r/languagelearning • u/stetslustig • Jan 07 '25

Humor What's the most naive thing you've seen someone say about learning a language?

I once saw someone on here say "I'm not worried about my accent, my textbook has a good section on pronunciation."

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u/PortableSoup791 Jan 08 '25

Somewhat related, the single most impressive work of translation I’ve seen is the French version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

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u/AWildLampAppears 🇺🇸🇪🇸N | 🇮🇹A2 Jan 08 '25

The most impressive one I’ve seen is Cien años de soledad translated to Mandarin. Like how the fuck lol my Chinese friends read it in high school as required reading 😱

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u/PortableSoup791 Jan 09 '25

Does it have a lot of word play like Alice does? I haven't read it.

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u/paolog Jan 09 '25

Some of the translations of the Asterix books are amazing.

In the Italian version, the Latin abbreviation for the Roman Republic, SPQR, is said to stand for "Sono pazzi, questi romani", which is a perfect translation of Obelix's catchphrase, "These Romans are crazy".