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Feb—The Color Purple (2016)
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Reading Dialect in Second Language
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Katelyn wrote: "I have a couple of questions and discussion points regrading the use of dialect in the book.1. How is the dialect represented in languages other than English? (Let us know what language you're re..."
I'm reading the book in Dutch so I'm not sure if I'm missing certain parts but I'm feeling that, if I want the full experience, I should also read the book in English.
That's why I'm planning to get the English version as soon as I finished the Dutch one. I also want to do this to compare the two versions so it gets easier when discussing the book at the end of the month (I did the same with last months book :) ).
-Simon <3
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1. How is the dialect represented in languages other than English? (Let us know what la..."
Simon, that's awesome! I'd love to hear more when you've gotten your English copy. I'm impressed by your effort!
1. I read that im Polish . Is more complicated in my language probably because polish is complicated;). In Polish that dialect sound like old polish accent from middle aged:) 2. In English this dialect for me is simple ( poor ). Because the English is simple enough:) but the southern American isn not my thing. But is challenging and that is something new for me.
3. The transition is pretty good. And that is not very often common in books .
Well, to number 2...I was surprised by the first line or so, but then it was okay. I kind of "listen to the sound of the words in my head" if there is a particularly hard part, if that makes any sense? So, it's okay 99% of the time. And I've read books which were "worse" when it comes to how they were written (just go to amazon and check "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban...after you read that book, whatever else you might ever (have to) read won't be a problem at all...). So, for me, "The Color Purple" is really good to read.
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Agnes - It's interesting how the way the dialect is written in Polish is related to an old accent that is recognizable. I wonder if there are similar instances in other language translations of the book?
Well the dialect look as if it was written by an uneducated person . Well I guessing because the action of the book is in 30's and maybe that why is so complicated sometimes.
Katelyn wrote :"2. If you are reading the book in English, but English is not your first language, how does the dialect affect your reading?"One book that was really challenging as regards dialect was The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. Being French and used to read "British" English, its Southern American dialect has caught me off guard. It took me quite a while to understand and a lot of re-reading.
At one point, I realized it was almost like learning a music intrument. the harder you try, the more you train, the easier it gets. I also decided to try and imagine what it would sound like, to help me understand.
Emma wrote: "Katelyn wrote :"2. If you are reading the book in English, but English is not your first language, how does the dialect affect your reading?"One book that was really challenging as regards dialec..."
Have you ever tried Trainspotting? I almost gave up.
Samanta wrote: "Emma wrote: "Katelyn wrote :"2. If you are reading the book in English, but English is not your first language, how does the dialect affect your reading?"One book that was really challenging as r..."
No I have never heard of it! Is it that hard to read?
Emma wrote: "Samanta wrote: "Emma wrote: "Katelyn wrote :"2. If you are reading the book in English, but English is not your first language, how does the dialect affect your reading?"One book that was really ..."
Oh my gosh! I finished it just a few weeks ago and I was thinking of suggesting it too! XD
Oh and yes, it is really hard. It's written in phonetic Scottish for the most part, so
"of" will be spelled "ay"
"to" will be spelled "tae"
"off (of)" will be spelled "oaf(ay) (as one word)"
"at" will be spelled "it"
generally, you're going to have a hard time and if you're still very unfamiliar with the Scottish accent (thank goodness I wasn't quite as much) it'll take all the more time to adapt. Thankfully, there are some normal English chapters as well, depending on what character is being followed in the chapter, and the narration is changes accordingly as well so by the time you've read about halfway through you can almost immediately tell when a certain character is being followed by looking at the structure.
Also, it's a great book. It was written around '93 and a film of it was released only a few years later, as it was extremely popular. I myself only heard of it by watching the film and I first watched it around November. The book and the film have some serious diversions as tends to be the case, so I'll let you decide what you do first. Do feel free to comment on how you found the book and/or film though, because I'd love to talk about it.
I read it in high school (at least 10 years ago). I'm not a Native, and although my English is really excellent (and was back then too), I struggled. It took me ages to read a page, but I persisted. I don't remember much about it now, though.
