books we like

dizzyweasel · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 1614 Location: Canada

so that we can stop spamming in the other topic, haha... Very Happy

eol: my german isn't fluent enough for Wolfgang Hohlbein (although, i'm working on it - it's going to be my second language for the master's test).

i do enjoy fantasy books quite a bit. the kushiel series by jacqueline carey is incredibly beautiful - very lyrical. i also used to read tad williams and gayle greeno. lately school takes up too much of my time to get into the very long fantasy series. i'm also a big fan of greek tragedy, particularly euripides.
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Eol · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 267 Location: Germany

hm maybe the translate Hohlbein's most famous books into English, he's really very famous here in Germany.
You learn German? I can imagine this is really hard, of all languages i can speak I really think German ist the most complicated!
But I'm sure you'll make it

you like the Greek mythology - ah did you already see 'Troja'?
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Eos · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 2:41 am Post subject:

Before Douglas Adams I read Arto Paasilinna's (the German title is) "Der wunderbare Massenselbstmord" (Finnish: "Hurmaava Joukkoitsemurha"). A really funny one Very Happy

Then - talking about finnish literature - I loved Jari Tervo's (again German) "Die Geschichte meiner Familie" (Finnish: "Minun sukuni tarina"). The first about 50 pages were not very exciting but the rest was great.

At the moment (parallel to the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") I'm reading "Php and MySQL for Dummies" *gg*.

dizzyweasel · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 1614 Location: Canada

you know, it's funny, of all the languages i'm learning, i actually think german is the easiest! i also study latin, ancient greek, french, and i start italian in the fall. when i get time, i'm going to try to learn finnish grammar, but so far i've been too busy just trying to memorize all the rest.

as for 'troy', yes, i saw it and i wasn't impressed. there are a bunch of differing myths for the trojan war, but for the most part they are fairly coherent. the movie really wasn't. Mad

hollywood changed so much that dedicated homerphiles wouldn't like it, but left enough in that the average person doesn't really know a lot about what's happening. on the plus side though, brad pitt looks amazing for a 40-year-old Very Happy

, which is i guess what it all comes down to for the average movie-goer. i'm really looking forward the harry potter movie coming out in a couple weeks - i absolutely loved the books!
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Myrddin · Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 17 Location: Holland

I really love the Harry Potter books aswell. I allways read them in a few days. Other books I read are not exectly famous or something.
I'm learning german too, but i don't find it very hard. Ok easy for me to say, when you know Dutch it's not hard to understand German. But I think Finish must be really hard.
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Eos · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 7:45 pm Post subject:

I started to learn Germand when I was 11. Sure when you're younger it's much easier to study a new language, but still, I didn't find it very hard to learn. Maybe because my mother tongue is Croatian which has got a much harder grammar.
Of the language I learned I find French the hardest one (it consists only of exceptions I think, haha). Still, I was refusing to learn it so maybe that's why I didn't do so well in it *ggg*

dizzyweasel · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 1614 Location: Canada

ugh, yeah, french is definately the most difficult for me. so many pieces of the sentence seem to play no real role! it's worse than ancient greek, which is notorious for things called 'particles' which are virtually untranslatable, and serve no real purpose.

although, from what i've seen of finnish, i think that will probably be the hardest language i ever tackle. it's not even indo-european, just proto-indo-european - it bears no resemblance to any of the other languages i've ever studied.
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Eos · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 7:58 pm Post subject:

Myrddin · Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 17 Location: Holland

I learn French, but only because I have to Mad

I don't think I'll ever understand why they don't say what they write down. Confused

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Eol · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 267 Location: Germany

Yes, French is really hard to learn - only exceptions, that's right.
Furthermore, this language sounds really silly, I think
The 3rd language I learned is Russian - if you want to learn another easy language - try this one.
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Eos · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 8:04 pm Post subject:

dizzyweasel · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 1614 Location: Canada

dizzyweasel · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 1614 Location: Canada

eol: russian is on my list of languages to learn - cyrillic is similar to greek, so i thought i might survive it.

you know, it's funny we're discussing this - in the american forums i've been to, everyone only speaks english (and a smattering of spanish, which they resent), and no one is the least bit interested in anything going on outside the USA, so they don't bother to learn other languages. i love europeans, you don't revel in your own ignorance (btw, i grew up in the states, i feel qualified to make that judgement call!).
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Eol · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 267 Location: Germany

this might be true, silly Americans - but I as a German am willing to leave this country, one time.
And therefore it's good to be linguistically advanced and educated - you never know what persons you meet.

Yes, Russian is really easy - once you know the cyrillic it's not the problem to learn the grammar and the rest - there aren't really many exceptions like in many other languages.
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Myrddin · Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 17 Location: Holland

I only had a few lessons of Russian. All I learned were the weird letters and some other things I forgot.
I like to understand people when I'm not in Holland so I like to learn other langueges. At school I learn English, French, German and Spanish. And I know some Italien. I've got some more langueges I want to learn, but these can come some other time. I'm quite busy at the moment.
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