Spanish language thread

Is Spanish better than English to read books in? Is it really that much more flexible than English as some people say? How long do you think it would take an Anglophone to be able to read Don Quijote in Spanish?

As a native spanish speaker I find english much more flexible, but I still preffer spanish

>I find english much more flexible
What makes it more flexible?

>How long do you think it would take an Anglophone to be able to read Don Quijote in Spanish?
I've studied Spanish for 2 years and can read contemporary works fluently. I still can barely understand a thing in Don Quijote. To use an analogy: Don Qujiote is to modern Spanish what Shakespeare is to modern English. It can be difficult to read even for native speakers.

You are better off reading a translation if that is your only goal for learning Spanish. Or, look at the other good authors of Latin America and see if they interest you enough to bother learning it.

As for your other question: I find Spanish more pleasing to read, but it is very frustrating to write in. You are basically a slave to the dictionary, and, after being raised on English, it is annoying to not have as much freedom. English is called the language of ideas for a reason. I have no idea wtf is talking about

Misread and thought you said Spanish was more flexible. My bad, my friend

I speak Spanish [native], Portuguese and French, and I really prefer using them over English. English feels childlike and mediocre.

Not native in either but I don't know why anyone would find Spanish more flexible. Maybe whoever said that was rather thinking about how easy Spanish grammar is, and had an easier time bringing variety to sentence constructions because of this

English seems slightly primitive in comparison.

>English is called the language of ideas for a reason
That reason being...?

As someone fluent in both languages and originally from Mexico, not only do I prefer reading in English, I actively dislike reading in Spanish

it's flexible and you aren't tied down by pointless, archaic grammar rules. its flexibility also allows for easy adoption of new words and words from other languages.

It's lack of conjugations, for one. On spanish, nouns give five different verbs (fifth and sixth noun being the same)

>Don Qujiote is to modern Spanish what Shakespeare is to modern English.

Spic here, im reading las Novelas Ejemplares, and sometimes i struggle to read, but i don't think it's for the same reasons. It's the speech pattern what changed with spanish, as opposed to ye olde english wich changed or dropped more words (not to say spanish didn't).

Just morir mierda.

Don Quixote in English sucks ass.
Source: I have read it in both languages.

>easy adoption of new words
it's the same in any language

Why would you asume i'd read it on english. As if im not going blind already

No, it's not.

>On spanish, nouns give five different verbs (fifth and sixth noun being the same)
Straight up, I didn't understand a thing of what you've just said.

Why? In my native tongue, Russian, we adpot new words very frequently, and our language is fusional.

>is spanish better than english to read books in?
If you want beautiful language, yes; if you want more info per syllabe, english is the best.
>is it really that muh more flexible?
There aren't languages more limited than others, only thinkers

As for Don Quijote, i don't know how you plan to learn spanish, and i've never had to...., but it's so damn good it justifies learning spanish only for it.

Spanish is the easiest language in the world to learn. IT will take you a year to be a fluent reader if you study every day. and it is a nice bridge to learning French. You may as well

>if you want more info per syllabe
no need being so autistic

As a Spaniard I have to say that English is a beautiful language when used correctly. If we go by words alone, I believe Spanish is more pleasant to read; our vocabulary is vast and caresses the tongue with surprising care.
But as grammatical constructions go, English manages to keep me more engaged in my reading. I've read books in both languages and this has come true every time.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that one is better than the other, but I definitely enjoy them for different reasons.

Sorry, im high. I forgot what a noun was.
The grammatical persons i think they're called (i, you, he/she, etc) on spanish these give more conjugations than english.

It's called cuck syndrome.

I am a native Spanish Speaker and I agree with these posts.
Spanish is only more flexible if you mean the word order and syntax and stuff like the enclitic pronouns.
English, being an analytic language, has a very strict word order.


English is more flexible in that it is a language in which creating words with suffixes, compound words, puns, neologisms, is very easy.
Spanish, in comparison, demands a complete mastery of the dictionary, but that is also true for the other Romance languages like French or Italian.
English is better for thinking intituively, knowing how to name the concepts that come to your mind.

