I really enjoy listening to poetry in Old Norse or Old English; I have a copy of the Beowulf in the original. It's fun to see how much you can follow.
Here's an example with 'facing' English, so that you can more readily track which parts you followed.
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Poetry is more fun, but people can usually read prose more easily and see the connections to modern English more readily. I have had that post in the back of my mind for a while now, but haven't really thought it through and chosen my examples.
Maybe this will push me a little. There is one hard-to-obtain example - well, hard to obtain for free, anyway - that I keep stalling over.
That would be easier to follow if they were placed side-to side. One time I attended a recital of Handel songs. The recital program had German on the right, English translation on the left. I was surprised that I was pretty much able to follow the singer, German text, and English translation for about 5 minutes, until mental exhaustion set in. I have never taken any German in school, so my initial ease in following the German had more to do with the resemblance between the 2 languages.
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