I bought 100 books in languages I don't speak

[@daysandwords]

Find out how to learn a language effectively and have fun while doing it: refold.link/refold-course-lamont

[@Adam-MonkeyIsNull]

Where is "1001 Langauges to Speak Before You Die" ?

[@runningriot7963]

Lamont: Buys 100 books in several various languages at the boofaire Cahsier: How many languages does this guy speak?!?!🤯

[@daysandwords]

Haha, mostly they just write the numbers down and don't pay much attention, but occasionally they're like "Wait, do you speak this language?" Every time they've asked that though, it has been a Swedish book, so I actually got to say yes.

[@allixandra]

I saw the title and was like "well, yeah, of course you did!" Thanks for the recommendation for Kastanjemanden. I'll check it out! P.S. I also have a lot of Spanish books and Isabel Allende is definitely on the shelf!

[@marleyundangie]

The five colorful German books you showed from different authors but all with a similar cover design were part of my favourite book series as a young teenager. As a German girl I read so many of them. These are funny, sweet little love stories for young teenagers. So probably good material / understandable input for German learners. Some of the books were also translated to English for German tennagers learning English with some vocabulary in the footnotes.

[@francegamble1]

My friend went to Mexico to bring me back a Spanish book for my birthday... it was in Italian. I still haven't told her. She bought it thinking of me.

[@daysandwords]

Haha, maybe it's reasonably common then! I found out when I got back to Ben's house (Ben who works in Refold), and he started looking through my haul and said "Oh you're learning French again?" and I was like "It's not in French... are you blind?" and he says "Well, it's not in Spanish either."

[@Sam-shushu]

That book is for Ancient Greek, Lamont. And it's an awesome buy! It has great passages from Sophocles, Demosthenes, and just about any ancient greek writer you might want to read.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah it actually has a correction on screen about that.

[@carlconstantdeflon2373]

Jag har verkligen _INGEN_ aning om hur jag hittade din fantastiska kanal, men prisa gudarna att jag gjort det! Outsägligt underhållande och du verkar vara en alldeles ljuvlig person! Om du någonsin behöver en konversationspartner eller bara ta en pilsner, antingen när jag är i Sydney (Vilket jag är ett par gånger per år), när du är i Sverige eller över videokonferens är det bara att skicka ett DM... Keep being you!!! :)

[@lapkrit]

I've been learning Swedish with comprehensive input for only 2 months, so it was a weirdly pleasant surprise when I understood half of what you have written there! Cheers!

[@carlconstantdeflon2373]

@@lapkrit That's great mate!! Good going and well done! I hope you keep it up. The offer for a quick chit chat to practice your Swedish extends to you as well if you ever feel up for it! _)

[@stevesmith291]

Slight correction: "Die italienischen Schuhe" isn't "The Italian shoe"; it's "The Italian shoes" (plural). Singular would be "Der italienische Schuh."

[@daysandwords]

Oh yeah... 😂

[@maureenwoodhams9110]

I’m learning Spanish (64 day streak on duolingo), but picked up an Italian grammar book in Coffs Harbour on holiday last week. I guess that might be next year’s language for me.

[@daysandwords]

Great job getting started on Spanish! Just so you know, Duolingo has been so heavily "nerfed" (deliberately made worse) that it's actually at the point of uselessness now. A lot of people have realised that although they could absolutely ace every single Duolingo unit on the huge courses like Spanish, they could understand basically no Spanish, or anything else: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGfNnp9md8p0rNE

[@maureenwoodhams9110]

@@daysandwords I'll keep that in mind but I'm finding it useful so far. For example, when I come across some "Spanish in the wild" (such as KZbin comments)I understand it better than 63 days ago.

[@daysandwords]

Yes, you will learn _something_ in 63 days. But comparing something that you might have spent, say, 30 hours on, to a literal 0 hour alternative is not really a valid judgement. But if you HAVE used it for 30 hours then the good news is that you've done the best 30 hours that Duolingo offers, and it's time to move on to something like Dreaming Spanish.

[@sambeawesome]

Libraries are where you want to go in the US if you want the cheapest used books :) Unfortunately no matter where you go, for foreign languages, your best bet is a couple Spanish...and pretty much nothing else. In a library store I went to, my mind was blown when I saw a book on learning Hindi. Immediately snagged it for my brother. It's a shame foreign language books are so rare, but hopefully more will keep popping up as we all intermingle with each other. (I know I've donated some Japanese books, so hopefully someone lucky found those!) Super exciting finds though, congrats! :D

[@Skiis44]

Ah the Spring library sales are starting. If you don’t see foreign language books ask. My one library keeps them in the back room. Had to fight off a dealer who had 40 books lined up against the wall while I firmly controlled the Spanish box. This year German, Japanese and French. We also have a University Book sale in June.

