Your experiences with Shakespeare
Has anyone on SD whose first language is not English ever tried to read Shakespeare's work? Even native English speakers have difficulty trying to understand it, so I was just wondering what it's like for non-natives!
Also, if any native English speakers have stories about reading Shakespeare, I would love to hear them. 
Thanks for your answers.
13 Answers
Keep in mind that Shakespeare's target audience was illiterate. Shakespeare wrote his plays to be watched not read.
I was on the subway one morning and a young teenager was next to me and kept opening The Taming of the Shrew in his lap and would promptly fall asleep after reading barely a line.
I finally took pity on the poor kid, nudged him, told him about the target audience for this play, asked him if he had a friend he could trust in the class (yes), and told him to invite his friend over for a pizza, rent the Zeffirelli production of 1967, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He could not thank me enough.
I told him to watch it with his friend and follow-up by reading/skimming the text, as Shakespeare makes more sense when one hears the 'lyrics',
And to be really candid about it, I also told the teen it was not a race thing and whites don't have an automatic ear for the Bard either. He laughed!
I am confident after watching the movie he was able to impress his teacher with his knowledge.
I read MacBeth first but also had the thrill of seeing Christopher Plummer in a Broadway production and it was delightful. The only problem with that was the buffoon behind me decided he needed to 'translate' for his female companion. I assure you it did not last long.
There is a reason that Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer in the English language, bar none. It's true that Elizabethan English is foreign to our ears, but any effort you make to read it will bear fruit many times over.
End of speech.
Here are some of Shakespeare's famous quotations.
How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.
I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true 'The empty vessel makes the greatest sound'.
I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.
I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
In time we hate that which we often fear.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind Thou art not so unkind, As man's ingratitude.
Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.
Without checking or googling, can you guess which famous Shakespearean quotes these are?:
«Si es del amor la música sustento, seguid tocando».
«Doble penuria, doble problema, caldera arde, fuego quema».
«¡Qué ilusos son estos mortales!»
«Me parece que la dama protesta demasiado».
«¿Y qué es un nombre? Eso que llamáis rosa aún olería tan dulce si se llamara otra cosa».
I remember learning the word susurrus whilst reading Shakespeare. I doubt that many Spanish speakers would have had to look the word up...
Has anyone on SD whose first language is not English ever tried to read Shakespeare's work? Even native English speakers have difficulty trying to understand it, so I was just wondering what it's like for non-natives!
The Shakespeare that people read in languages other than English is much easier to understand and quite appreciated because it is translated into contemporary language.
I don't remember having had all that much trouble understanding Shakespeare. On the other hand, given the high concentration of quips, puns, metaphors and figurative use of the language (at least in the works that I remember having read), it's probably true that a careful second reading might bear just as much, if not more fruit than a first. In any case, what I have read of Shakespeare has always been enjoyable, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone wishing to see first hand just how rich and colorful the English language really can be.
Even native English speakers have difficulty trying to understand it
In a similar vein, it would interest me to know how native Spanish speakers and Spanish learners fare when it comes to reading such classics as Cantar de Mio Cid (anonym.), Milagros de Nuestra Señora (Gonzalo de Berceo), Historia de la Vida del Buscón (Fransisco de Quevedo) or El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (Cervantes).
We all know how important Shakespeare is for the British, and he gets quoted all the time. But what about the playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age? Do Spanish students also have to study the plays of Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca in a similar way?
Shakespeare can only really be appreciated once it has been seen. I have studied Romeo and Juliet but never really understood it until my school arranged a trip to Stratford and we saw it on stage.
A Japanese tourist in the row in front of us slept though the whole thing.
In some ways Shakespeare's language is easier to understand than "modern English".
Update
The comment below asks "how?"
Well, the continous -ing verb forms are not used.
Where are you going?
= Where goest thou?
What is that light that is shining from that window over there?
= What light from yonder window breaks.?
Modern English uses the continuous tenses much more than Spanish does.
I had to read them in high school, there were some good stories in there under the impossible language, lol I can't imagine trying to read it if you're learning English.
Reading Shakespeare is more of an impediment than an aid to learning English.
I don't have a story exactly, but I remember many footnotes explaining obsolete words as well as obsolete definitions for words we still use. I also remember that it was necessary to explain cultural differences and what would have been common knowledge in the 16th century.
