What importance do you place on learning languages?

[CesareBorgia]

Do you think its important?

For you personally, is learning languages a part of your life?

Those of you who do speak other languages, like Russian for example, do you think its helped you understand the works of Lenin and the history of the Soviet state? Or those who speak Chinese, Mao, China etc?

[Тачанка]

No. The main ones are translated into many, many languages already.

Learning languages helps in everyday life though, you can follow the situation of the working class and politics in general of other countries.

[Old Mole]

I think it would be a big advantage to be able to read Marx for example in his original language. There is always something lost in translations.

[CesareBorgia]

I think it would be a big advantage to be able to read Marx for example in his original language. There is always something lost in translations.

Marx wrote it mostly in German right? Is his German much like the German of today and are there any editions of Capital that are closest to the original?

[Reznov]

I don't consider it a huge importance, while something may be lost in translation, with reading from the 18 and 9th centuries, like Marx or Lenin's work I believe you aren't losing that much meaning if you read it in a different language due to it being so popular and beign frequently debated like their works.

Now readings like the bible that have been transalted and modified who knows how many times, that I would worry about losing the original meaning.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

I don't consider it of importance for reading something in the original language. I DO consider it of importance for communication with other people in the here and now. My goal is to be fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French. I'm half-way there with Spanish.

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

learning a different language helps you understand the world a lot better. its not just what you know.

[Ocean Seal]

I think that learning languages is important to understand people a lot better, and can help you in your everyday life. Although they are not extremely practical to learn many things aren't and I would argue that even learning them as an intellectual exercise is good. Knowing more languages opens up boundaries.

[bezdomni]

Being able to speak other languages is extremely important, in particular for revolutionaries. It is always good to directly be able to reach another audience, the working class has many many different tongues.


For you personally, is learning languages a part of your life?


I would say knowing language(s) is more a part of my life than learning new languages is. You really only "learn a language" (build basic vocabulary, learn grammar and syntactical structure, etc) once, and then use/improve it continuously.


Those of you who do speak other languages, like Russian for example, do you think its helped you understand the works of Lenin and the history of the Soviet state?

Reading Lenin in Russian is hard because reading Lenin is hard and unless Russian is your first language there is not really much reason to read Lenin in Russian.

I have learned a lot about Soviet life and culture though from reading literature from the time, watching television shows and movies from the time, etc.

Soviet propaganda posters were pretty cool also, as was a lot of the art. Underground art/music in the Soviet Union was also good/interesting.

You should study a language to understand a (modern) society as part of learning how to understand their culture and history, not to understand the works of one writer (especially a dead political leader who has been translated well into English) or to never speak it with anyone or use it for anything in particular (you will lose focus and stop learning if you don't speak it all the time).

Political writing is not that hard to translate, although the slogans (like "all power to the soviets" or "land,bread,peace") do sound better in Russian I think.

What I am saying is much less is lost in the translating of Lenin than in the translating of Pushkin or Dostoevsky. You will understand poetry much better in its original form than but it should not matter which language you are reading political writing in.

The reason I would read Lenin in Russian is the same reason I would read a mathematics textbook in Russian, because it is something I want/need to be able to discuss to become fluent (on the subject in the language). Maybe you'll understand it better, but then that's probably because you're just going over it again and necessarily thinking about it a different way.

[Old Mole]

Marx wrote it mostly in German right? Is his German much like the German of today and are there any editions of Capital that are closest to the original?
Ive read that he wrote in a quite "heavy" german (not strange since he was influenced by Hegel). So his german is not like the german people speak today. Kautsky made a "peoples version" of Capital with easier language. I think it would be quite rewarding to read the original, especially for me as a swede, since our translation of Capital for example is horrible. The best source for original versions would probably be Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe. The historico-critical collections in german. They actually contain several drafts (!) on various texts by Marx so you can follow the developments in his thinking very closely.

[hatzel]

Considering I have a degree in two languages, not to mention the other languages I speak, I guess we could say that language-learning is pretty important to me. And it has had a benefit when it comes to reading texts. Of course the writings of Marx and Lenin and the other big names have been adequately translated, but there are tonnes of relatively unknown, but still note-worthy essays written in French and German in particular, and which have not been translated. I feel I'd have missed out on something if I couldn't decipher these texts...

[Sixiang]

Do you think its important?
It can be for some people. In many European countries, it is common to speak several languages simply in order to get around. It can also helpful to understand some other languages if you want to travel outside of your country. I personally find linguistics, the relations between different languages, how languages determine our thinking and conception of the world, and etymology, the study of the origins and roots of words to be interesting subjects.


