/Language/

Forget Chinese right away. It's very hard, requires a insane amount of commitment and even then you wouldn't reach mastery for at least a decade even if you immersed yourself completely. Plus the amount of good lit and kino is modest. Utility also approaches zero unless you plan to live in China. Muh gorillion native speakers is quite literally not an argument.

German is obviously the easiest in your case, but has a slightly smaller lit baggage than the other two, particularly if you're not interested in philosophy. Also linguistic proximity of Germanic languages would make the sheer benefit of reading in original almost negligible for you.

Spanish is the next in learning difficulty and has the largest literary tradition of all, especially if you consider Latin American countries. Very nice kino scene too.

Russian is of course the hardest here. Huge amount of terrific lit, although not as much as Spanish, but large worthy parts of it are also untranslated/unobtainable in translation/have shit translations. Had legendary kino in the past and a rather few-and-far-between one now.

tldr Spanish is the optimal choice, Russian is the best hipster choice, German is the highly autistic philosofag choice adjust for your individual tastes

t. speak all 3

>German has a slightly smaller lit baggage

I disagree wholeheartedly, there is endless german literature from especially the late 19th and earl 20th centuries

>born to karelian-swiss parents in Finland
>talk karelian and french at home, finnish outside
>learn english through media, also it's compulsory from 4th grade on
>swedish is compulsory from 7th grade on
>take voluntary german lessons, start communicating in german with father, pick up swiss german dialect
>visit Estonia, make estonian friends
>see them often, learn estonian
>want to read Tolstoy et co. in russian, learning atm.
>tfw when comprehend danish, norwegian, icelandic, italian and estonian, fluent in finnish, karelian, french, swedish, german and english

Do you find you need much work to maintain these languages?

Like if you don't speak any of them for a while will it take you long to get back into speaking them?

> Slovak
> Polish
> different shades
> Slovak deemed closer to Russian

Shit picture. I speak Polish fluently and just through that I can understand Slovak enough to have a conversation and read it well enough to know what he text is referencing.

Yes, and most of it is subpar wank.

>""comprehending"" Italian because of French
>""comprehending"" Icelandic because of Swedish
>how to spot an annoying pseud 101

How do you find Russian?

I speak Russian and Polish is mostly beyond me, but south slav languages like Serbian are fairly easy to follow, especially in writing.

German if you like to read philosophy, otherwise go for russian or spanish

Mostly beyond me as well. I understand some common phrases that sound similar in both our languages but I couldn't converse with a Russian or read even non Cyrillic Russian.

I will probably go for two of the three within the coming decade. I'll go for Spanish now, again, so I'll see what I will be into once I feel comfortable reading/speaking/listening Spanish. Thanks.

>påstår att kunna förstå isländska för att han läst svenska i grundskolan
You know no more Icelandic than recognizing a few words as well as the sentences grammar. Geez.
^

All either basically extinct or meme languages

duolingo & memrise & clozemaster, listen to a lot of music in russian, start watching films, firstly with eng subtitles, then with russian subtitles.
When you read something, or watch a film, or whatever, and you discover some new words, or words that are hard for you, make your own course on memrise or on anki and add them there

It's a decent cheap book. Should not be your only resource. Live From Russia (not on the chart) is an okay beginners book, but quite expensive. V Puti is a great resource, but is really at the intermediate level. It's actually my intermediate Russian college textbook. I'll also recommend The Big Book of Russian Verbs, it contains like 555 Russian Verbs. Search it on Amazon, it's like $10. There are a lot of good Russian Fairy Tale compilations on Amazon when you get to and Intermediate(ish) level. The English-Russian, Russian-English dictionary (authored by a guy named Katzner) is about $25 on Amazon and is the best desk reference available. Langenscheidt's (sp?) is the best pocket dictionary, or Oxford's, choice is yours. Start with Cyrillic, and learn the case system (and verb conjugation patterns) as a priority, memorizing them makes things much simpler and will improve your comprehension. Duolingo, Anki, and Memrise are all solid online resources. Skip Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur is good but limited.

I am Russian and I learned English on a decent level that allows me to watch movies and read books only rarely stumbling upon words that I don't know (then I look them up in the dictionary).

Learning alphabet and basic rules is a start One of the greatest assets in learning language is immersion into the language environment in one way or the other. - I did this by watching english movies/cartoons and playing games first with Russian subtitles, and then again with English subtitles - Hearing things and reading what they mean in a different language at the same time is a great way to learn.

There are russian subtitles for the most movies/cartoons/series - whenever you watch something for entertainment - download them and use them in the background - this is slow, but it helps.

