I tried, many years later, to do the same for German. Süskind’s Die Taube was my first attempt, followed by Remarque’s Der Funke Leben, I still have a few on my bookshelves. It didn’t really work out—I can usually understand the gist of a text or conversation in German on a familiar topic, but I didn’t have the motivation or the opportunities to stay invested in German as I was invested in English, and never achieved anywhere near the same fluency. There was also a more recent and short-lived attempt to start learning Icelandic. On the whole I’d rate my language-learning ability as unremarkable, but I have lots of experience with English.
Yep.
I tried, many years later, to do the same for German. Süskind’s Die Taube was my first attempt, followed by Remarque’s Der Funke Leben, I still have a few on my bookshelves. It didn’t really work out—I can usually understand the gist of a text or conversation in German on a familiar topic, but I didn’t have the motivation or the opportunities to stay invested in German as I was invested in English, and never achieved anywhere near the same fluency. There was also a more recent and short-lived attempt to start learning Icelandic. On the whole I’d rate my language-learning ability as unremarkable, but I have lots of experience with English.