Are Chekhov, Mandelshtam, Pushkin and Maiakovski worth learning Russian...

Are Chekhov, Mandelshtam, Pushkin and Maiakovski worth learning Russian ? Or should I go with german as my third language ? pic somewhat related

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>learned to read french cus i love Camus
>he's better in translation
>wasn't that hard though so it's a cool skill to have
>still worry that every translation i read is a poor simulation of the real thing i'll never feel what native speakers feel when they read the originals

such is life

Speaking of Chekhov's and Pushkin's prose, it's of finest quality, style-wise, but it's not untranslatable, and I think you won't lose much if you read the Ward No. 6 or Captain's Daughter in French provided the translation is good. Speaking of other authors, Dostoevsky is better to be read in translations, his style was horrible and translators do a great job fixing it. On the other hand, Nabokov and Bunin are all about stylistic perfection, and any translation inevitably loses it. The latter is almost unknown abroad for this exact reason: he had no gift for captivating plot twists, he had no intention to insert any ideas into his stories, it's all about the flow of language, the descriptions, the imagery.

As for Pushkin's poetry and the other two, well, it's poetry for you: you can't really appreciate it unless you read it in the original. Pushkin's Onegin is the cornerstone on which the entire Russian poetry is based, so if you're going to delve into it, you can't avoid reading it. Is it worth learning Russian just to read these? It's up to you to decide, of course.

I am bosnian learning russian polish ukrainian belarussian Church slavic bulgarian and greek was realy easy Job for me

And its worth evrey secend time of my life i dont regret nothing i can watch russin Movies i can watch russin tv shows read russian polish greek books and lisen to adiobooks i am free from the west prapaganda world

But i am a slav a Serb muslim and i am releted to the east slavic blood and i am pro union of all cyrillic slavs against the west and the latin american englo world

Right now i am learning finnish German and swedish for black metal !!!

I hate americans and Turks i hate Your jewish zionist masters

Yes i am muslim but i dont look like muslim and i dont give a Shit about muslims or chtolics

I will become ortodox Whan Kosovo and republika serbska will back to Serbia and we remuve the turk albenian muslim kabab from the balkan by the help of our greek bulgarian russian asyrian byzantinium ratnici

Cyrillic and latin dont go toghter
West and east will never be toghter
Russin and english will never be translete right and have good frienship
The greek world is the east (ortahdox belivers and followers of time and the Real history of the world )the Rome world is the west (chtolliics sabhumans of karl thet follow the jews and created by jews also control by jews and thet how our world work now )

I am friend english Sabhuman
Я дpyг Russian master race
Ja дpyгap Serbian master race

You are a friend ? English Sabhuman
Tы дpyг? Russin master race
Tи дpyг? Serbain master race

We are friends :) english sabhuman
Mы дpyзья ;) russian master race
Mи дpyгapи :) Serbias master race

Fuck you Amerika
U
C
K

Y
O
U

A
M
E
R
I
K
A


Glory to slavic race
Cлaвa Cлaвянcкaий нaций
Cлaвa cлaвaјaнcкaј нaцији

You see Latin and Cyrillic don't go toghter and thets way you will never anderstend us :) and it's good

I wanna say thanks to Cyrillius and metodius adalefus brothers for giving us the Cyrillic master race alfabet

Cyrillic and Greek alfabet or simular it was realy easy job to learn it

Like
My mother London Sabhuman
Μανα μου kαι μιτηερα μου Greek master race
Maть мoя или мaмa мoя rus master race
Maјкa мoјa или мaти serb master race
Matka moja albo mati polish master race but sucking the american cuck right now

Good day American sabhuman
Дoбpый дeнь rus master race
Дoбap дaн Serb master race
Καλλίμερα Greek master race

You see English is the most agly and the most sabhuman

So it's worth to learn about Russian Serbian Greek Polish it will change your thinking and you will discover new culturs thet beter then your englo sabhuman mony driving cultur

If you read this books in English translated

You are sabhuman you can translate books from Russian to English

It just don't work bcouz the words thet you use in English are difrent in Russian and have difrent mining

Some with German and English

War English sabhuman
Blizkrig german nazi
Boйнa war in russin
Paт war in Serbian

English is so shit I don't know way europians even speak it or learn it it's beter to speak in our dialects so this sabhumans Americans will not anderstend us Whan they come here or germany or Russia they think we will speak in English