English is also rather monosyllabic, therefore English texts tend to be shorter than their Spanish equivalent.

Then we should all learn Chinese. But, to be honest, the criteria by which you characterize English as a better language are quite stupid.

English isnt tonal at least.

He never once said that English was better. Brilliant reading comprehension you got there.

At least Spanish has no disadvantages against English. Saying English is more flexible is retarded.

fuck, every native Spanish speaker in here sucks dicks in English

This
Just your average self-hating chicano

I agree. native tongue is portuguese, can read not-too-complex spanish, can read a bit of french and italian with some hassle and I too prefer any of those over english. I have read original works in english such as ulysses and paradise lost and they are completely genius and beautiful, I give you that, but on the other hand, I have read the divine comedy my first time in english and now I am re-reading it in portuguese and it is just MUCH more beautiful, and I believe what allows this is the similarieties these languages share, my edition has portuguese and the italian text side by side, and I very often see the same words being used in the italian and portuguese texts, so I think its much more "easy" to translate rhymes and specific words and phrases, whereas it is not possible to do in english, or at least not without some changes in the text.

translation between french, italian, portuguese and spanish will always be better than the translation from any of these to english or german or russian

Spanish speaker here and reading on english is easier to me, Spanish is very archaic and rigid.

It's really not.

is really like i said

nice argument fagtron you sure convinced me with those hot opinions

Spanish have too many changes on nouns, is very old and archaic and makes it less flexible where on English you can just take a word and turn in verb or noun, very flexible.

You can do the exact same thing in Spanish. Just because you don't know your mother tongue doesn't mean it is bad. You can't even begin to write proper English, you blithering idiot.

>old and archaic

Whatever that means.

I'm not nessary saying Spanish is worse, demands knowing vocabulary from you where on english you can literally make up new words.

Native spanish speaker here

"Father, forgive them; for they not know what they do" sounds absolutely beautiful and there isn't a single passage in Luke in spanish that sounds better than this. But this only happens with certain phrases. I still think that texts in english (original and translated) sound childish and mediocre, in general, as some other user said. On the other hand, texts in spanish tend to sound beautiful from the beginning until the end.

In english you can literally make up new words intuitively and the reader will understand them. In spanish this is not the case

Again, it's the same in English. You need to know the language to create new words. And in Spanish you can make new words too, even if you have not mastered it, though it is easier if you have.

Espatmos, catastrofísica, iridescendencia, tiflocracia, probvocausar, deleuznable, bestuario, astronémico, divulgarización. All neologisms and portmaneurs I have created.

But of course, what could someone who doesn't know English know about Spanish?

>In english you can literally make up new words intuitively and the reader will understand them. In spanish this is not the case
For example?

As a Chinese and English bilingual I always find others European languages bizarre af, like grammatical gender, declensions and conjugations

>"Father, forgive them; for they not know what they do"
It sounds more intricate and beautiful in Russian.

Chinese is just primitive, and I have no idea how you you even manage to understand each other.

>primitive
>archaic

What does that even mean? Those are just buzzwords.

What do you mean by primitive? Is it inferior to other languages?

arranging vocabularies in certain positions

So English writer don't need to master the dictionary to write? Neat, no wonder they can write twilight and fifty shades

It doesn't even have tenses. Everything should be guessed from context.

How is that a quality of primitiveness?

Come on, don't play dumb. Chinese grammar is almost always word order.

it transcends your primitive tenses david

You don't speak Chinese, do you?

>Chinese grammar is almost always word order.

t. someone who doesn't know a word of Chinese

Excuse me, I can spell out the pinyin of "good morning" and "how are you"

You didn't answer the question, smart boy.

I've done my research and to know how primitive Chinese is there's no need to speak the laguage.

>I don't know what I'm talking about but I still feel compelled to say it

I've gone on Wikipedia for almost an hour researching on Chinese and its """grammar""". My conclusion stands firm. You?