Instead of learning from modern russian shows like suggests (ALL modern russian shows are rewritten american/brazillian/spanish shows, and they all EXTREMELY dumbed down. Stay away if you value your brain cells) , consider watching some old soviet classics - almost all of them have english subtitles available. Russian Movie/TV industry collapse after the fall of Soviet union - very rare movie after '94 comes up to quality of Soviet stuff.

What do I learn to read primary sources of Norse Mythology and viking stuff?

Just old norwegian?

Icelandic is the best way to go

>old Soviet classics
Intriguing. Tell me more. Drop some titles.

Bitta Tarkovsky is very good.
White sun of the desert is a classic though I can't ascertain if it's good, as when I watched it I did so without subs and didn't comprehend shit.

One like this for Spanish?

I speak Russian fluently but I've never read a book in Russian. What's a good place to start? I was thinking of diving right into Tolstoy and Dostoevsky but it might be wiser to start with something light and easy.

>tfw highschool: depressive, social recluse, indiferent to videogames, hate movies and tvshows, no gf
>tfw when I fail two years of hs
>tfw plenty of time + crippling boredom = learn german, french, russian, italian and spanish ( aprox 5 years) and start reading classics.
>tfw study ancient greek and latin at university
>tfw abandon university + drinking problems
>tfw true story
am i Veeky Forums?

pizdiet pidara.

I speak Hungarian.
I speak English.
And I have a basic understanding of german.
My problem with that is that I lack vocabulary.

And the little latin phrasis I pick up from time to time.

If you aren't averse to 3-4 ads before movie, you can watch for free, legally here: ivi.ru/movies/sovetskoe_kino
Or at least use it's popularity rating to pick titles up. No subtitles though - subtitled ones can often be found on youtube (they rarely bother to remove russian stuff).

youtube.com/user/mosfilm/videos - this is an official Mosfilm channel (80% of soviet cinema was made there) You can legally watch all of their movies here. Almost all that are worthy have english subs.

Any first time Russian reader should read A.S. Pushkin (mostly poetry and poetic fairy tales, but has some serious poems as well, and some lewd/profane ones) and N.V. Gogol (short novels). No exceptions.

They are much lighter (and arguably more fun) read than Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, which is probably why they are rarely mentioned. They are still classics, and part of Russian Literature school program.

Modern poetry classics, fairly simple to understand, aslo hilarious fairy-tale/satire mix : Leonid Filatov (Лeoнид Филaтoв - Пpo Фeдoтa-cтpeльцa). There was theatrical reading where he reads his own poem - it's on youtube ?v=aRbRroz_ae4. And here it is with translation samlib.ru/a/as_w/fed-rus-eng.shtml . Note that it uses some word distortions common in everyday/low education speak (deliberately as a stylistic choice, since it's supposed to be a "common folk tale")

Off the top of my head some modern Russian fantasy books that are good:

Пoпoвa Haдeждa, Kongregation series, could be read on author's Samlib page for free:
samlib.ru/p/popowa_nadezhda_aleksandrowna/
It's a hystorical/mystic novels about XIII-century Inquisitor, and in that world magic and supernatural stuff is real, albeit very rare, and inquisition operates under much different and stricter conduct.

Гeнpи Лaйoн Oлди
Дячeнкo
Both are pen names, and both are highly regarded as modern classic of Russian fantasy (Дячeнкo are ukrainian, but writes in russian). Their books are also very often heavy on phylosophical context, while being engaging reads.

Some links:

samlib.ru - "self-publish" website where people put their original works for free. Many established writers began their path here, as publishers browse these pages and charts and very often pick popular stuff up for publishing. 90% is utter crap though. Very old Web 1.0 site, but still popular, no ads of any kind.

Flibusta.is - online user-maintained library with free (pirated) books. All Russian classics (and 99 of all russian books, period) can be easily be found here with direct links - no ads or viruses.

Some titles on the Mosfilm channel (all with subs, use CC button):

Чeлoвeк c бyльвapa Кaпyцинoв ?v=4JZzsIncaVo

Ивaн Bacильeвич мeняeт пpoфeccию ?v=m3xVdxDWFWU

Любoвь и Гoлyби ?v=y_C4TpPSCQ4

Coляpиc ?v=6-4KydP92ss -part 1 and ?v=xXa6XpaxBS0 - part 2

Plz

>tfw I can read English, French, German and Spanish
>tfw I can read and understand most of Italian and Dutch
Welch patrizisches Gefühl.

I am taking swedish at university and I am having this experience. Monolingual english speaker