My favorite way to read in a foreign language is to take a book and read it in my native language or english first, and then pick said book in my target language. This technique is even more helpful if you also pursue translation studies but that's a plus, not a requirement. Since I've already read it in a language I can fully comprehend and critically analyze, I am not only able to read the book in my TL much quicker, I'm also able to fully grasp how a native speaker would rephrase or interpret the same sentences.
If the TL book you're reading is a translated version, you're able to see which words the translator used to convey the meaning. This answers questions such as: Did they translate words literally? Did they use localization instead? What did they do with puns or jokes from the original book? What kind of rephrasing did they do? The translated version tells you how the translator think about certain sentences and certain kinds of writing. Sometimes your TL is a very literal and direct language. Sometimes your TL uses a lot of metaphors or polite sentences instead of being direct. You will learn to absorb these lines of thinking by reading the translated version.
If the TL book you're reading is the original version, you're about to see all the things I've said but flipped. You've got the way the line of thinking goes in the translation. Now you're gonna see how they go about it. And most of the time, this path sort of takes you like "oh! I don't know how to read/interpret this word at all but the translator used x to say it so I'm just going to keep reading." You will realize that you can read much faster, since you remember how it went. (unless it's non fiction since you can't follow the plot in nonfiction, but I find that in language learning, non fiction reading is much easier because there's less flowery and literary language.) I mostly do this when I want to read fast and have no need to reach for dictionaries or to refer to the translated version. This helps me read other text in my TL extremely faster.
Another tip about reading that has nothing to do with language reading more about bookish snobbery: a book is a book is a book. If your purpose is to read in your TL, you don't need to pick up classics if it's intimidating for you. Pick any book. Hell, pick pamphlets if you need. I personally prefer to read adult's graphic novels. I don't mean 18+ graphic novels. I just mean comics that are not for children. I find that children's picture books are much harder because most of them are to teach vocabularies to children, which is taxing for language learners because apparently children love onomatopoeia so much. Also, they have adults to explain everything to them. Comics for adults have jokes and stories instead so I like then better but hey, if you like children's picture books, you do you.
Another another tip: You don't have to finish the books. At all. Ever, actually. Pick up, do twenty pages each and put down if you'd like. You're the boss. Do it your style.
Nikolaj is 100% the Gillian. And Gwendoline is the disaffected David. Outwardly sort of dismissive, but also soft and cares deeply.
But I feel like her laugh is too screechy to not be a little bit the Gillian. But she does do the pretending to be dismissive thing. Actually she goes much harder than David does lol. But not as chilly. And she teases more. Gillian is the teaser. David had a brief window where he lowered himself to teasing, but he’s mostly aloof/defensive. Gwen seems like a total troll who lives to mess with Nikolaj. Like, straightfacedly informing the other one that yes, their tweets are private is definitely something Gillian would do.
Keep in mind that I don’t really go here (honestly!!! Just a lot of content sweeping through lately) and my dataset is very limited.
I’m late! I’m sorry.
Challenge of day 2 was to drink a 1.5 liters of water along with the aesthetic PIC of my study. Day 3 along with everything else was to copy some notes. For my case, copying notes doesn’t really apply. What I should be doing was starting to write my thesis. So instead, for now I’m showing on the second picture what Santa (aka boyfriend) bought me. I already have La Fontaine and Grimm Complete Works. Now I have Hans Christian Andersen as well. I’m thrilled!!! It’s only one more to complete the collection - king of kings - Edgar Allan Poe!
Today the challenge was to take a studyblr picture, drink 1,5l of water, copy a set of notes and read a chapter of a book.
As I explained yesterday I’m in the process of writing my thesis so copying notes doesn’t really apply to me. I did read about two articles between yesterday and today and today I finally started writing! I’m almost 600 words in. I know it doesn’t sound like much but for me it was actually enjoyable to start because it took me the whole semester to have the courage to do it. I know I post my boyfriend's hands and body more than my own... But I'm here! Actually studying too :)
This Semester I should have read a lot more than I did to prepare for my Thesis writing. This Semester I should have cared a lot more about Masters than I did., but I did not. I was going down a depressive path again and I had to just calm down. In November/December I discouvered I could bake Bolo Lêvedo as a part time home-secret-business and that brought me back to light like no one or anyhting could! I am still selling them and as I write, they are rising in a big pan in the kitchen covered with 3 cloths and a beach towel.
They brought me up and gave me a purpose. And tonight I am slowly starting reading again and choosing not to give up. I won’t push for my own sake. I will read and I know I will remember how interesting my topic is and why I chose it. I know my inner ME needs this topic.
The books keep pilling up! Today I borrowed two books from the library about Romanticism, for context research of my future thesis, maybe? I’m still getting there :) Got new texts to read for next week’s India seminar and went ahead to make new calendars for each month to organize myself and my readings. Now it starts getting tight , the reading schedule, I mean, but I can do it!
Read about Thinking Iranian, Rethinking Greek at Brewminate. Explore insight, analysis, and history through original, engaging content.
