So, I sorted through all my stuff I want to take with me when I'm moving after Christmas. Honestly, I was shocked when I saw the amount of boxes! Most of them are filled with my books--not just novels, but lots and lots of language learning books. I have eight really big books (and I'm talking about letter size, two inches thick, counting as deadly weapon on the top shelf): four dictionaries (for four different languages), two monolingual dictionaries, one idiom dictionary and one, probably the biggest of all, listing all the Italian verbs and their uses. Furthermore, I own a variety of grammar books, language courses, verb tables, smaller dictionaries (for other languages), and other useful language learning materials.
Why did I gather such a huge amount of stuff?
Well, the first and most obvious reason is because I am learning and working with several languages. But does that really account for having more than one grammar book for any single language? I know I am weird, but I simply love having several possibilities to look something up. Too often, I tried to find something in a grammar book, just to realise that my grammar book didn't sufficiently cover that topic. Granted, by now, I know several websites about grammar for one language or the other, as well as several online dictionaries, but there's nothing that can beat the experience and feeling of leafing through countless pages, scanning the content pages, and finally finding what I need.
The value of my private language learning library? I'm not sure, but I guess well over 1,000 euros (adding the purchasing prices together). It has taken me about half of my life to gather what I have so far, with many of the books having been birthday or Christmas gifts. Yes, I am proud of my little library, but boy, that's a whole lot of books! You never notice until you move and have to carry everything from apartment to car, to storage, to new place....
Language ... the bridge of communication, the magic creator of worlds, the brush and paint of authors. Language is magic. It gives us power. It is something you just have to love.
I have been learning Chinese for about a year now. I too like to have lots of resources and in the past, when I learned Germand and Japanese, I bought a lot of grammar and text books. This time though I have not bought anything but the set texts for my course. Language learning has changed considerably and I now most use resources on the Net to suplement my learning materials. Most of what I collect now are eBooks and audio. I still collect resources, but I don't often buy books anymore. Most of the free resources I use are reviewed on my blog. Not everthing is for learning Chinese. Have a look → http://chinesemandarinlearner.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteJonathan,
ReplyDeletethank you very much for your comment. I had a look at your blog and have decided to include it in my resources section so that others interested in learning Chinese can find it.
I agree that electronic resources have many advantages, and if I had the money, I would love to switch my big dictionaries from physical to electronical copies. However, you couldn't smash a robber with an electronic dictionary ;)
There are lots of resources out there to learn languages, but somehow, I still like sitting at a table with my textbook, a pen and paper better than doing exercises on my laptop. But maybe that's just me, and then I shouldn't complain about having so many language learnign books ;)
Best,
Saoirse