Astrid’s Comments (group member since Aug 21, 2011)

Astrid’s comments from the Foreign Languages group.

Just realized I had not linked to the full list. Corrected it now.

Those titles that use cyrillic letters are all in Russian so far. If you click on the titles you might also be able to find them in translation to a language that you can read.

And yes, the same here, I have been able to teach myself to read the cyrillic alphabet, but did not get very far with the Russian language, postponed it for the moment to take it up later again. But all that nice Russian literature (among other things) makes me really want to study it :-)

A while ago I created a little list of books here on GoodReads, one that has also grown a bit since, by contribution of other members. I thought this could also be of relevance here, as this is a Foreign Language Group.

Regarding that title, I want to say I really have nothing against the English language I like it a lot. But especially in the genre of Fantasy (though this really is a problem in all genres) it is sometimes hard to find something that is not originally written in English. As a language learner I like to read books that have been written by autors coming from the respective country. And then I like having a bigger variety to choose from. Especially in fantasy-literature it can be intersting how the culture, the history or legends of a certain place find their way into a story. And then: different places in the world have different ways of telling stories.

This list has been a way for me to collect recommendations. Get to know stuff that I would not have come across otherwise. People here are from different places, know the autors of your home-countries. Maybe you have somthing you would like to recommend. Preferably things that have already been translated (not necessarily to English but also to other languages), and that you think deserve more attention? That is what this list is for. I hope you will also be able to pick a few recommendations out of it :-)

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/12...

I have been away from the site for a while, RL, studying and stuff. But now I am back, rediscovering how addictive good reads can be :-)

Hi Stray, great to see you here :-)

Hej Louhi! Jag missade ditt svar förra veckan. Men ja, jag gillar mycket att lära mig främmande språk. Det är kanske min favorit-hobby ;-) En månad sedan började jag lära mig tjekisk, men då kan jag ännu inte förstå väldigt mycket. Men hittills har jag lärt mig engelska, italienska, svenska och ungerska, och jag förstå franska och lite spanska, men de två prata jag inte mykcet bra.
Ryska och islenska är också två som jag skulle gärna ville lära mig någonstans i framtiden. Vad roligt att du vill lära dig samiska, det är säkert en mycket intressant sak när man bor i Finnland, som du.

Jag studerede en termin i Sverige några år sedan och innan jag åkte ditt lärde jag mig svensk här i Wien på universitetet. Och nu sjunger jag i en kör (också vid skadinavistik-institutet här i Wien) där vi faktiskt sjunga på olika skandinaviska språk.

Hej, jag är inte svensk heller, men det skulle vara roligt i alla fall att snacka på svenska här :-)
För mig är det samma problemet. Jag lever i Österrike och det är inte så lätt att hitta folk här som jag kan prata svenska med.

Well - certainly it might be one of the most tricky European laguages, but it it still doable ;-) And what I have observed among learners of Hungarians, it seems to be a matter of "love it or leave it". And it is always better to learn about something one likes a lot. That makes everything seem much easier.

@ Saira: I think you won't be disappointed with Hungarian, if you really looking for a "hard" language to learn. Though I would not call it the hardest language there is. Of course it depends on what language-background you have. But I as a speaker of an indoeuropean language would probably find it a lot more difficult to learn for example a tonal language, that maybe even has a whole new writing system.
Hungarian is certainly quite challenging to learn, but it is definitely better then is reputation ;-)

Ciao! C'é ancora qualcuno chi vorrebbe chiachierare in italiano?

Szia Lora! Örülök, hogy itt találkozunk :-) Sok sikert a magyar tanulással.
Szerintem jól irtál, csak azt hiszem hogy ugy talán még jobb lenne: Én is tanulok magyarul.
De jól értelek és én sem prófi vagyok. ;-)

Hi, my name is Astrid, I am Austrian and I always loved learning foreign languages. At the moment I am working on my Hungarian and Italian. So maybe here there are some people with whom I can practice a little. And if anyone needs help in German I will try to, of course.

And probably it is no coincidence to meet me on a book-platform. As I also like reading a lot, my favourite way of improving my vocabulary is reading. Even though I understand that using them actively by writing or talking in them is actually key to getting fluent at some point. So I am looking forward to having interesting conversations - and why not book discussions ...