What is the second most beneficial language to know in order to appreciate literature from another culture?

It's English by the sheer number of translations available and the range of them.

How could you say not french... from a literary standpoint the only realistic options are French, Russian, German

日本語を勉強したらどうですか。

Watashi wa nihongo ga desu ka?

you certainly need to know way more than just a language to appreciate literature from another culture. read up on the culture and its history, then read the book, translated to english. far better than knowing the native language yet going in blind.

>this user thinks he's hot shit because he learned one of the easiest languages an english speaker can pick up
>a language which also happens to be effectively dead

Here are some translation stats.

> Top 12 original languages
1 - English - 1265367
2 - French - 225805
3 - German - 208091
4 - Russian - 103599
5 - Italian - 69545
6 - Spanish - 54554
7 - Swedish - 39977
8 - Japanese - 29242
9 - Danish - 21250
10 - Latin - 19952
11 - Dutch - 19660
12 - Ancient Greek - 18057

> Top 12 target languages
1 - German - 301934
2 - French - 240044
3 - Spanish - 228558
4 - English - 164500
5 - Japanese - 130649
6 - Dutch - 111270
7 - Russian - 100806
8 - Portuguese - 78905
9 - Polish - 76706
10 - Swedish - 71209
11 - Czech - 68921
12 - Danish - 64864

German and Russian offers good classical literature but anything after WW2 just seriously sucks. One culture was destroyed by National Socialism, the other by Communism. It reflects in newer books.
So if you want modern lit, choose something other than these.

Japanese
French
Ancient Greek
English

>dead language
you cant be this much of an imbecile

this user is entirely correct

basically the six relevant languages for lit are English, German, French, Russian, Latin, and Ancient Greek

>implying English is the most benefitial language to understand cultures and literature

It depends on what culture you want to learn about. For example, if you learn Spanish you can get into all of Latin America and Spain's culture (which is very broad).

>it's another innocent question turns into buttmad jealousy over the fact that America is the modern day Roman Empire thread

>Arabic not even on the list
Feels bad man.

Suicide bombing is fairly self explanatory.

That'll learn him

Why is French a good language for lit? Any notable works please ?

Well French is second on both lists and they're practically the same anymore.

Printing press and imperialism. England and France were churning out more literature than it was possible to keep track of. Germany too, but to a lesser extant

Pretty much anything that's ever been written has been translated to English or French already

Italian, Japanese.

>French isn't a dead language

Lel, okay then

Name one relevant area on this planet where french is the predominant language. Name one significant corporation where the commerce is carried out in french.

Why would it be? Half of Canada speaks only French.

Spanish

You get to read spanish stuff like quixote plus all of the boom guys in the colonies

I have no idea how you can cope with stuff like Cervantes or Hopscotch in anything other than its original language

Canadian here

>half

Not even fucking close.

>Quebec, or Canada for that matter
>relevant

Kek

The point being, French exists outside of France. And in a country in the peripheral vision of a 3rd world country no less.

4chanese, Latin, Greek, Gaelic, Celtic, and any of the languages used east of the Ural's.

what does being relevant have to do with a state speaking a certain language? can't wait to bask in your self loathing eh

Printing 7000 dollars worth of books is nothing special

French was the de facto literary language before the 20th century.

Only acceptable answer for Literature:
1) English
2) Russian
3) Everything else

>not learning Norwegian in your free time to read Ibsen

Uff da

*English, French, Italian, Ancient Greek, German and Latin

Absolute mongs. Spanish is the GOAT language in literature, even if you count only the Argentines. Spanish lit is WAY better than any French or German lit (except for German philosophy/political science). Anyone who disagrees is simply ignorant of the amazing world of Spanish literature that it's so different from Anglo literature. It offers a great dichotomy to read both. Also, you can be fluent in it in a year. When I started learning I was already reading Cortazar in 6 months with no trouble whatsoever.
Also, Spanish doesn't translate well into English. You guys meme Borges when he is not even 2% of what he is in Spanish.