I read it in Dutch and it was a bit difficult to read. It felt more like a person who didn't know how to write properly, or that an editor didn't look at it. It's hard to explain in English, but a lot of the verbs were spelled wrong. For example when a verb should end with a -d, it was written with -t.
I'm German but read it in english. At first it was a bit unfamiliar but after a few pages I was fluent. I'm a little afraid of keeping the middle-aged southern accent :D
But you know, tis all bout the experience I git there. ;)
I am currently reading it in English. First of all, I need to state that even though I'm not a native speaker, my language skills are good enough to read literature in English. That being said, I think that it is one of the most difficult books I've ever read.
It took me 40 pages to adapt to Celie's idiom in order to let go and "sink" in the story. It was quite a struggle at first. Not the language per se, rather the grammar mistakes that irritate a foreign speaker when they deviate from the "pure" British form of English (or even the Hollywood version of English) that they are used to.
However, this idiom has its charm, as it assists to set a realistic environment for the story. It suits the plot -embellishes it, even.
In conclusion, what seemed at first a reason to give a low rating, ultimately became the reason for my 5 star review. If you are stuck in the beginning, just keep reading. It might be a difficult book, but it's worth it.
I'm not native English speaker,since I can't find The Color Purple in Chinese i have to read it in English.At the beginning it's confusing me cause some words i have to read it so i can know what it means... But i get used to it now.
2. If you are reading the book in English, but English is not your first language, how does the dialect affect your reading?I'm reading the book in English and French is my first language. Reading this dialect is really challenging for me. However, I think that some words might be easier for me to understand for example when she writes "kilt" which I guessed meant "killed" sounds like a french person pronouncing "killed" with a very strong french accent. So I am kind of familiar with some of these. However, it took me a while to understand that "tween" meant "between". When I don't understand a word I really have to think about the context to understand it as translating it wouldn't change anything.
I usually don't have problems reading in english but to read this book I have to focus much more than on a regular book. I didn't realise how focused I was until I arrived to (SPOILER AHEAD) Nettie's letter. As they were written in perfect english I could really feel the change that occurred. And when I went back to Celie's writing it stroke me how different and almost complicated it was for me.
Overall, I can definitely say that this book is much more complicated to read than a "regular" book. You really have to stay focused to understand everything. But you also have to keep reading without stopping at every words. If I focus too much on a word because I don't understand it and try to know what's the standard word behind it it's pretty sure I won't find out. That's why it was a bit tricky for me at first.
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Salome, I think I said in a post above, I've had to do similar exercises to make sure I was understanding the true meaning of the words Celie writes. Including reading sentences out loud (which becomes a bit of a problem when I'm commuting to work haha). It's particularly confusing when her spelling of one word is actually the correct spelling of another word.
I'm reading in German and it's like a not so thick low German accent from someone who lives in Berlin or so.It confused me a bit in the beginning, since in Austria (and Bavaria) we speak High German. Would the accent be thicker I would have my problems.
It's confusing because sometimes the wrong words are used or letters are omitted and stuff like that. But as I said it's not a really thick accent.
I am wondering why they didn't choose to translate it with a not so thick American accent, that you still could say she's from USA for sure.
I don't know whether I should read the English version, since it would take ages for me to get through that book. And I wouldn't grasp the half of it.
I think it might be even easier for not native speakers to read the book, as we read and understand it from the context.
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That's a good point. And when learning a new language, there's a lot more "sounding out" that native speakers may not do as much, and that's been a crucial method for me to understand certain parts of The Color Purple.
English isn't my mother tongue, but I'm fluent and used to read in english. I was a little bit surprised at the beginning but I would say it doesn't really affect my reading, as I got used to it pretty quickly.I think it would depend on your english level : one of my friend asked me what she should do and I suggested to her to read it in french because she reads in english to improve her english and learn some vocabulary and I think this would be too hard for her, to get everything.
That said, I do think i'm a bit slower to read because I don't want to mistake a word for another
It''s really interesting to see how it is translated in other language. It must be hard for the translator. I'm thinking about books written in old french... i wonder how they do to translate some words that don't even exist anymore in another language...
i wonder how they do to translate some words that don't even exist anymore in another language....POOR translators.
I'm danish :)I read the book in english as a young teenager, and it was a hard read. It was hard to grasp the sentences, but it was also a great experience. And I think I would be able to read it quite easily now, having read alot in english since and on a regular basis.
