I am just beginning to reread one of my favorite books, The Priceless Gift, by Cornelius Hirschberg. Hirschberg was a salesman in New York, who loved learning more than just about anything else. He had no college education, but taught himself science,art, music, history,etc., by lots of reading, mostly on his way to and from work. His book tells his story and gives a guide on books to read and places to go for other self-learners.
It was written long before the Internet (1960), but it's still an inspiring book.
I also am a self-learner. Unfortunately, I tend to want to study everything at once. I'm not a jack of all trades, master of none; I'm more of a 3 or 4. I am hard to beat at Trivial Pursuit though.
I just can't get rid of this learning itch. Many of the diaries here have driven me to learning more about just about everything in them(except how to write clearly-which is obvious in some of my comments). But I need a better approach. I need some guidelines from all of you.I know from the breadth of knowledge in many of the diaries and comments that there are plenty of Renaissance men and women on DKos.
So lets start with foreign languages. How do you best learn how to fluently read/write a foreign language? What worked for you? Where are the best learning sources? What languages did you find easiest? Which did you most enjoy learning? Do you know any ancient ones?
And to relate this to politics, what are the best progressive political sources in other languages? I love to read the English versions of foreign newspapers, but can't help but wonder "and what are those foreign devils saying about us Yanks in their native tongue?"
Thank you for your help.
And also, if they win I'll die of shock but
GO TAR HEELS!
Now back our program in progress.