BTT -- Foreign Language Books

Deb chose my question for this week's Booking through Thursday!  Here's my question:

I had an idea for a BTT question when I was taking a peek at one of my bookcases yesterday and spotted my old copy of the Aeneid in Latin sitting there. Maybe this question has already been done—but if not… Do you have any foreign language books and if so can you (still) read them?

Well, as you can see, I do have a copy of the Aeneid from my high school Latin class -- 4 years of Latin with Sr. Irene.  While I did take Latin -- what I really wanted to take was French, but I was on the honors "college prep" track, so I was out of luck.  I could probably muddle through reading this, but I'm sure I've lost a lot of the vocabulalry.

Later in college I decided to take German.  One of my Aunts and some cousins lived in Germany and I thought I could learn it well enough to speak to them in German -- never mind that they could all speak English perfectly well!  I didn't have a whole lot of room for electives, so this only lasted one semester.  My German textbook is long gone, but I think my mom has copies of the books that both my Aunt and one of my cousins have written about my famous uncle Rudi Dutschke.  I wish I could at least read German so that I could read their books.

Then I changed my major to English Lit , took an Old English class and fell in love!  The basic intro wasn't enough, so I took a grad level class in the language.  I believe we used A Guide to Old English and I know it's around here somewhere.  Me and dead languages -- a perfect fit! 

Later when planning to attend a friend's wedding in France I bought a few books and taught myself enough to get by.  And I'm sure Pete has some of his Swedish books -- he took quite a few classes in Swedish language and literature in college.

But by *far* my largest collection of foreign language books in the house is my massive collection of Japanese craft books.  I've actually tried to learn Japanese online, but haven't gotten too far with that.  So while I can't read them, they are very inspirational to look at!

Comments

[Pete]

I do still have my Swedish grammar book and matching Swedish-English and English-Swedish dictionaries, plus two fiction books (one adolescent-level, one teen-level) in Swedish. I wouldn't do well in regular conversation, but I remember the pronunciation just well enough to not embarrass myself when ordering off a Swedish menu.

[Asaknitter]

Tee hee, I am Swedish, so bilingual. I have some German books left from high school, but other than that, it's English all the way.

[Kim]

As a matter of fact I do have a few foreign language books. My major was French, so I have the usual classic lit--Candide, Le Rouge et le Noir. I have a few contemporary novels that people have given me--The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice (the only one I can think of without actually having to go look). I can still read them. I taught HS French for five years and then started teaching English at another school. French, however, will always be my favorite.

[kat]

I guess you can say I'm bilingual, since English isn't my first language. I'd love to study Latin. I don't think there's a lot of people nowadays who can speak it. :D