This time I am reading it in danish. My library had three copies in danish and none in english, so I just went with the danish one. It lacks alot.
BUT - to the praise of the translator it contains a note going somewhat like this (my translation): "Alice Walker has let the narrator of 'The Color Purple' express herself in the special southern language know from f.ex. negro spirituals. That means that there are formally alot of grammatical flaws, but that it is really a incredibly rich language, that one would do a condescending disfavor by trying to reproduce it in some sort of dialect or jargon. Thus the novel is translated to a spoken language without any fonetical contortions. But I want to emphasize that the very special tones that the southern language gives the novel will be less potent."
I love the translator a bit for making that statement.
I decided to read in Portuguese (my native language) because of the dialects and regionalisms I know are present in the book. I tried to read the first pages in English, and the way I found to be better for me to understand what Celie was saying was to read it out loud; it would be annoying to anyone near me if I continued lol. But I plan on trying again after I finish it in portuguese, as a vocabulary learning experience and a chance to feel closer to these characters and place.Still, I'm really pleased with the translation. The translator used for Celie a dialect that was common among people living in the rural areas of Brazil around 60/70 years ago; I guess it's the best equivalent we have that compares to the southern dialect from the US and it helps us, brazilians, to understand the enviroment she lived in (comparisons are easy to make, I think Brazil in the 40s/50s was very similar to the US during this same time).
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I read the book in english as a young teenager, and it was a hard read. It was hard to grasp the sentences, but it was also a great experience. And I think I would be able to read it ..."
Wow, that note from the translator is fascinating! I really appreciate that they made such an effort to recognize that incorporating dialect into the translation could be disrespectful (not that is necessarily would be, but there is certainly a distinct possibility, and it's nice that the translator acknowledged this).
What strikes me specifically (as a musicologist, and I'm going off topic here so sorry about that) is that the example the translator uses to indicate the dialect that was used by the author is "negro spirituals." Is that something that would give Danish readers a reference for what the dialect should be like? Spirituals are well-known enough for that to be useful?
I'm not a native-speaker ,but I read the book in English. The beginning was a little bit difficult, but as a lot of you mentioned it before, listening to the sound of the word in my head made it easier to hear the meant word. I also agree with the fact, that as a non native-speaker some words or even grammatical mistakes are sometimes easier to understand. My native language is Italian.
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First of all, I need to state that even though I'm not a native speaker, my language skills are good enough to read literature in English. That ..."
Thanks for bringing that up! Celia talks about this in one of her letters, when someone suggests she use the word "we"... she kind of laughs it off, in the sense of um... okay? But why? Y'know what, no, I'm not going to bother with that. I was so happy that Walker brought up this issue directly. And I found Celie's brush off of the grammar lesson to be such a great moment of individual agency and pride.
I'm not a native-speaker but I'm used to read books in english, particularly essays to be honest, but I have to admit reading this book is quite an experience, not only the language (actually I'm doing the same thing as Katelyn, reading aloud in your mind the words really help) but also the style of how it's written is something quite, I would dare to say, "alienating" but I think it's good 'cause it helps giving you the image of a very different society. By the way, I have to say that I don't know how this will lasts in the long run (I'm at page 40).
As a non-native speaker reading the book in English, I found the dialect rather challenging within the first pages but got used to it. Anyway, I still preferred the pages with Nettie's letters without dialect.
I read this book in Russian. The translator used some dialects which are common in the countryside of southern Russian regions. I really liked how she did it. You can feel the strong difference between Celie's and Nettie's ways of talking just like in the original text, I guess.
I'm reading it in english but it's my second language, I'm from Spain.It's more difficult because I read better in spanish and there are some words I don't understand.
I'm argentinian and I'm reading the book in spanish (though I'd have liked to read it in english to get the whole impression of language). In my opinion the book has been translated in general neutral spanish. You can read the feeling of the character in the simple words and primary spelling and writing rules.
