What does it mean to be "well-read"?
I always saw it as somebody who has read the essential classics and other, more obscure works. But I guess it could also mean somebody who reads anything they can get their hands on, no matter how pulpy, trashy or high-brow.
When you meet someone who is, you'll know.
nothing
a never ending desperate competition to try and prove to everyone else you've read more than them in everything
t. my diary 2bh
when youve read enough to know ur fav writers from canon
>>7746244
>having fav writers
you're definitely not well read
Your capability to analyze a book. Basically, the degree to which your able to apply critical thinking to books.
Not to be confused with being "widely read" which just means that you've read a lot of books. It's the difference between quality reading and quantity reading.
>>7746194
When you've read Infinite Jest
>>7746260
explain nabokov then
>>7746288
>nabokov
>well read
NICE MEME
>>7746235
Why do people say things like this on a literature board? Do they get no actual enjoyment from reading? Do they think reading is all a ruse?
>>7746298
>he fell for the literature meme
GOOD JOB LADS WE RUSED ANOTHER ONE
>>7746291
Here we have an example of a person that does not belong in /lit/, posing and posting simply for their own amusement. No substance, no style, just garbage posts.
>>7746307
as opposed to the guy he was responding to?
>>7746307
were you the one who posted that hilariously fedora RIP /lit/ / new rules post?
>>7746314
not that guy but what are you talking about?
>>7746316
it got deleted it looks like but someone posted a super tryhard post about new stickies/rules/posting standards to be enforced on /lit/
When he says he read The Stranger and Crime and Punishment or any other book by those old guys
>>7746306
wow if Big Dave were here he'd kick your skinny candy ass to /fuckboy/ world ha ha niiiice well meme'd
>>7746298
you can enjoy reading and feeling superior to others about it. sorry you're a simple pleb
>>7746334
if big dave was so tough why is he dead?
haha memes amirite
You aren't well read until you started with the Greeks and then read the entire western canon, culminating with the holy triumvirate of Gass, Gaddis, and Pynchon. DFW too, for the bantz.
You aren't well read until you started with the Greeks and then read the entire western canon, culminating with the holy triumvirate of Gass, Gaddis, and Pynchon. DFW too, for the bantz.
>>7746339
You end with the greeks, pleb. I can't believe anyone could get meme'd so hard.
>>7746338
he was a tough enough dude that he hurt himself so hard with his toughness and is now kill OK??????
wow its like you dont even realize what it is to be strong haha noodle arm limp dick cant even pick up a book haha thats YOU!!!!
>>7746336
> not reading for the joy of reading itself
> needing to feel superior over others
I think it is you who is a simple pleb, anon. But that's OK, you'll fit right in here! Welcome to Reddit!
>>7746194
Well-read means two major things to me.
(1) You have read SOME from each of the great periods and cannons: classical antiquity- chinese, indian, persian, greek, roman, european myths & legends, medieval literature, renaissance literature, modern 18th to 20th century with some mandatory reading, Tolstoy, Kafka, Joyce and of course the major religious texts of Christianity, Islam, Dao and Hindu.
(2) You have read SOME authors from your own personal background, country of origin or ethnicity. You understand your own history and are well versed with the greats and understand their impact and know their works.
Those are the basic steps you take towards becoming well read. It's a never ending process, just treat it as a lifelong hobby to familiarise yourself with the wealth and breadth of human experience from all cultures and civilizations, and of course if you are Polish, Russian, African, German, American, Chinese, British, whatever you might be focus especially on your own background and find literary giants that wrote in your native tongue. It is important to be proud of where you come from. It saddens me to see so many diverse young Europeans in /lit/ ignoring their vast and beautiful personal literary history in favour of focusing on just French or American authors. There is something to having your own language, a unique experience which does not translate perfectly, you should revel it and read in it when you can.
>>7746389
This is why I'm so sad I was born mono-lingual. I've tried to learn a second language multiple times, but it never comes in a natural way -- in my head I'm just translating word by word back into english because I can't think in anything else, which I feel will always hold me back and probably ruin any literature I try to read in another language.
