I’ve read my first book (The Little Prince) in a second language (Spanish).
I’m 51 years old. Reading a Spanish book to completion reminded me of when I was about 8 and discovered that reading a paperback (The Hobbit) wasn’t really much different than reading a short kids book in one sitting. It just takes more than one sitting.
I have such joy right now. The same sense of accomplishment that the 8-year-old me had is here with me as a middle-aged man. The same feeling of magic and possibility is there. It’s a wonderful thing to transform your own mind such that it can do things that it has not done before.
A recurring theme of the book is that younger people in some ways see the world more clearly than older. And that as we get older we close doors around us, and focus on petty and mechanistic things. The Little Prince gently chides the foolishness of adults. It was a message that struck a chord with me.
I feel lucky for choosing such a wise and lovely story to read through. I’ve never read it before. The slow pace of reading it in Spanish and studying sentences one by one, speaking them aloud, magnified what I felt. Occasionally, a single line, once comprehended, would contain a joke that made me laugh or a sad truth about life. Needing to work to understand the text prevented me from missing the many beautiful moments of the book.
Sorry, if I’m gushing a bit. I just want to say that this language learning thing can be really great. I’m celebrating. And I hope you all will continue on your paths and have great experiences too.
This is a great place for sharing excitement and celebrating! For me, and I think others, it is motivating to share, remember and anticipate these rewarding experiences with language learning. It is a great accomplishment to be able to read a book in another language. Congrats! I may have to go back and re-read the Little Prince again.
That’s awesome! I read the book in the original French, which was an amazing experience, too. I always knew my mother loved the book ever since childhood, but I had never gotten around to it until I decided to use LingQ for it.
Congratulations! The Little Prince is also one of my favorite books, and I own it in English, French, German, Latin, Spanish, Russian, and even Middle English and Old English (all the languages I’m working on learning), although as yet I have only read it in English and Middle English, and I’m about half-way through the book in both French and German. I found it a surprisingly difficult book to read in a foreign language - I wouldn’t call it a children’s book, as it has some pretty complex words and phrases. So it’s a real accomplishment to have read it in a second language!
Interestingly, The Little Prince is also available on Amazon in Aurebesh (Star Wars language, which is really just English with a different alphabet). I can read Aurebesh, so I’ve considered buying it, but the book uses the mirrored type for capitalization, which is non standard, so I decided to give it a miss.
If I get around to a third language, I might follow your tradition of reading it in that language as well. There’s some learning advantage in reading a book whose content you know. And The Little Prince seems so worthy of re-reading.
That’s it, best little book of my lifetime. If I can go back and choose one to read, I would read this. First I read it in Thai (my native language) then English, Chinese and French. A lot of version, a lot of little perspective between the language too.
Absolutely! I’ve chosen two books that I really enjoy, and I use those for each language I’m learning, as a kind of test of how far I’ve come. The Little Prince is one, and Treasure Island is the other. I’m currently using LingQ to get my German vocabulary for both books fully learned. Then I should be able to read each one without having to look up words or unusual phrases. After that, I plan to move on to using them for Spanish.
I understand. “The Little Prince” was the first book I read in French. I was quite excited too.
I’ve found much joy in learning French. No getting around that it’s much work, but still I look forward to spending time with my language. It never occurred to me, based on high school and college, that learning a language could be exciting.
I was going to recommend the latest animated film of “The Little Prince” to you, but it only has French/English audio/subtitles.
I’m currently reading The little Prince in Indonesian and enjoying revisiting this lovely tale. I read it a long time ago in English but it’s fun to be looking at it in the detail as you describe. I think I’m enjoying it more since I have to read it slowly and carefully to understand. I completely understand your excitement for finishing it!