Stuff to read in Uzbek

A while back, a commenter pointed to his own site for literature in Uzbek, and I finally got a chance to look around. It's an interesting collection, with stuff by Somerset Maugham and Stephen King, as well as offerings in a more traditional vein. There are also sites for literature in Spanish and French, among other languages, all linked at uztranslations.

So far, of course, the Uzbek stories have been beyond me and I've been working my way through the stuff I mentioned earlier from the University of Washington. But it's good to know that when I get past the folktales, more awaits. It motivates to know there's something you're working towards, and not just working on. Working toward reading, eg, a Somerset Maugham short story in Uzbek, whether you're a fan or not (I'm not) gives you a goal whose achievement will tell you you've really done something. And that can be important. So as you build up a little vocabulary in a new language, it's worth it, from time to time, to look at a real text for the satisfaction of seeing how many words you know or might know. Learning languages is not that big a deal - it just takes a tremendous amount of time, effort and dedication. Finding that time, effort and dedication, though, is impressive. Looking at stories, listening to music or finding movies - whatever it takes to develop the motivation - should be done whenever possible, so that you can be among the elite who have learned x number of languages, as opposed to the many who tried to teach themselves a language at one point or another and gave up.