There was a time, about 40 years ago, when I decided to realise a dream and learn Russian. I was married with a family at the time and living in Switzerland, so I was learning Russian in a German speaking class. I enjoyed this very much and learned to read and write in cyrillic. I can still speak Russian today, but am out of practice.
Of course I have many books, but this example is printed in Russian on one side, with the German translation on the opposite page. It is a collection of stories from Anton Tsechow and yes, I read them in Russian.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
My other languages at school were Afrikaans and Latin – my Afrikaans was a LOT better than my Latin! I can still get by in Afrikaans. English speaking people battle with the guttural g and the phonetics as a whole are so different.
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German is full of gutteral “g” although the Swiss have their gutteral k and ch and everything sounds like it is part of a meal. I can speak many languages, but Swiss German is the real exception. Isn’t Afrikaans something like dutch
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Yes, it is derived from Dutch and is also similar to Flemish. Afrikaans became an official language in 1926. The g you spit out from your throat, is the only way I can describe it! I can pick out a few words of Dutch too but I cannot speak it.
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Funny thing with Dutch is that I can understand it. Many words are similar to German. I also had a work colleague that spoke fluent Dutch and he showed me how to pronounce the words
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These books sound so cool. What a brilliant idea. I’ve never had such.
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They are available in various languages, I had something similar when I was learning German
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How does one go about finding them? Just regular or specialty bookstores?
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I found them in a bookstore, just by chance. Perhaps you could look through Amazon on the computer
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I’ll keep in mind. Thanks.
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Oh wow! So how many languages do you speak? 4?
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I speak Swiss german quite fluently and of course also high German. I can get by with French and Italian and manage with Russian, although I am out of practice. I understand spanish, but cannot speak it so well. And of course my mother tongue english.
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Wow, that is cool. That is quite a handful of languages!
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