[@daysandwords]

The library here doesn't accept donations that aren't in English so they would never even have them to begin with. They do have books in other languages to BORROW, but I've never ever seen them for sale. But yeah when the library does sell books, they're for 50 cents or $1, but I stopped buying them about 5 years ago when I realised I don't really want books in English.

[@nicolaschaij199]

Currently learning German and, as the Hobbit is my favourite book that I know waaaaay too well, I have it in print and audio for German and am slowly working through it. I say all this because in the process of getting it, I learned there were two German translations, one that is the full story and an older translation that is somewhat abridged and thus “kleine” so that’s why that copy specifies it

[@daysandwords]

Yep!

[@CaptainMiller-jd6sr]

1001 language learning channels to binge before you die

[@MoiAujourdhui]

I’ve collected The Hobbit in each of the four languages I study. Maybe not always the most useful vocabulary, but lots of fun and low pressure.

[@gabriellawrence6598]

I do something similar with the Bible, also because it's the easiest book to find in any language.

[@MoiAujourdhui]

@@gabriellawrence6598 the Bible is always my first pick. I have it *in a couple languages that I may never study. 😅

[@littleone1656]

This is awesome. My favorite book of all time. I will take ur advice.

[@JennyTownsend-r4s]

I've had dual linguine "Ratatouille "!!! books. I grew up with Homeric Greek. And Latin. I told you this the first time I watched your intriguing video. My iPad runs around 20 hours out of 24. My cat likes them, too.

[@Felixxxxxxxxx]

Cool that you even found a book in New Norwegian. If you are planning to learn all Scandinavian languages, I would recommend you to start with Swedish like you already have, if you want to learn Nynorsk you should take that next, followed by Norwegian bokmål and finally Danish. I don't speak all of them, but I do understand all of them, and it would be trickier to do them in another order.

[@daysandwords]

I can read in any of them.

[@TheHakon98]

The order shouldn’t matter anyway. They are all basically the same. For me as a Norwegian they are all the same language with some tiny variation.

[@87advil]

I might be full of myself - maybe just never noticed it before - but I think my favorite secondhand bookstore made a minority romance language section because of me bringing them miscategorized books a few times (eg a Catalan book, labeled as French, found in the Spanish section) My favorite inadvertent language learning resource is a book called How to Become Naturalized published in New York City (undated). It has the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution in Greek and English, and a question and answer guide with text in 3 columns: English, Greek translation, and in the middle (I figured this out with help from my mom) the English text transliterated into the Greek alphabet. In the back there's a list of books from the same publisher that I will puzzle out at some point. Favorite Spanish find is a reader called Sol y Sombra: Lecturas de Hoy (1972) with texts adapted from real periodicals from around the Spanish speaking world. Second-favorite is Cassell's Beyond the Dictionary in Spanish: A Handbook of Everyday Usage which is a very chatty British guide to the Spanish, and Spain, of 1951. There is special emphasis on topics apparently underserved elsewhere, like vocabulary relating to cars and driving, card games, telephones, and music.

[@frizlaw]

Well, you're not the only one that does this: I have a copy of a Japanese manga (Crayon Shinchan) translated into Thai that I bought (not surprisingly) in Bangkok, but I can't read Thai at all. I have Mao's Little Red Book in Mandarin, which I bought in Beijing, but I can't read it. I have various translations of Le Petit Prince (originally written in French) translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese (which I can read), but oddly enough, not English. I have a children's alphabet primer for Khmer that I picked up in Siem Reap, Cambodia. I also have a children's primer on writing the Thai alphabet that I bought in Chang Mai in northern Thailand. I have many Japanese translations of Russian novels, like 'War and Peace', 'Anna Karenina', and 'Crime and Punishment'. I have language books for learning Korean and Swahili that I will get to eventually. I have 'Animal Farm' translated into Portuguese (which I managed to read), 'The Outsider/The Stranger' translated into Japanese (which I haven't gotten around to reading), 'The Alchemist' translated into Spanish (which I've read). I've also managed to borrow and scan many library books for learning Persian, Bahasa (Indonesian), ancient and modern Greek. Languages are fascinating and I'm always interested to see what literature (classic or popular) looks like in other languages.

[@kendroslav8296]

I think that Greek intensive course is for Ancient Greek rather than modern. Language Transfer has a great free course though for Modern Greek.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah there is a note on the screen about that. I mean if I published a book in 1992 and called it "SWEDISH: An intensive course" - would you expect it to be Swedish from the 1980s and 1990s, or Swedish from over 1000 years ago? Seems like I'd have a fair case to get my money back, I reckon.

[@kendroslav8296]

@@daysandwords Yeah, I think this is the problem with Greek in general there is a lack of interest in the Greek of the present to they just pass off greek from literally 2500 years ago as "Greek" when its actually a specific dialect of Greek from one city 2500 years ago...