Then I challenge you to prove me wrong, unless you are a pussy.

>I've gone on Wikipedia for almost an hour researching on Chinese and its """grammar"""

weak american-tier b8, m8

The burden of proof rests on you. Using arbitrary adjectives like "primitive" and "archaic" is not an argument, it's an opinion.

because 我操你妈 and 我操你妈了 involve "word order", you fucking idiot

Your language is inferior to almost any other language. It's a proven fact by linguists.

...

>proven fact by linguists
[citation needed]

Still wating for the proof of Chinese not being primitive.

Is there any audio book for don quijote not read by someone constantly lisping?

Nice evasion of your spurious claim and smooth transition to a non-argument

Stop watching Stef Bolyneoux, he's a jerk.

Castillian Spanish sounds the best. So stop being a loser and get a life.

kek you sound like a textbook teenager in an ebin internet fight

pathetic

Japan should have annexed China.

i think someone once asked borges which language he preferred and i don't remember which he chose, but he did say that english has things that spanish doesn't, like verbs like "look up to".
i would guess there are other things that you can say in spanish but not in english, but i can't think of anything right now

that's not the actual title of the book

>tfw everyone misread my post and think I said spanish is more flexible

>but he did say that english has things that spanish doesn't, like verbs like "look up to"
What did you expect? Those are different languages. You're putting it as though they are translations of each other. Each language conveys things differently.

>To use an analogy: Don Qujiote is to modern Spanish what Shakespeare is to modern English.

Absolutely incorrect and a classic misunderstanding by beginner learners. Cervantes is so similar to contemporary Spanish it's unbelievable. Completely readable aside from very specific vocabulary (e.g. his armor, saddle related things, archaic words referencing other things). Shakespeare is much more taxing as far as patience and thought go into comprehending what the character is saying and how it relates to the play.

The way they ARE very similar is that they are both modernizers of their respective languages, aggiornamentori if you will. This is also to say that English usage has changed very much since the 17th century, and Spanish has not so vastly changed.

You are exaggerating, man. Cervantes is not that easy and Shakespeare is not that difficult. Conversely, Cervantes is not impossible to read for a modern reader nor Shakespeare as easy. One just needs to get used to their idiom and they become readable with the help of the occasional note.

He isn't though. Don Quixote reads as easily in Spanish as Robinson Crusoe in English.

Spanish is a master tongue. English sucks ass.

spanish language is one of the smallest language markets despite being the largest first-language in the world. that say something about reading in spanish.

>Spanish is the easiest language in the world to learn.

Liar

It's not simply speaking about adaption from other languages, it's adaption from thought for a new reference.
For example to say that's very 'becoming' of you, in English you can go ahead and invent unbecoming and it's not awkward

Your vocabulary is shit

>small dick minority posting

I don't follow.

I wish Spanish replaced English as a lingua franca in the west.

The same thing happens in a lot of languages, including Spanish. You talk as if prefixes and suffixes were some crazy voodoo shit that only English has.

there is no way of translating "to look up to" to spanish though, you can only explain the meaning. some languages just can't convey some things while others can, deal with it

>it's flexible and you aren't tied down by pointless, archaic grammar rules.
Yeah, instead of giving things rules it just makes them impossible.
Relative clauses can hardly be mixed with possessive clauses, English is hilariously limiting.

Don't play dumb. Look up to can be translated as Admirar. Everything is translatable.

Nah that says something about spanish aptitudes desu.

thAtzz nOT DEE tiTle oV DeE bOoK

admirar has much stronger connotations that look up to in my opinion, although i'm no native english speaker. and i think if i look up to you, it also means i actually want to be or act like you, which the word admirar doesn't imply at all

You stupid spic, go buy some logic. Different languages are different languages, and what you're doing is beyond retarded.

I don't speak Spanish, but in Russian we would say watch someone with admiration.

his favorite lenguage was german. He hated french btw. Check out his "Five nights" conferences in case you want the source. They happen to be amazing stories too.