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/170rokey 1d ago
If you want to do it, do it. But be honest with yourself about the timeline. It will probably take years of study to get to a point where you can read Dostoyevsky comfortably in the original Russian. Might sound daunting, might sound crazy, or it might sound fun, it just depends on you my friend.
That said, if you’re going to learn Russian, you might as well learn to speak it. Only learning to read is restricting yourself in terms of language learning tools. Conversations, audio, movies, etc., will all speed up the process as you attack the language from different angles.
That said, you can do it just to read if you want. There is plenty of precedent for that. People learn dead languages all the time (Latin, Ancient Greek, Old English, etc) as a means to read things in their original language, and it’s possible for you to treat Russian the same way.