[@ThisIsNotInUseOkay]

A Thousand Splendid Suns is one of my favorite books! Looks like some good finds :)

[@cito2820]

Just so you know Lamont, that Greek book is famous in the US, but it is also a book for Ancient Greek, rather than Modern Greek.

[@daysandwords]

Cheers. Yeah, there is a correction on screen about it.

[@cito2820]

@@daysandwords Oh my bad! Didn't see. Loved the video though.

[@daysandwords]

​@@cito2820All good. I almost removed that bit entirely because I realised it was wrong but it was still too relevant to this video.

[@cito2820]

@@daysandwords That makes sense. That book is used for an (insane) 10 week summer course in NYC in which students learn literally all of Ancient Greek's (insanely difficult) grammar. I've though about attending but also... ooof. If you are ever interested in learning Ancient Greek, eventually, there is a great Comprehensible Input based reader called "LOGOS: Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata," based mostly off of Hans H Orberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata (for Latin). Luke Ranieri has a reading list for a Comprehensible Input based method of learning Ancient Greek, and Justinlearnslatin has one for Latin. Just a thought if you ever decide to explore ancient languages. I never thought I would but I have since fallen in love. Latin is a blast when you learn it doing grammar 10% of the time and CI + easy reading 90%. Highly recommend if anything historical is of interest to you.

[@Charlotte-ti2yk]

I’m normally a digital reader. I’m a bit of a minimalist (not the design, just in that I don’t like stuff in my house) and so real books have always stressed me out a bit by taking up room which could be empty space… all my Swedish reading is either on Nextory or Storytel, and to date all my Turkish has been transcripts imported in to LingQ. It’s weird, then, I admit, that one of my favourite activities when in Istanbul is to go to the second-hand book markets and look through what they have. I could spend hours there, flicking through the pages. I rarely ever buy anything though, unless it’s a particularly pretty version of a book. I’m sure I’d love to visit something like this book sale if we had it here in Edinburgh (and perhaps we do and I just don’t know about it). No buying though - being around books when they’re not in my house is what makes me happy. 😅

[@hillmanntoby]

Here we have Half Priced Books and every time I go to one, I basically clear out the foreign language section. This video has made me curious on if we have any local book fairs, and there are a few I am going to check out this year. The real issue is I always feel compelled to have a complete collection of things, and random books that I stumble across invariably give me a giant list of additional books I "need" to get.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah, same haha.

[@Sam-shushu]

So you're the reason I can't find anything :D

[@hermonymusofsparta]

I'm learning Greek right now. There's a lot of animated films that have a Greek dub and tons of podcasts on KZbin. I've been listening to The Lion King and The Prince of Egypt for a few months and have many other Greek Dubbed films I've purchased. The only issue is that the subtitles and the voice dub are often radically different because they were translated by different teams and the big Hollywood studios don't care if they match.

[@jacobcaruso5010]

Currently attempting to read/listen to The Hobbit in French, I would love to find something like this near me to get more books once I finish

[@meropale]

8:45 I totally agree with your assessment on this series. I have two of the books which aren't included in your collection. They seem geared toward teenage girls but are great for my German as they are a challenging level without being too difficult.

[@donnie1725]

That's awesome, nice haul!

[@coolbrotherf127]

I took the Refold last year and it was genuinely really helpful. The Refold guys have a lot of useful resources and advice.

[@anna7276]

I need to see if this sort of stuff comes to Perth. Surely it would! Would love to explore such a book sale!

[@daysandwords]

I don't think they do, unfortunately. I couldn't find anything about a Lifeline book fair in Perth, and there's only one Lifeline charity shop there, but they don't take donations. They may still have books that they get from elsewhere, I guess.

[@anna7276]

Ahh ok thanks for looking into it! I will keep hunting second hand bookshops to see if I can pick up any old Spanish novels! Cheers mate, have a great long weekend!

[@ForeverForwardPod]

Amazing video, and I would expect nothing less of course. I love the way you blend storytelling, useful information, and engaging (but not over the top) visuals. The perfect example of this (in this video) is the transition from speaking about the picture book you bought your son, to speaking about "immersion learning." It's a really unique style and I strive to emulate it one day. I once bought a Harry Potter book in French at Goodwill, because it was only fifty cents. I figured that I would try to read it, because I took French for 3 years in high school. I thought it would be easy - it was NOT 😂 had to put it down after a few pages.

[@AveryHardmann]

You do a fair impression of yourself

[@run2fire]

Like the Pirate hat, bucco. To bad they will not be good this year.

[@daysandwords]

Haha yeah it's just because Lids in Australia has all this old stuff so they were basically giving away the ASG '22 line ($5 AU each... like... what...) - so I have loads of different hats now. I probably have the 2024 WS champions, whoever it happens to be.