Just to help you, who is on the path of exploring Spanish lit (in Spanish, you casual):
- Borges
- Cortazar
- Ernesto Sabato
- Macedônio Fernandez
- Bioy Casares
- Vargas Llosa
- Roberto Arlt
- Lugones
- Garcia Márquez (kinda memey tho)

And no urdu and ching chong too

>not even mentioning Russia
????

Look at all the butthurt French, crying because their language is less relevant than Spanish nowadays on every level.

Here you go. Of course, French is a great choice for XIX century and backwards. But if you want to get into really good stuff, look no further. Spanish is what you need to learn.

Other notable authorse that user forgot:

- Cervantes
- Galdós
- Baroja
- Unamuno
- Aub
- Chirbes
- Carpentier
- Fuentes
- Rulfo
- Marsé

I'm Catholic so I learned Ancient Greek, Latin, Spanish and Italian. Going for Japanese next. If you're Catholic I would go with these as well.

>German and Russian offers good classical literature
That's the opposite, they have a very poor "classical" literature (XVth, XVIth, XVIIth, XVIIIth)

Ancient greek is not that useful and not easy to learn or read.
I mean it was written in a completely retarded way and most of the works were meant to be heard rather than read anyway.
There's not much lost in translation from ancient to modern greek since the languages are a lot more similar than you'd think.

Esperanto?

Scheme?

Nice dubs

The language of love !?!?!

I hate what the internet has done with the word epic.

spanish golden age, latin america

idiot

>implying there's anything else to read in Spanish other than Cervantes
>dissing modernist French lit
it's like you've never heard about Marcel, have you

I would say either Arabic or Hebrew, so you have a step into Semitic languages. But realistically, French is the most obvious choice.

Everywhere that speaks French also speaks English. French has joined the Scandinavian languages as completely fucking useless because their education system is so good everyone is basically bilingual.

France and Germany, other than England, where basically THE places to be over the last four hundred years. Think of all the French and German thinkers during he enlightenment or all the literary greats prior to the 20th century.

I don't think you know what words mean.

I'd drop latin or italian long before I would drop Russian.

you must be american

Objectively French, Russian, and German.

Not much. France repeatedly ranked among the worst ESL countries, along with Pakistan, China or Iraq. Within the OCDE, for almost eight years, only Japan scored lower. Although the French education requires to get a B2 level by the end of high school—by the way, that's not enough to speak fluently or read a novel—many people actually graduate with a very poor command of English. As far as I know, I found myself to work with French people holding a manager position yet still unable to communicate in English. I think writing every French speaks English is a massive exaggeration, and may be true in other, richer French speaking countries like Switzerland, Belgium or Luxembourg.

I learned ancient Greek and Latin in high school and university. Not super useful apart from reading philosophy and theology which I do enjoy but I work in health so pretty useless in my normal life. After university I learned Turkish and Arabic, and they have gotten me a lot further in life than the other two that I learned.

how do you even go about learning other languages, i find it daunting

How did you do it? How long did it take? Are you fluent enough to understand everything?

You know you're in deep shit when you're one of the most spoken languages in the world, and people simply don't read( and write even less) in those countries.

china?

Not him, but I have a similar experience. I've learnt Greek and Latin in school, starting when I was eleven years old, for six years. Then I pursue on my own, learning with the intention to read the New Testament and the Vulgate. I've also studied French and German, still in school, one for six years and the other, four years. I kept it mainly because I have a passion for classics and few studies and comments are translated in English. I'm now learning Japanese. I'm not fluent in Greek/Latin—would it make any sense?—but I can hold a conversation in French and German with no trouble. Patience, regularity and dedication are the keys.

No, but I'm imagining they live in another universe completely when it comes to literature in general.
Brazil, but it's the same in Portugal

Blame the forced readings of classical br stuff at the schools which is dreadful for learning readers

>not the later but still relevant Linear B