Ouch! I just whittled down my library quite a bit--we've moved into an apartment that's much, much smaller than my old house. Hopefully the movers will arrive Monday with the rest of my books.

Oh, yeah, and the furniture.

"I had books in three languages I don't actually read" - my people!

I just pile them up. What can I say? I need to go through - I know I have duplicates if nothing else - but ... It does hurt, doesn't it?

It was the 'books in three languages I don't actually read' that got to me, too. (Only three?) And those are actually the hardest to give up. It's not just that it would mean admitting that one never was going to learn the languages; they are often the hardest to pick up in the first place. (One goes to Turkey, as it might be, or Poland, sees thousands of books never seen on home soil which may never come one's way again...how much more sensible to buy them and take them home, so that one will have them to hand in case of need...)

Hmmm. Books I own in languages I don't speak:
Swedish
Czech
Lithuanian
Portuguese

And I'd be kidding myself to say I actually understand Dutch - I just guess, from my small knowledge of German. But they're all on my prime research subject, beer and brewing, so that's why I keep them.

That's a really interesting story! I've started my own blog about language learning at http://properlanguagelearning.blogspot.com/ and wondering whether I can tell people sometimes about what you're writing here? Thanks.

I don't think I have any books in languages I haven't at least made some attempt to learn. I do have a copy of one of the Harry Potter books in what I believe is Irish. The sad thing is that I haven't had a chance to figure it out yet. (Hopefully I didn't let my wife give it away.)