[@daysandwords]

If you're still reading this, I've been enjoying quite a few of the Pirates' games. Including that one that Skenes made his debut in and pitched pretty well and then the relievers walked in 7 runs... and somehow they still won. 😂 Also beating Dodgers 1-0 was epic.

[@run2fire]

@@daysandwords How are you watching the Pirates on the other side of the world and I can’t watch them 200 miles away? 😂. Actually maybe going to Pittsburgh in a few weeks and may catch a game. Is baseball played in Australia at a professional level? Recently watched the chat you had with Louis, the French speaking guy from Tahiti. Good stuff.

[@daysandwords]

I've become addicted to the condensed games on MLB.com but then I got frustrated at sometimes wanting to see more context so I got the full subscription at half price, which has been worth it for our new family thing of "Saturday night baseball" where we pick the game we're most interested in and watch it on the big screen. I mean, I am obviously outside of any blackout regions... Really the only drawback is that we're never watching live because it would be at 5am or so but as long as I set the app to "Hide spoilers", it doesn't matter. I have even sometimes switched to watching the coverage but using the audio from the Spanish speaking radio. 😂

[@cxfilterstudios7691]

I am American but lifelong speaker of Swedish and Danish. Huge library. In Atlanta we have an Ikea. They use recent Swedish books on their furniture display bookcases so People will NOT read the books. Of course I want to buy them but cannot they are just props... Such a tease I stopped going there

[@daysandwords]

Yeah I asked about those here too.

[@santiglot]

Here were I life I also have an endless supply of Swedish, Noregian, German and Dutch books for free lol.

[@LauraBCReyna]

My fav charity shop has a small shelf of foreign lang books. I've gotten Fr, Ger, & Span books there. I've been studying Italian for a few yrs but don't think I've come across more than 1 or 2 grammar books which I don't use. I'm in Calif & you'd think they'd be a crapload of Span novels around but I rarely come across them. Grammar books, yes. Novels, no. Maybe they just don't put them out on the shelves.

[@JennyTownsend-r4s]

I watched "Lemony Snicket" many times on DVD. I've watched 1000s of films (at cinés, DVDs, free streaming: TVs in old days. Now, on phones & tablets). Read, found, bought, given away 1000s of books. Not to forget tech journals. Your video is like "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe " movie I streamed once. I couldn't stop : exhausted by the "end."

[@MTimWeaver]

Not a book fair find, but a Swedish friend gifted me all the Swedish language kids books she'd acquired over the years to teach her daughter. Now I can go learn all the names of farm animals and which one looks most like me. 🤣

[@AngloSaks666]

I've ridden 824 of those bikes already.

[@StefanoDurden]

Do you have any suggestions for learners of languages that are particularly different? For example Asian languages, what dedicated tips would you have?

[@daysandwords]

Honestly I'd be speaking outside of my knowledge there, having only spent time learning anglosemblant languages, but I'd probably learn say, 500 to 1000 characters (assuming it's a character language) and watch some KZbin videos on the sounds etc., and then keep that going but start integrating more and more immersion. A lot of people say "Immersion won't work with Chinese/Japanese etc" - and they are KIND of right, in that it won't be the only thing you need (it's not for any language really), but they are wrong in that you actually need a LOT MORE immersion in those languages. So basically: 1. Get an idea of what you're listening for 2. Listen a lot 3. Repeat step 1 4. Listen a lot more (a LOT) 5. Repeat step 3 6. LISTEN A LOT A LOT A LOT etc.

[@KrutoyChelavekFilipp]

Cool video!

[@dezukaful]

Lamont just in case the book that you picked up (greek an intensive course by Hansen ) is for ancient greek not modern greek edit: just saw you wrote so in the screen too 😂

[@TatianaRacheva]

Haha, it feels so cozy to find other people who do these things I do :)

[@georgiewalker5826]

Great video, I wondered if you felt like doing another video on languages relevance. I have just learnt French to a level I am proud of. Because of this I am torn between Spanish, German or Mandarin as my third languages. Or whether it is even worth putting myself through the process of learning another language again. Would also be interested to know if you wish you learnt Spanish instead of Swedish?

[@daysandwords]

Thanks. Nah, I don't really wish I'd learnt anything instead of Swedish. But if I were you, I would learn the one you most want to learn, or the thing you most want to learn (even if not a language).

[@patchy642]

Isle of Tenerife, Spain, Africa. Brilliant, Lament! I'm glad your mike packed in when it did, as this video was excellent, your summarising and I believe nicely distilling what would have been with a working mike. I've read Wuthering Heights in four languages, loving it more each time. My goal now is to find a copy printed in Frisian, but I guess that's highly unlikely, right? Hey, once you've fully learned Spanish, do you reckon you'll have a go at Canary Whistle language? If so, I teach it here in person, and on Italki. Great book reviews! Your videos are always informative and refreshing, motivating. Best wishes, Patchy.