For you personally, is learning languages a part of your life?
I was forced to learn Spanish in my elementary school. I didn't like it at the time. I wasn't very good at it and the teachers literally just taught us the same things over and over again every year (numbers, colors, basic questions for getting directions). I took a French class in high school and nearly failed it because I wasn't interested in it and bad at it. That was all before I started to get interested in linguistics. Now I wish that I had taken a language throughout high school. I am probably going to be taking some language classes in college. I'm not sure which one, though. I want to see the whole world, so it's hard to just pick one language.


Those of you who do speak other languages, like Russian for example, do you think its helped you understand the works of Lenin and the history of the Soviet state? Or those who speak Chinese, Mao, China etc?
I don't understand those languages, but I have considered trying to learn German in order to study Marx and Engels more in depth, but that's just because I'm a tad obsessed with them. I have read quite a few of their works in English and I find that difficult enough. Also because German is so similar to English.

[SacRedMan]

Languages are always important, just as your phone. You can make friends in other countries, communicate with comrades all around the world etc.

[Olentzero]

I believe it's highly important. There are numerous sources of important or vital information that may not be available in your native language (for example, a lot of material coming from Greek leftists that hasn't been translated into English). We can't all be language nerds like me and Rabbi K up there, but learning a second major language (at least) is something every revolutionary ought to try to get a better international perspective.

[∞]

I don't.
"A tree is a tree no matter what you call it."-Richard Feynman

I would rather spend all that time learning some much more mentally rewarding than talking differently. But then again, I failed my foreign language class because its sooo boring. Etymology does sound interesting though...

[Red_Devotchka]

sure makes it easier to travel. and it's always an advantage to be able to comunicate with people of different nationalities. I think it also helps you to understand the culture better. and there IS always something lost in translation. Probably nothing relevant in case of books like u mentioned, but have you ever tried reading the divine comedy in italian and then in english? or poetry in general? or simply "clockwork Orange" tht has a particular vocabulary? i've read it in english, in italian and in polish, and i assure you that it changes a lot :p not the story in general, of course, but has a slightly different impact.

[Rocky Rococo]

Learning another language teaches you to think in different terms, in the grammar and syntax and conceptual structure of that language. I also found that learning another language (Russian in my case) greatly improved my understanding of the grammar and structure of English as well.

[Sixiang]

I don't.
"A tree is a tree no matter what you call it."-Richard Feynman

I would rather spend all that time learning some much more mentally rewarding than talking differently. But then again, I failed my foreign language class because its sooo boring. Etymology does sound interesting though...

Here's a great site for etymology studying: http://etymonline.com/

[MarxSchmarx]

I guess one advantage of speaking multiple languages is that yes, most of the main stuff has been translated, but still there's a vast leftist literature that isn't, at least for the major world languages. Being able to speak another languages gives you access to that literature immediately. It is something of a pity to think of all that I may be missing out on.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Do you think its important?

Learning is always good.



For you personally, is learning languages a part of your life?


I do place importance on learning Hebrew, yes, but this is more for religious purposes than political (though I do support learning it for political purposes as well). Past that I don't really place any particular importance on learning new languages but I do try to learn others.


Those of you who do speak other languages, like Russian for example, do you think its helped you understand the works of Lenin and the history of the Soviet state? Or those who speak Chinese, Mao, China etc?

I'm not sure I would say that but it would be helpful to look at primary source material that may be of some use learning wise, yes. As another member pointed out a lot of their works have been translated into numerous languages so I'm not to concerned with learning Russian or Chinese or anything.

[Aeval]

Do you think its important?

Sure, it's pretty useful and it's necessary that someone does else ideas can't be spread.


For you personally, is learning languages a part of your life?

I study languages, it's not the be all and end all but I'm happy that I can speak another language fluently and get by in a couple of others. I think without that my world view would be much narrower.


Those of you who do speak other languages, like Russian for example, do you think its helped you understand the works of Lenin and the history of the Soviet state? Or those who speak Chinese, Mao, China etc?

Yes and No.

The main problem if you can't speak the language an text is originally in is that you have to wait for someone else to, which might never happen. A further problem is that it could be translated badly. Translators aren't generally able to question the author as to what they meant so any ambiguous or complex passages can end up being misinterpreted, and thus mistranslated, or if a translator is coming at it from a certain angle can be translated to show the translator's view rather than that of the author. Also, there are some ideas which just don't exist in other languages and the translator often has to find some clumsy way of getting around them. That said, with the works of Marx etc this second problem isn't that big as they have been translated numerous times. I think by now the translated version is going to be pretty sound, but more modern pieces could be a bit dodgy.

You can't learn every language in the world so we all have to rely on others to translate things for us, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's more of an issue with fiction than with political texts, as the way it's written and the flow of the words is often as important as their actual meaning.