Fuck no I will pretend I don't speak London and never halp American

are you retarded? your fucktarded idea can only apply to poetry, which relies on rhyming and pronunciations
seriously just fuck off

Nice post, thanks. Where does Tolstoy fall on the spectrum? What about Bulgakov? How do Nabokov's Russian novels compare to his latter English ones?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=qRKKB2TJMMw

in trio words

>The Russian soul

You are American you will never anderstend the mening of this hard cyrillic alfabet and words and like I said every song every word have mening in the pagan Slavic alfabet

Like

A it's mean aзь the bigining of time
D it's mean д dusa a soul
V it's mean в вoдa woter
Ж itis mean живoт life
And from the slavic pagan runs the cyrillic alfabet come and still we use him

And Every Word have a mening just like the sacandinavian old runs of Odin

Whan you mixed all the words you get our old ansectors slavic dialect thet later become russin polish Ukrainas belarussian serbain

Thets Why we are slavic its come from The word slova (to say a Word)


Also the original slavs the most barbarians and strong are russia Ukraina belarus thet never had free time thet was figting from one war to other war never had free time the rast of slavs get mixed With turks mongols germans sweds muslims finns norwegians

But East slavs never Know the Europain cultur and never was port of this cultur or american cultur or Any cultur

Then we come to the Greek and by our on Will become arthdox

Never was and never Will be even now

Thets way all the Word hate us

We are beatiful and our lands are beatiful and we are free from jews thet killed jusus

Europa gona die out of reserces out of gas and electric

If russia want they can close the gas to Europa and Europa gona freez and die

But Putin dont so it

Two powers in this world

Russia and america fighting on Every thing they can from speace to wopens of mas kiling

And the sad port is China Will be rull Both of us soon

The happy port is mabe China Will rull us soon but they Will all speak in russin just like the mongols thet russia take there lands and now they all speak in russin

Also in world war 2 most of the work the sovit union Did

American just come after they sow the russin wining in the war and tthey become scered thet the Sovjet union Will take all of Europa and rull them all

But no one Teach about this in school so the prapaganda is real they Teach you how all the Europa get raped by russsian man

So yes

>The Russian soul

Only Liberals dont have the russia soul and they all want to sell as and our lands to the jewish west

Honestly, I haven't read either Tolstoy or Bulgakov in translations, but I do believe Anna Karenina is one of the most perfect, language-wise, Russian books ever written. I would even go as far as to call it the first example of the 20th century prose in the Russian literature, despite being written in 1870s. No writer had ever written anything the way Tolstoy did it before and no one did it again before the arrival of Nabokov, Bunin, Andrei Bely, and some other early 20th century writers. I honestly don't know about the translations: I know there's a multitude of them to choose from, so, maybe a good way would be to read at least a couple, like I did with Flaubert?

Bulgakov is alright in terms of style, it's nothing special and perfectly translatable. In this meaning, he's more a literary descendant of Dostoevsky rather than Tolstoy.

Speaking of Nabokov, I'd say his Russian novels are less complex than the latter English ones, but more sincere, less artificially constructed, especially in comparison with Pale Fire and anything that comes later. As a critic once put it, "old Nabokov laughs with an overdenture on."

Among his Russian novels, I would particularly distinguish the Gift, his last novel in Russian, and would certainly not recommend reading it in any translation. If you're looking for an example of untranslatable prose, here's one. Being a huge fan of Nabokov, I had a look on the English translation of this novel, done under author's supervision, and found parts with the double meaning and word play lost on its very first pages. Moreover, the Gift is full of references to Russian literature (Nabokov even called the Russian literature the real protagonist of the novel), and the only way to transmit those to a reader unfamiliar with those would be to accompany the translation with a commentary thicker than the novel itself (that's how Russian editions of Ulysses look like btw).

Hey, OP. I'm learning German here, just passed to B1 and it is absolutely worth it. I don't know about Russian, since I hadn't had the chance to learn it well, but I think if you plan on reading in another language, German is a very good idea: it has even a different idea of treating language; if you haven't learned many languages, chances are that it will be your first contact with grammatical cases. The vocabulary in itself takes some time and it is different from learning a romance language in my experience.

German might even help you learn Russian in a future, if you plan on doing that. I've yet to read some serious literature in German, but the learning process in itself has been really beautiful and it has never ceased to please me.