[@OzkAltBldgCo-bv8tt]

Yes I too have a compulsive book buying habit. I have to retell myself scroll down a little bit when I pick him up on Amazon because you might just get it used for a fraction a quarter of the price.

[@daysandwords]

I got a great deal on Amazon the other day but not on a book. It was on a lens and it was such a good price that I just figured it was the cheaper version of the lens that is always that much, but then I looked more closely and thought "Wait, that's like half its normal price..." I've seen used versions of that lens sell for significantly more. Weird.

[@meropale]

9:10 The French translation I have is "Bilbo, le hobbit". I guess Le hobbit, or Der Hobbit aren't descriptive enough.

[@BrunUgle]

Interestingly, even Swedish and Danish books get translated to Norwegian here. I like reading Swedish and Danish in the original occasionally, even though it takes a bit of extra effort, but you rarely find Swedish or Danish books here. Almost all bookstores have an English section, but I’ve only once seen a Swedish section, and I don’t remember ever finding a Danish section. Norwegians seem to feel it takes too much effort to read them. Most Bokmål users don’t even like to read Nynorsk if they can avoid it. BTW, I saw that one of the photography books you held up was in Nynorsk, so you could probably read it if you wanted to.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah there seemed to have been a Norwegian landscape enthusiast donating or something because that one was in Nynorsk but I think it was about a place in Denmark, and the German one was actually about Norway.

[@brassbandit3060]

I have gotten almost every Russian book I own from a local used bookstore. Favourite find was an English / Russian children’s bible! Favourite non Russian is the novelization of the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie.

[@vjvj85]

I actually own over 100 books in French and probably 70+ in Antillean Creole. I am ashamed because I cannot read any of them from cover to cover

[@daysandwords]

No need to be ashamed! You can probably get closer to your 100+ French books than I can to my "The Hunchback of Notredame" in Finnish. 😂

[@vjvj85]

Ha!😅

[@JennyTownsend-r4s]

I love your open-minded, open-door outlook. I grew up in a toxic home. Yet, by good fortune, my terrible mother and semiconscious father exposed me to excellent languages, both ancient & modern; music, as well. Tech at birth, creative by nature, imaginative, hypersensitive; I appreciated films, actors, scholarly junk & British comedy. I respect you as a seeker of highest quality. Give my regards to Glagolitic.

[@xyan3191]

My bet on the mystery language is one of the Australian Indigenous languages 👀

[@gracefullcraziness]

The Hansen & Quinn big orange book is actually for Ancient Greek! There's even less comprehensive input for Ancient Greek than modern Greek, unsurprisingly :(

[@daysandwords]

Yeah that's actually written on screen while I'm talking about, to the left.

[@boroto2boroto]

How come there weren't clear shots of the mystery language? I'd like to have a go at guessing it!

[@daysandwords]

People would just google it... I checked, it took me 2 seconds just googling like 4 words of it.

[@RikkiestAndTikkiest]

I love book hauls! More! 🙂

[@moransarusi3522]

Where do you store all of themmm

[@daysandwords]

Yeah I'm working on getting some more shelves haha.

[@JennyTownsend-r4s]

This may seem autrefois de sujet, mais I bet you will love "Problemista," "Argylle," "Frozen Empire," "The Kill Room," & ASMR Weekly videos, regardless their brand. See Ghengis Cohen ride his pet Mongolian musk ox. On Fairfax north of Melrose Avenue. I used to go there for take out Buddha's Delight.

[@daysandwords]

How much will you bet me? Because I hate all "ASMR" videos.

[@Mrs.SaturnX]

"Der kleine Hobbit" is an older edition. These days the book is simply called "Der Hobbit", as it should be.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah someone in the members' video said that, cheers!

[@meropale]

I could be wrong but this is Ancient Greek 8:20 , not Modern. I have this very book and I love it. Edit: $4 is a steal!! I paid US$57 for a brand new copy.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah there's a correction on screen about that.

[@meropale]

@@daysandwords Ah, I did see that but it was so very small it almost looked like publisher information so I completely glossed over it. Ooops, apologies, my bad! In any case this was a very fun video to watch! Totally fun to see what's in your "book haul", even if I myself am not learning that specific language.

[@meropale]

@@daysandwords If you do resell the Ancient Greek you'd easily recoup your "loss" but it's a gem, if you're into that.

[@billkammermeier]

Why is their a star next to the Pirates logo on your hat?

[@daysandwords]

I pretty much only buy hats on clearance because in Australia, once they're out of season they're VERY cheap... and that's a dream for me. So anyway, the star is because it's the hat from the All Star Game 2022, hence being on clearance. I also have a Boston one... Although maybe that doesn't have the star? I can't remember, but it is the ASG 22 hat so I assume it does. I recently bought a whole heap more caps... I remember in Houston, the girl working at Lids was surprised when she scanned one of the hats I bought and it was "only" $20 (plus Texas tax). Well... in Australia, that same amount of money can get you 3 or 4 hats if you go on the right day.

