Books written in different languages

[Tytti]

I just counted for another discussion (out of curiosity), in how many languages the books now in my possession have been written originally (and maybe translated to the language you know). I think I got 15 for an answer, just remembered a couple of more... (Of course I haven't read them, and one is even from the library, but anyways.) And I don't think it really matters whether or not you actually own it now, "recently" read library books count, too, in my opinion. I am just interested what languages get translated and read in different parts of the world.

"My" languages are:

Finnish
English
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Russian
German
Italian
Norwegian
Swedish
Danish
Estonian
Polish
Afrikaans (I suppose written simultaniously in English, too, but I count it for this one.)
Japanese

Some of these are random finds but I do think it's a pretty good selection. Of course I am missing some big languages (language groups) but still... (Oh, and I am not counting the Bible.)

Wanna try yourself?

[MK]

Fun idea! I do want to check, but I can't right now. I'll add a link to this in the Table of Contents for the Challenge section tho :).

[MK]

ps - my 'language' to read would have to be English, but I have titles that have been translated from other languages. That's what you mean, yes? Translated fiction?

[Tytti]

MK wrote: "That's what you mean, yes? Translated fiction?"

Yes, of course. I tend to read novels only in Finnish, to maintain my own language skills. I read enough stuff in English already. (I edited it now a bit.)

There are of course many books set in other countries and written by people native in those countries but they have chosen to write their books in a bigger language, like French, English or German.

[MK]

Okay, very cool :). Editing the TOC right now.

[Kim]

I don't own a whole lot of books so my list doesn't even come close to yours!

English
Dutch
French
Spanish
Russian

That's just sad! :P

[Tytti]

Kim wrote: "I don't own a whole lot of books so my list doesn't even come close to yours!"

I think I have no more than 100 books in total, probably less... More than half of them I have simply found or received via BookCrossing, like Blessed Are the Meek that I would have never known to look for. But it sounds pretty interesting, it's about the Children's Crusade.

[Gavin]

I read in English and Spanish. My 'languages' are:
-Enghlish
-Spanish
-French
-Russian
-Italian

[Julie]

I read in English and Danish.

My 'languages' are

English
Danish
Swedish
Norwegian
Icelandic
French
Russian
Spanish
German
Chinese

[Linnea]

I read in Swedish and English.

My languages are:
- Swedish
- English
- Czech
- Dutch
- French
- Russian
- Japanese
- Spanish
- German
- Danish

[Johanna]

I read in English and Spanish and thinking of going back to read in French as well.

[Brina]

English and Spanish. I can read Portuguese but need aid of dictionary. Also some Hebrew.

[Luella]

Books in original Language:

German
Spanish
French
English

Translated editions:
Russian
Portuguese
Arabic
Czech
Swedish
Latin
Greek
Japanese

[Kerstin]

LOL!! Our book collection is beyond such a task :)

My rule of thumb is to read the book in English if it's originally written in English, and in German, when it is either originally written in German or it's a translation from a third language. It keeps my language skills up, and with Kindles usually easily done.

[Brina]

Kerstin I don't have a kindle but that's a good point. You are encouraging me to keep my language skills sharp. That is besides English and Spanish.

[Aprilleigh]

I read almost exclusively in English, but have enough French to determine if a translation is faithful to the original. My Latin, on the other hand, is just good enough to sit down with a dictionary and my grammar charts and translate a passage, but that's about it.

Off the top of my head my "languages," as I understand the question, include:

English
French
Italian
Russian
German
Spanish
Greek
Latin
Norwegian
Swedish
Japanese
Chinese
Czech

[Luke]

I read in English, and when counting the compilations of selections translated from a great deal of languages (it helps that I have a GR shelf for each language), I have:

-Afrikaans
-Akan
-Albanian
-Amhara
-Ancient Egyptian
-Ancient Ethiopian
-Anishinaabemowin
-Arabic
-Armenian
-Assamese
-Azeri
-Bangla
-Basque
-Bemba
-Benga
-Burmese/Myanmarese
-Catalan
-Chitumbuka
-Chichewa
-Croation
-Czech
-Danish
-Dari
-Dhivehi
-Didinga
-Dutch
-Farsi
-Finnish
-French
-Gaelic
-German
-Gikuyu
-Greek (Ancient and modern)
-Gujarati
-Hebrew
-Hindi
-Hungarian
-Icelandic
-Indonesian
-Inuktitut
-Japanese
-Kannada
-Kashmiri
-Kgatla
-Khmer
-Khoikhoi
-Kipsigi
-Korean
-Kurdish
-Latin
-Latvian
-Lithuanian
-Loma
-Malay
-Malayalam
-Mandarin Chinese
-Marathi
-Middle English
-Moghrebi
-Ndebele
-Nepal bhasa/Newari
-Nepali
-Norwegian
-Old English
-Oriya
-Pashto
-Polish
-Portuguese
-Punjabi
-Romanian
-Russian
-Sanskrit
-Serbian
-Sindhi
-Slovenian
-Sotho
-Spanish
-Sranen
-Sumerian
-Swahili
-Swedish
-Taiwanese Chinese
-Tajik
-Tamal
-Tartar
-Telegu
-Thai
-Tibetan
-Turkish
-Turkmen
-Ukranian
-Urdu
-Uzbek
-Vietnamese
-Xhosa
-Yao
-Yi
-Yiddish

I probably only have one work containing extracts for the majority of these languages, but they're on my shelves in one form or another.

