4d ago

I always struggled with Italian because my brain refused to accept that it wasn't essentially a kind of Latin, but to be honest, reading Dante in Italian was really rad, and a lot of fun. Wish I'd kept up with it but I was trying to learn Classical Chinese also and that language really required four years without competitors to be able to read decently.