[@Joseph_Hovsep]

Can't wait to hear more about that endangered language bible

[@Stephanie-gv8rh]

I really need to go to more book markets 😂

[@meropale]

9:35 Can't fully agree. I wouldn't buy a bike book but it looks fun if bikes happen to be your thing. It is a"dream" book as the title states.

[@daysandwords]

There's a more full explanation of this in the members cut. It's still dumb. 😂

[@eylon1967]

Here we have this thing called a library, where books are FREE 😮

[@Skiis44]

My library has very few books in foreign languages. They have more at the book sales where people donate books. Then they are mine and I can write in them and undel❤one to my hearts content.

[@meropale]

Having a personal library of books is a one of the truly wonderful luxuries one can have in the modern era, without going totally broke.

[@daysandwords]

We also have that, but umm, I don't know how to tell you this, you have to return those ones.

[@eylon1967]

@@daysandwordsis the point of a book owning the object or reading it?

[@daysandwords]

​​@@eylon1967It's different for different people, and it sounds a lot like you're insisting that YOUR reason for owning books is superior. It isn't. It's just different. For me, it depends on the book. I like to look at these books every now and then, I like to figure out certain words and patterns. If it's in Swedish/Spanish/Norwegian, I will probably write in it. Many of these books are ones I would want to own and not borrow. Having books that need to go back stresses me out so I only borrow one at a time now if I borrow at all. There are no fines but they're still not my property. Also, the library here where I live has English, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Mandarin and Arabic. I own 45 books in Swedish and 39 in Spanish. Not sure how the library could help there. Besides, in 7 book fairs I've spent a total of about $300 on around 150 books and skipped the stress of due dates. I can flick through them whenever I like as well as use them for B-roll. Collectively they've contributed to a lot more than $300 of income. See, there's much more to books for some people than just reading them. It's great if you like the library, and I do too, but it's not a case of "LOL YOU'RE STUPID I GOT DA LIBRARY".

[@gabriellawrence6598]

Lamont, please ship me the Hungarian books. They're impossible to find here.

[@daysandwords]

I'll get some if they're there next time. I've never bought any.

[@cj-gunn]

where's the book fair??

[@daysandwords]

It goes around to different cities.

[@Lilacil]

Wow!! I live in Australia; this is so awesome to know about! Have you seen many Ukrainian books? I've been having a lot of trouble finding them)

[@daysandwords]

Honestly I wouldn't know the difference between Ukrainian and Russian just by looking at it, so I'm not sure. I have seen a bit of ONE of those, I think.

[@Lilacil]

@@daysandwords No worries, thanks) The easiest way to tell the difference is that Ukrainian does not have the letter ё.

[@Tomanita]

That seems like a great book fair😃 I also like to get books secondhand, just online. Do you keep all the books?

[@daysandwords]

It's rare that I give a foreign one back but very often I donate the English ones back to them or another op-shop. Sometimes I read them first and other times I just admit that I'm not going to read it.

[@vishwastanwar4764]

Wait what did Pablo Neruda do?

[@daysandwords]

Please google it if you want to know.

[@icegoddess1308]

ΟΠΑ!!! I’ve watched so many of your videos and they’ve helped me over the past 4 years while learning Modern Greek. And now that it’s been mentioned in one of your videos, it feels like everything is coming full circle almost🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷

[@JamalAhmadMalik]

An Urdu speaker here... I was impatiently waiting for you to mention ANY language other than the ones alphabet based....no Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, nada. Then you said Urdu, and I just giggled a little.

[@daysandwords]

I do have some books in Chinese but I mean... not much I can really do with them. Arabic is alphabet based... just not the Latin alphabet.

[@JamalAhmadMalik]

@@daysandwords Arabic is an abjad, I think you. You could argue that abjads are alphabets ,but I do not see it as such. We could then also call abugida of Hindi and Sanskrit an aphabet too.

[@daysandwords]

​@@JamalAhmadMalik In English speaking circles, the Arabic lettering system is very very often called "the Arabic alphabet", even by fluent speakers of Arabic. It's an alphabet, as far as the English language nomenclature is concerned.

[@JamalAhmadMalik]

@@daysandwords I concede. You are right. All ajbads are just alphabets.

[@philippef1185]

Paulo Coelho isn't niche literature 😂, "The Alchemist" is one of the most sold novels in history

[@daysandwords]

I didn't say it was niche literature. You do realise that if someone refers to TWO different things in one video, then you can't take what they said about the second thing and apply it to the first thing, right? I was talking about one of my wife's favourite books, by Francine Rivers... I absolutely never said that Paulo Coelho is niche literature. Please listen to everyone's videos more carefully, for your own sake.