[Marina]

I read in Italian, English, German and French. The books I've read so far are in said languages and/or have been translated from the following:

Ancient Greek
Arabic
Armenian
Bengali
Bosnian
Burmese
Catalan
Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Icelandic
Indonesian
Japanese
Korean
Kyrgyz
Lao
Latin
Latvian
Macedonian
Maltese
Montenegrin
Norwegian
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Sanskrit
Serbian
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Uzbek
Vietnamese
Yiddish

[siriusedward]

Aprilleigh wrote: "I read almost exclusively in English, but have enough French to determine if a translation is faithful to the original. My Latin, on the other hand, is just good enough to sit down with a dictionar..."

I can read in

English, my pereference
Malayalam(fluent)
And
Hindi.(fluent)
Also ,Arabic(fluent readingwise but not as much grammarwise)..
And a little bit of Urdu and Kannada.

[Mark]

English is the only language I can read. And if it wasn't for translations my literary experience would be a lot smaller. I've read books translated from:
Russian
French
Spanish
Germany
Greek (modern)
Greek (ancient)
Latin
Czech
Italian
Swedish
Norwegian
Finnish
Sanskirt
Chinese

[Marina]

Mark wrote: "And if it wasn't for translations my literary experience would be a lot smaller."

I once had a friend who wouldn't read anything in translation, because she claimed something would necessarily be lost. Of course something is always lost in translation, but as you say, our reading experience would be a lot more limited if we refused point blank to read any translated book.

[Mark]

Marina wrote: "Mark wrote: "And if it wasn't for translations my literary experience would be a lot smaller."

I once had a friend who wouldn't read anything in translation, because she claimed something would ne..."

I bet half my favorite books are translations! It would be an awful lot to miss out on. - )

[siriusedward]

Marina wrote: "Mark wrote: "And if it wasn't for translations my literary experience would be a lot smaller."

I once had a friend who wouldn't read anything in translation, because she claimed something would ne..."

True.As we can't read all the languages of the world we have to nake do with translation.And we can search for the best translation of the book, then read it.At least we get to know that much.

[Jehona]

I don't have separate shelves based on language, but judging from my continent based shelves, I read mostly books written in English. Part of it might be due to my preference for SF, which is much more common in UK and US than in other countries.

In terms of language I read in, I can split my reading life
in before and after moving to Finland. Before moving to Finland I read mostly In Albanian and Serbo-Croatian, with some book in Italian here and there. Since I moved to Finland, I've been reading almost exclusively in English (since my Finnish is really bad and books in other languages are hard to come by).

Regarding translations... There is always something lost, of course. But, unless you are willing to learn every language in which a good book has been written (and have discovered a way to live that long), you are missing much more by avoiding the book entirely. One good way to deal with translation problems would be to learn several languages, one from each language group. Translations within a language group are often better than across language groups. This is true especially for books written in verse.

[Lotte]

siriusedward wrote: "Aprilleigh wrote: "I read almost exclusively in English, but have enough French to determine if a translation is faithful to the original. My Latin, on the other hand, is just good enough to sit do..."

Impressive! I didn't even know about Malayalam and Kannada.

Jehona wrote: "Regarding translations... There is always something lost, of course. But, unless you are willing to learn every language in which a good book has been written (and have discovered a way to live that long), you are missing much more by avoiding the book entirely."

That is so true. I think translations can even add something, if the translator adds notes or contextualises some culture-specific concepts.

[J_BlueFlower]

I have read that Charles Baudelaire's translation of Edgar Allan Poe (from English to French) are regarded as sometimes better than the original.

[siriusedward]

Lotte wrote: "siriusedward wrote: "Aprilleigh wrote: "I read almost exclusively in English, but have enough French to determine if a translation is faithful to the original. My Latin, on the other hand, is just ..."

You do know about someone who speaks Malayalam..Arundhati Roy..
And considering its my mother tongue ,not so incredible.And Kannada is the language of the neighbouring state...So...

But yes,I do get what you mean.

[Lotte]

J_BlueFlower: Interesting! I might read those one day, as I love both authors.

siriusedward: I still have to read a novel by Arundhati Roy, but I've been interesting in The God of Small Thing for ages. I admit the language situation in India confuses me a bit; so many different languages...

[Luke]

More than half of the names of US states come from different languages indigenous to the continent. It's not hard to find languages if you know how to look.