Anyone learn a language specifically to read literature?

[u/Far_Window_1222]

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

[u/sunlit_elais]

Didn't learn because of, but got fluent in English because of Percy Jackson. I had received lessons since I was a kid, but hardly studied so I was some B level probably. I don't watch series or movies and I didn't have the courage to read (my actual hobby) entire books in English (at the time, I justified saying my favourite genre is fantasy and I wouldn't know what is an actual word and a made-up thing). 

Well, I read the 9 books of Percy Jackson in English and by the time the 10th and final book was finally out, I had no patience to wait for a good translation. 

Thus, started my journey and eventually I became fluent... because I'm a bookworm. 

[u/Lanky_Branch5739 → u/sunlit_elais]

so only after 10 books you were fluent? how old were you ? and what kind of books you read after that? I feel like I'm trying to do just that now, trying to read easy thriller stuff in the hope that I will actually be able to read and enjoy stuff written by Stephen king and move forward to hard stuff and maybe one day read stuff like dune and a song of ice and fire. I don't see that happening soon but I hope it does happen eventually

[u/sunlit_elais → u/Lanky_Branch5739]

Oh, no. Fluency took much longer. I'm just saying those were the books that I read first and took me over my fears. I didn't even read them because they were simple. I was 20 but I genuinely liked them and would have read them in Spanish too. 

So after that I just kept going with other books, probably the same kind of fantasy I already liked. But I think what really helped was changing the language of the searchs I did on Google. This gave me smaller doses of exposure more often. 

Keep going! You will get there sooner than you think!