[@MisterGames]

Grammar rules are like math formula, can only be used consciously. If you tell me side A is 32 and side B 16 i do not know the hypotenuse side C even though i know the math rule. But i can then consciously work it out. Grammar rules are the same.Memorising a grammar rule is nothing more than memorising a sentence. My subconscious just considers it another lexical chunk but it cannot use it, only the conscious can.

[@ChristopherBonis]

6:35 Might that be Laz/Lazuri? Please delete my comment if I’m right! Love your interactive guessing games, Lamont. Cheers!

[@daysandwords]

It's not correct but love the guess!

[@meropale]

At those prices I would do the same 🤣

[@Deutsch-um6rt]

Got books in Armenian, Georgian, Greek, Tamil, Hindi, Arabic, Mandarin, Hebrew, Welsh, Yoruba, Chechen, etc. given the fact that I can’t even read in 8 of the aforementioned languages. Why? Well, go ask goddam bees what they need their gallons of honey for🥸🐝🍯

[@JennyTownsend-r4s]

Hungarian is the sister of Finnish. Yorkville is German & Hungarian. I have an old book from there: teaching Hungarians to read English.

[@sharonoddlyenough]

The language section is the first place I check in any used book store, and sometimes I am lucky to find anything Swedish. It's hard not to take books home, they look so sad when I walk away 🥺 I have books in Japanese in case I want to try it again, and and Norwegian and Dutch books because I picked them up too quickly when I was looking for Swedish. For pocket-sized books, I have a matched set of dictionaries, Dutch to English and English to Dutch, just a but bigger than my thumb that I picked up as a kid because they are adorable

[@РоманПаляниця-к5э]

Дякую, дуже цікаве та позитивне відео! Вітаю з України!

[@mellamanborrego8299]

Oh no, what got Neruda shamed 😣 actually don't tell me, I'm going to pretend I didn't see this

[@lucytryingthings]

Same, I was so surprised by that comment!

[@daysandwords]

Honestly I wasn't pleased to find out either (can't think that any healthy person WOULD be pleased to hear that), but I have to mention it because I'm sick of "holier than thou" comments from self-righteous people who think I don't have access to google.

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

07:15 Wait, is Neruda considered so evil in America that you have to repent? Or did you mean someone else? - Adûnâi

[@daysandwords]

What? I don't have to repent, and I'm not in America.

[@lucytryingthings]

but what did you mean by the shamed line? I honestly dont know, did something new happen? @@daysandwords

[@daysandwords]

Neruda wrote a book that translates to something like "Confessions of how I lived". And in it, he states quite openly, though with pretty obvious remorse, that he forced a maid or a cleaner or someone like that to have s** with him. He says "She was right to despise me for it." So, it's pretty heavy. But he is also admitting that it was wrong... which obviously doesn't change what he did, but a lot of the so-called progressives these days would just say "R**e = evil, for all time." whereas someone with an IQ greater than a gorilla would say "Well, there are degrees of evil. It's pretty horrible, but he recognises that it was horrible, and that's better than people who just live like that every day." Anyway... Yeah, you can look it up if you want to know more.

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

​@@daysandwords Thanks for the explanation! It's always like that with Westerners, it's either race or sex or... sexuality? for which they have to repent, lmao - Adûnâi

[@mustafaerdem1862]

i can teach you turkish and bosnian

[@OzkAltBldgCo-bv8tt]

Olly Richards short stories bro

[@daysandwords]

I love Olly's short stories but, um, what is this half sentence supposed to actually mean?

[@hcholm]

Only 100 books in languages you can't speak? Looking at my bookshelves, I don't see what's so special about that ...

[@daysandwords]

It's a KZbin title. In all honesty, depending what we define as "speak", it's probably not even 100. But when I bought many of them, I didn't speak it. I now own 45 Swedish books but I owned 35 of them before I could read them.

[@twoblocksdown5464]

Another video from the mr.Cringe himself 😂😂😂

[@daysandwords]

My top commenter! 😉👊

[@JennyTownsend-r4s]

Since childhood didn't like Victor Hugo. Nor Tolstoy. Both in a bookcase at "home": read a bit of Anna Karenina : was incensed. Read some of Les Misérables. Enraged. Injustice raises my hackles. Barking mad.

[@JennyTownsend-r4s]

I never rode a bicicletta. Never given one. Would have fallen off: rickets.

[@softwaretechnologyengineering]

Why would you buy books that you can't and in all likelihood won't read?

[@caggianofoda]

i bet he will read em

[@seanmaher3018]

Why would you buy and collect coins you will in all honesty never spend. Same idea

[@softwaretechnologyengineering]

It prevents someone that might have actually read them from having them is what gets to me a bit.