Thanks to Katelyn for asking this, and everyone for your responses! I find it really interesting how the dialect can be represented in other languages. I am a native English speaker, who learned to speak and read in the American South, with a bachelors degree in English Literature- and the dialect as it is represented by Alice Walker can be a challenge, even with all those advantages. If you are having a hard time with the dialect, especially if you are reading in English, but not a Native speaker or Southerner, I suggest grabbing an audio version of the book- it is much easier to follow along with the language. Audible has a version narrated by Alice Walker, and her voice adds amazing colour to her prose.
I'm french but I read this book in english. It took me a little while to get used to It. but It didn't bother me at all. I didn't have any trouble with the way it was written, and I liked it, it was different.
Katelyn wrote: "I have a couple of questions and discussion points regrading the use of dialect in The Color Purple.1. How is the dialect represented in languages other than English? (Let us know what language y..."
I'm reading it in Spanish and at the beginning was really confusing. I felt a little lost with the first three letters so I look for an English edition online to compare. It was difficult to read but the text had more cohesion than the Spanish translation. In the Spanish version, some sentences didn't make sense while in the English version actually everythind did. So I decided to read both books at the same time.
In the end, I have read the Spanish version first because I can read faster and even when I'm tired (my mind needs to be awake to read this book in English). But I will read (and maybe even buy a physical copy) the book in English for sure. I'm loving it :)
Katelyn wrote: "I have a couple of questions and discussion points regrading the use of dialect in The Color Purple.1. How is the dialect represented in languages other than English? (Let us know what language y..."
I've read it in Spanish. At the beginning I thought the file was corrupted (I'm not proud about my initial thoughts), but then I realize that she wasn't speak "properly".
In Spanish is like the verbs has incorret verbal tense, and some words are misspelled too. But once you put attention, it's not a problem.
Know that I read all your comments about the English version, you have my curiosity...
I know when I'm reading some older classic literature (native English speaker here) and much of the vocabulary is a little more archaic (not that the words themselves aren't used at all anymore, but just maybe not in that context any longer) I often end up reading chapters and then going to Sparknotes.com and reading the chapter summaries, just to make sure I understand what I read and that I didn't miss some big plot point just because I didn't understand the dialogue. Is there something similar to this in other languages? Are there Spark or Cliff's notes in other languages that help with translations?And I have trouble with the dialect, too, when reading it, if that makes any non-native English speakers feel better! I grew up in the American Northwest, but lived in the South (and my husband's family is all from the Kentucky area) for awhile, so I understand the accent pretty well, but seeing it written down as opposed to hearing it is a very different thing and very difficult to understand. I pretty much have to just about starting reading aloud in the accent itself to really start understanding it. An audio version is definitely recommended if you're having trouble.
Alana wrote: "I know when I'm reading some older classic literature (native English speaker here) and much of the vocabulary is a little more archaic (not that the words themselves aren't used at all anymore, bu..."I don't know about Spark or Cliff's notes in German books, as I normally read in English. Worth a look tho ( I wanna read Faust again anyways, and maybe a book by Droste-Hülshoff. I like older German texts:) )
I plan to read this in English and German again, I'm interested for the similarities and differences!
i'm catching up now. i find AAVE very difficult to read so i'm listening to it as an audiobook (in English). well, now I got to Nettie's letters so I'm reading the written text but when this part is over I'll go back to listening.
Katelyn wrote: "I have a couple of questions and discussion points regrading the use of dialect in The Color Purple.
1. How is the dialect represented in languages other than English? (Let us know what language y..."
Hello!
I am French and I have read it in English (because it's one way for me to practice and to discover new words/expressions). The way the book was written was challenging for, sometime I was not understanding words and it slowed me down. Just like other people, I had to read pages again to make sure I was getting the meaning.
1. How is the dialect represented in languages other than English? (Let us know what language y..."
Hello!
I am French and I have read it in English (because it's one way for me to practice and to discover new words/expressions). The way the book was written was challenging for, sometime I was not understanding words and it slowed me down. Just like other people, I had to read pages again to make sure I was getting the meaning.
1. How is the dialect represented in languages other than English? (Let us know what language you're reading in!)
2. If you are reading the book in English, but English is not your first language, how does the dialect affect your reading?
3. I've seen a few people state that they've read the book in their first language and in English (or are planning to do one or the other for their second read through). How does the experience differ? Is anything lost in translation? How do the version compare?