Gregory Nagy Thinking Iranian, Rethinking Greek (keynote address in celebration of the grand opening of The UCLA Pourdavoud Center for the Study of the Iranian World), Brewminate, May 25, 2017 (it can be found also on https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/thinking-iranian-rethinking-greek/)
"Strategizing a Rationale for the Argumentation
That said, my presentation can start moving again. As I push the restart button, I find I have to ask myself… So why in the world did my friend Rahim ask me to present a keynote address about the Iranian world? As the superb Iranist that he is, he knows so much more than I about this wondrous world. In a perfect world, Rahim should be the keynote speaker. And there are many in the audience that I am addressing at this splendid event who are likewise Iranists. But here I am, standing before you as the designated keynote speaker, and I am not even an Iranist! I am a Hellenist. I specialize in studying not the ancient Iranians but the ancient Greeks, and my field of specialization makes me almost inappropriate or even unacceptable at our event here, since the ancient Greeks and their favorite leader Alexander can be held collectively responsible for putting the Achaemenid Empire out of commission! As I search for some kind of self-justification as speaker, I can come up with one plausible argument: I may be a Hellenist, yes, but I am also a comparatist. I compare structures, whether or not they are historically related to each other. UCLA has many world-renowned comparatists, including my dear friend Rahim. So I guess that Rahim as a comparatist invited me as a comparatist, expecting me to do my best in comparing things. I should add that many other UCLA comparatists besides Rahim are attending our splendid event, including our genial host, the Dean of Humanities at UCLA, David Schaberg, who has done world-class research in comparing typologically—I will explain in a minute what I mean by using this word—some aspects of ancient Chinese literary traditions with corresponding aspects in the historically unrelated literary traditions of the ancient Greeks. In referring to the comparative work of Dean Schaberg, I can speak rather knowledgeably: I had the honor of serving as one of the readers for his stellar Ph.D. dissertation in Comparative Literature, completed at Harvard University in 1996.
Applying Comparative Methods
So, here I can loop back to where I started in my Introduction, where I spoke about Iranians and their relations with the Greeks. Given that my project is to think Iranian about the Greeks as well as think Greek about the Iranians, I can go about it as a comparatist, comparing the existing evidence about both Iranian and Greek civilization. The comparison can be historical, since Iranians and Greeks were in close contact with each other over vast stretches of historically documented time—and the contact was not even always hostile. Or the comparison can be typological where the details that are being compared are not necessarily the result of historical contact. And there is even one further level of comparison, which can be described as genealogical. By using this term I am referring to the methodologies of Indo-European linguistics. Both Iranian and Greek are branches of a language-family known to comparative linguists as Indo-European, and the shared linguistic heritage of Iranian languages and of the Greek language can yield a wealth of insights into the meanings of cognate words and even of the cognate traditions of verbal art in which these words are embedded. A master at this kind of comparative research is Rahim’s Doktor Vater at Harvard, Oktor Skjærvø, who is prominently in attendance at our splendid event.
So, how shall I proceed with my exercise in comparing things Iranian with things Greek? I propose to present three sets of examples. I will start with (1) historical comparisons, where the details being compared resulted from actual contact between Iranians and Greeks; then I will continue with (2) typological comparisons, where the details being compared do not necessarily depend on any historical contact; and then I will end with (3) a genealogical comparison, where the Iranian languages and the Greek language have both inherited a detail that proves to be of some interest. In the last case, I know for a fact that the detail I will highlight is of particular interest to my dear friend Oktor Skjærvø.
Examples of Historical Comparison
I start with a comparison that centers on the Iranian reception of the conquests achieved in Iran by the Greek man Alexander. We are dealing here with a historical comparison, since these conquests can of course be verified as historical fact. And Greek thinking reflects this fact, albeit imperfectly. But Iranian thinking forces a rethinking. In terms of the Iranian reception, which can be analyzed as a historical fact in its own right, Alexander the son of Philip of Macedon is transformed into Iskandar the son of Dāryush, viewed not as a Greek but as an Iranian king who fits into the history and prehistory of Iranian civilization. To say that Alexander was really born Iranian is of course not a historical fact, but the long-term Iranian tradition that figures him as a son of Darius, not Philip, is indeed a fact of reception, which is a genuine historical fact. This historical fact of reception is most clearly visible in the Shahnama or Book of Kings composed at the end of the 10th century of our era by Ferdowsi, whose name means ‘man of paradise’ and whom Iranians today justly consider to be the ultimate poet of Iranian civilization. In the exalted poetry of Ferdowsi, Iskandar is the conqueror of the world, yes, but he is not really the conqueror of the Iranians. His primary deed is not even his conquest of the whole world but rather his quest to find a grand meaning for his conquests, without specific reference to the Greek view of Alexander as conqueror of the Persian Empire. In this regard, I am strongly influenced by the article of Olga M. Davidson (2010), “The Burden of Mortality: Alexander and the Dead in Persian Epic and Beyond.” The full reference can be found in the Bibliography."
Great text on comparative studies in general and on the comparison between the ancient Greek and the ancient Iranian civilizations in particular!
