Read the Oxford Dictionaries article (Links to an external site.) on Shakespeare’s false friends and watch the video below by David Crystal on the Original Shakespeare Pronunciation. No doubt you have had to read some Shakespeare at some point. Reflect on the difficulties you may have had while reading his work, and how perhaps now with this information you may understand more. Knowing this now, does it entice you to read more works by William Shakespeare?
Instructions
Post your initial post by Thursday of this week. Your response should be 100-150 words in length, and you should connect the elements in the journal topic to our course in some way. You should also include your personal experiences, tying them into the course.
You won’t be able to see anyone else’s post before you write your own—and that’s on purpose. Use this time to reflect on your experiences. Remember that there are ‘no wrong answers’—so long as you use the information that we have learned thus far in the course to your work, then all is good!
Between Friday and Sunday, please reply to at least two of your colleagues’ posts. Useful comments include engaging in dialogue, reflection, or suggestion. If you find that you agree with a given response and have nothing else to add, then I challenge you to reply to someone who has a different perspective than yours, and explore the differences.
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Both this article and video has helped me understand why I had so much difficulty reading Shakespeare back in the day. I’ve read several Shakespeare works and every single time I wasn’t able to fully understand without the help of online translators and the No Fear Shakespeare page on Sparknotes. When reading the original, I’d understand the gist of the work but be burdened with several unfamiliar words as well as words that held different meanings back then. The article explains what False Friends is, when a word that existed back then in Shakespeare’s time holds a completely different meaning in Modern English. Even if they are spelled the same, they may have different pronunciations. This is probably why I found the No Fear Shakespeare page so helpful, as they have side-by-side comparisons of the original text and the modern day translations. I would read the original text first and look to the translation to clear up any confusion. Honestly, this new information does not entice me to read more works by William Shakespeare because I dislike being slowed down while reading.
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Well to be Totally Honest i’ve never sat down and read Shakespeare before this Journal post. I read through some and it is hard to understand for me personally. In the article they gave the definition for Fake Friends. Meaning two words in different languages that sound the same or similar but mean two different things. The article also encouraged you to treat Shakespeare as a Foreign language. Understanding that words in Shakespeare’s work means a completely different meaning to what it might sound like to you helps someone look into the meaning of the word like how they would use it. Over all this did give me a better understanding of Shakespeare’s workReply Reply to Comment
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