This is great to hear, user. Mind sharing your routine and/or resources you're using? I'm interested in learning German as well, particularly because my girlfriend read Rilke to me when I was tripping on acid and even just the sounds of the original language moved me in such a way that it made me cry.

Greek easy too? What about ancient greek?

You'll get more mileage with German no doubt. The words used in German philosophy are so strange that they're often imported into English without direct translations i.e. ubermensch, schadenfreude, etc.

The dependency of a translation upon its source text has no necessary bearing on the quality of the translation. The relationship between source text and translation is one of difference, not identity, and a translation is also a work in its own right, which allows for the possibility of it actually being superior to its source. Otherwise you should prove it, and please do so without falling back on romantic and out-dated notions like originality.

OP here. The reason i'm considering german is mostly because I read Rilke's french poems, and because I'm a jew and would like to learn yiddish

Is there anything else in german that compares to Rilke ?

For poetry? Depends on how highly you value Rilke, but probably not, maybe Hölderlin. Still, there are plenty of classics, e.g. Klopstock's Messias, which I'm reading right now and enjoying even though I lack much of the biblical background; many of Goethe's poems, although the dude wrote a lot in general so there's gonna be a lot that seems kind of uninspired; although Schiller was obviously more a playwright he could still write a good poem, and he often feels much more down to earth than Goethe to me; Eichendorff I feel is underappreciated, sure he has a lot of repetition, but a lot of symbolist poetry has as well; and if you think it counts as German and poetry there's the Nibelungenlied, the obvious propagation of christian values seems a bit out of place but it's a solid epic nonetheless.
Hölderlin is still my best bet, he's made me tear up several times.
Not the other user, by the way.

Oh yes, I would also like to mention Brecht. Politics aside, he wrote some pretty funny poems, and his plays are really good as well once you learn to think in terms other than worker and parasite.

How does one build a vocabulary in Russian

read a dictionary

Thanks a lot. seems I'll have to learn both

Go for it. John Milton spoke 10 languages. Pushkin is great even in translation.

Sure. I've been attending to classes since 2 years now. But before starting classes in a college, I was drawn to it because my brother learned it in university. So I started with Duolingo on my own. By the time I started courses, I was already ahead of everyone. I don't know, I just have this tendency to be self-teaching (web programming, computer, English in a way, etc. by Internet) and obsessing with things I like very much. I just normally think about German and practice some sentences, words, pronunciations, verbs, etc. whilst I'm alone (I tend to speak with myself a lot). Then of course, doing homework, taking some spaces for studying or completing my German textbooks in my habit of being obsessive, occasionally reading the news in German (Spiegel, RT, arte, Die Welt...), downloading graded readers for my current level (A2-B1) and reading 2-3 pages a day if possible, also using the daily 4 exercises practice in Duolingo, talking to other people in German or talking about curious things of German with other people sometimes, changing my phone's language to German at this point (at first takes time, but eventually it becomes second-nature), checking often Wikitionary on words I don't know, while walking on the street repeating things (movement is said to help with learning)...

Anyway, I don't really have a very solid schedule for learning, besides class on Saturdays from 9 to 1 and maybe doing all homework the day before at night. Really, I don't have time to study language like a NEET. I do it when possible and it also counts for me as something pleasurable to do. I know I'm above the average of my classmates, but I don't really do inhuman efforts, just get too in love with the language that it becomes a game for me to practice it.

Also, yes, Rilke is fantastic. I've read some excerpts from Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (Letters to a Young Poet) and it is absolutely beautiful. I've always wanted to read him, since I've seen his name come up in many other books, and when I finally got to read him, it is just so lovely to read him in his own Austrian writing. Beyond language, his ideas and content is just so inspiring that it just motivates me to learn German further. Goethe is a staple author in German and you get to read a lot from him learning, for example his poem Erlkönig, Faust (there are simplified versions for graded readers, c. f. Hueber Verlag), usw.

So, yes, delve into it! Germans share so much history with Russia, to the point that many TV German series have many Russian in them. Here, look into this archive of a ton of German resources minhateca.com.br/arenaren (it is in Portuguese, French and German, but it is not hard to find stuff), also in rutracker.org you can find whatever resource for German learning you need. I recommend the Leichte Literatur of Hueber if you advance on it.

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