[@daysandwords]

​@@softwaretechnologyengineeringVery often, the only people who can read them are the people who donated them. It's much MUCH more likely that the charity can you use the money I spent on these than it is that anyone will use these books ever again. Also, as someone else said, I will read some of them and the ones I don't, I'll probably end up donating back to that charity or a different one.

[@daysandwords]

And just one more side note... My buying at these things may look excessive to some, with between 12 and 25 books in around 5 different languages, especially when you consider I don't speak all of those languages... BUT, there are MANY people who cart around huge trolleys and are buying literally a thousand dollars worth of books that cost $2-4 each, so we're talking 200-300 books, and this is on opening night, which is when there's actually some competition for the good stuff. I'm quite sure they are not reading all those and in the case of popular books that they buy on Thursday night, they are definitely depriving someone else of them. Should the charity who rely on these book sales to fund their service impose a limit on the number of books a person can get? It would probably result in massive complications and volunteers having to deal with annoying "limit evading" behaviour, and ultimately they wouldn't raise as much money. I say that we should all just try to be sensible. I don't think owning a total of 60 books (the 100 thing is only if you count Spanish, which I actually do speak to a degree) when you also have a language learning channel is "hogging" them from people who need them.

[@arcanefrg9747]

first

[@brolol3136]

Well, it's not that radical. I mean it's not Disco Elysium 😅🤷‍♂️😎💯 So, kinda lame 😂💓 Thanks for the video, still, tho 🤝✨🌟

[@df29208]

Would this have made a difference to you in learning French? How long do you think it will 'filter down' - just look at the German ß Eszett (ss) - I loved writing it when I was learning 'some German'. Throw away your old French Grammar books? French Spelling Reform 2024: everything that's changing kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJ_LZqybr8ypobM

[@daysandwords]

I've already seen that video... Did you watch it all the way through?

[@df29208]

@@daysandwords Darn, I got caught - now I have to. I liked the first part where they said they were changing the spelling to how it 'sounds', more like Spanish. I thought it was interesting this happened just before the Olympics starts (not really going to change the signs for the Olympics I am pretty sure) and I am sure it was not planned for that. I am learning French - just got 'what feels like my hundredth grammer book' in French and other languages. I did get the refold deck for French !! Just set up my Linux computer for Anki (I have never used that program before) so I could use it ... I always like the 'struggle' of making Linux work.

[@df29208]

@@daysandwords I wish you would do a video on the idea of "I just want to speak, read, and listen and never write in a foreign language'. At almost 60 and having studied Spanish, German, and now French .... I can't even still write a coherent sentence in English or any other languages. Schools teach what they can test and apps that work on writing especially with odd letters are useless to an American plus nobody is using alt-codes. I had a college course in which all the homework and exercises were done on the computer - total disconnect - especially when it came to the test which was always in written form on a handout by the teacher - which we turned back in. Mine was always covered in 'red' - I was also 20 years old than all the other students, and 20 years younger than the teacher (she was a hoot though, so good.) Of course in the class I confused to work with to travel in French - the laughter was not understood by me -- apparently that is a newbie mistake. The other students did not have full time jobs, and that was some 20 years ago. I still smile at my mistake - still at minus A1 in all three languages, including English, my native tongue. I so wanted to be bilingual when I was in the 3rd grade. Now of course I 'know' the only language you can really progress in very fast is Sign Language (ASL.)

[@df29208]

@@daysandwords Gosh dern. Caught again. Years ago I got caught with a video about concrete, literally about the stuff we walk on ... I promised myself never to watch a video on April 1st anymore, ever, again .... these should be illegal.

[@daysandwords]

Originally my comment said "Yeah I know, I saw the April fools joke" but then I realised that I should let you experience it, since it seemed that you hadn't got to the joke part haha. I actually thought this this was a GENIUS execution of an April fools joke. Serious enough to get a response, realistic enough... but juuuust too silly and juuuust not too serious (e.g. if you pretended that someone had died or something, it would be in poor taste). She executed it so well.

[@juanpablo-rdm]

What is the approach to reading one hundred books in different languages or αλφάβητα? Léerlos de la traducción al inglés, escúcharlos en formato audiolibro para aprender fonética. 🙉 Aprenda vocabulário, duas mil palavras em espanhol, duemila parole in portoghese, deux mille mots en italien. 📙📗📘 Das ist interessant! I recently tried to read Der Vorleser in German, The Reader in English and El Lector in Spanish and also in Portuguese, Italian and French. J’ai découvert que je n’avais pas le vocabulaire pour comprendre l’histoire en allemand, mais que je l’appréciais vraiment dans les langues romanes. N 🇦🇷 es C 🇺🇾 es B 🇬🇧 en A 🇮🇹 it 🇧🇷 pt 🇩🇪 de 🇫🇷 fr ελληνικό αλφάβητο 🇬🇷 el Русская азбука 🇷🇺 ru

[@carlito6038]

what does this comment even mean