>>7746438
Korean is an easy gateway into Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese
French is your gateway to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Romanian and Latin
English is your gateway to German and Scandinavian Languages
Turkish begins your journey west into a culture mostly ignored by western education
Farsi is your gateway to Persia and the Middle East
Arabic extends your reach to North Africa
Uralic languages give you some more access to Eastern Europe
and Slavic covers vast numbers of peoples and traditions
If you plan to seriously read in any particular language, you will do well to live in that country for 1 or 2 years, either as a student or if you're lucky to get a job there. Being surrounded by the language on a daily basis really benefits you and will accelerate your ability to soak it in.
English is unique in that it is quite plastic, but you may have difficulty with some language families over others. I'm not a native speaker but I have seen older family members struggle to pick up English because it is not very compatible with the Romance languages. Alternatively they picked up Chinese fairly quickly, despite the extra tones and character constructions.
As you get older, it will be more difficult for you to think in another language. If you truly love a language take a year off or find a way to live in your preferred country, being alive in the spoken word will force you to adapt more than ink on paper. This is easy to do in your early 20s, it gets harder and harder as you get older because responsibilities catch up and you need to spread roots.
It's definitely possible to learn a language in isolation using just the internet and videos to guide you. But you need to be quite dedicated. I learned English when I was about 6 and French when I was 13. If I were to pick up German or Chinese now I can definitely see increasing effort required to get up to a proficiency where I'd be comfortable to read in it, 2-3 years at least, and this is with the knowledge of several languages to bounce between and try to find similarities in sentence structure and vocabulary.
My original point is more about discovering your own language not learning a second. English has a great tradition dating back to Norman conquest. You would do yourself a great service to watch the BBC's 9 part documentary series from the 80s titled "The Story of English" and learn about this amazing ever changing language and why we still use it today.
>>7746291
next time you set out to write a shitpost, try to go for more length.
fuck this board
>>7746438
>in my head I'm just translating word by word back into english
this eventually fades away with enough practice
>>7746569
There is nothing worthwhile for Turkish?
>>7746201
Pretty much this.
Unless you go to a phil, english or psych major's home and see something akin to Netwon's Principia or Road to Reality next to their Strindberg/Goethe/Aristotle/other curriculum-tier anthologies. Then you know they are try hards who aren't well read at all.
>>7746307
>Here we have an example of a person that does not belong in /lit/, posing and posting simply for their own amusement. No substance, no style, just garbage posts.
>>7746194
thats a beautiful photo
>>7746194
the amount of time you spend on literotica.com is only 3/4 of the amount of time you spend reading
>>7747733
If you know Turkish and use it as an entryway into Central Asian languages, there is an easy job market because its such a largely ignored niche in the West.
Get in on it now before China builds highways through the whole region in the next five years.
>>7748379
I'd think Persia and India would try to prevent that.
I would suggest that the person that is or is not "well read" be "judged so" by the most "pertinent" facts.
Perhaps being "well-read" involves too convoluted or too few criteria to be "meaningful."
>>7746194
>"Have you read book <x>?"
>"Ah, yes. I'm unfortunately familiar with it. Didn't care for it. Didn't care for it at all."
>"Oh really? What part? Like when the..."
>"Ah. Ah ah ah. Ah ah ah. Shh."
>"But..."
>*raises finger to lips*
>"Shh."
>>7748503
>You know what Goethe would say about that post?
>No?
>Hm (turn head back and not respond to that person for the rest of the night)
>>7747770
It's currently my desktop background. Weebing aside, Japan looks beautiful in winter.
Cue the "That's why you read Plato" pasta.
>>7746569
Korean gateway into Chinese? Are you handicapped? Chinese into Korean and Japanese, the other way round is advising learning to fly before u can jump
>>7746438
go live in a country where they speak a language you want to become fluent in
>>7749998
He probably means that totality of Korean's linguistic aspects are easier to digest than their entirety of Chinese's. In Chinese, there are a minimum of 4,000 characters one needs to learn in order to not look like a barbarian. Korea's alphabetical system is much easier to absorb by comparison.
And woody Korean even sounds more like western languages, than tinny Chinese.
