>live on earth
>dislike the earth tradition
>not reading is a cop-out

what do?

read English literature you fucking moron

Shut up and read Moby Dick

>>8261041
Really? Why?

>learn a second language
>read novels in learned language
>????
>PROFIT

it isn't really a cop-out, just read an annotated version and be honest and mindful about what you read, i.e. don't pretend you read anything other than a translation.

Anyone successfully self-taught themselves a second language?

I'm up to 30% fluency in French on duolingo.

Stop reading

>>8261227
I finished the duolingo tree for French and I couldn't even read the petit prince. You must immerse yourself with music and shows and buy a grammar workbook as well. Duolingo is shit for grammar. I started learning German instead but I think I'm gonna go back to french

>>8261235
Assimil is also great for French

>>8261041
sounds like you imagined a bunch of rules to take the blame for what's really just a lack of character that you can't face

Learn another language? Jesus...

>he's a monolingual pleb
>also pleb who can't appreciate one of the greatest literary traditions
>fell for the >translation meme
>frogposter

Well, I suggest you to kys

>>8261227
>>8261235
duolingo is soo shit for learning languages.

if you want to learn X
go on pirate-bay search X
you'll find a collection of textbooks (30+) on the topic
read books you think are useful

textbooks are all you need.
X works especially well for a language. I downloaded collections of french, of german and italian textbooks because thats what i need to learn.

make sure you have at least one REALLY good exhaustive grammar. then read a dictionary. also """"immersive""" learning sounds like some new-age bullshit but actually its pretty essential unless your savant-tier at language. language is a social thing and until you immerse yourself your brain will just think its useless.


but yeah, duolingo is shit

>>8261041
1. frog picture
2. only confident in english
3. dislike most of the anglo-american tradition
4. reading in translation is a cop-out
5. "w-what do?"

you post five things and literally each of these show your a pleb. get your shit together man. learn a language. preferably french or german. italian is the easiest but the literature doesnt compare.

>>8262037
he never said that he was monolingual. he said he was confident only in english. clearly you arent even confident in english if your reading comprehension is so shit.

its piss-easy to have a language good enough to converse with people and get around. its much harder to read literature. there are languages i would only read with a parallel translation into english or a language im confident in.

you seem like youve never learned another language to an advanced level

>>8261041
>reading in translation is a cop-out
it really isn't

>>8262437
Effectively, he's monolingual. I was just shitposting anyway.

>you seem like youve never learned another language to an advanced level
English is my second language and I can read Shakespeare. Is that good enough?

>>8261041
Learn a language, niggerretard

>>8261227
Drop duolingo right now

Go through a grammar textbook for the language of your choice just to get familiar with it then start reading native material. Try reading news sites in the language you want to learn.

If your only goal is reading and not producing then you don't have to bother with shit like memorizing the conjugations right away.

if anyone in this thread is looking for some advice pertaining to how to learn languages, there are some good youtube channels that have a ton of good advice on them, regarding general language learning principles from successful language learners. using some of the advice i've gone from being a monolingual retard to having a varying extend of skill in persian, french, and korean.

steve kaufman and alexander arguelles on youtube, both polygots.

just read around about polyglots and what they do, but the essence of it is: USE THE LANGUAGE A LOT.

language learning is a process. pick a language that you have a genuine interest in and during that time youre going to become better at not only the language but language learning as a whole, too. once you start learning a language you are going to be better at learning the next one, regardless if they are related or not.

also, disregard the seemingly prevalent thought that language learning takes a long time. it doesn't. sit down and study for minimum an hour or two every day and if youre studying something like a romance language, you're going to be able to read newspapers in a month. language learning isn't impossible.

>>8262454
depends. a lot of these people trying to learn french/spanish/german/italian/russian/chinese/arabic ect have never come in contact with it until they are in their 20's or even 30's.
its much more difficult than learning the lingua franca of english.

congrats on the shakepeare though.

>>8262489
>If your only goal is reading and not producing then you don't have to bother with shit like memorizing the conjugations right away.
i agree with you except this. assuming you know a language with flexible word order, the meaning requires you to distinguish normative, dative, accusative and genative.
"The man gave the dog a ball" has a different meaning than "the man gave the ball a dog", or "the dog gave the ball a man", or "the dog gave the man a ball" or "the ball gave a man a dog" or "the ball gave a dog a man"

though whereas in english this is distinguished by word order, in most language its distinguished by case.

similar arguement for tenses ect.

eg italian doesnt use pronouns (except for emphasis) so you tell the subject from the tense

and try reading latin without conjugations