2015 Reading Challenge [Closed] discussion
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How often do you read books that were not originally written in English?
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Michelle
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Jan 17, 2015 03:21PM
I'm wondering about this, because English rules the world and I'm curious how much people from English speaking countries read book from other countries. Do you only read the really popular ones (Murakami, Larsson, Nesbo...) and the world classics (Les Miserables, Anna Karenina, Decameron...)? Or do you dig deeper than that and try to discover something new?
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Never... This challenge has inspired me to change that a few times over, however (a few in my overall GR Challenge as well). I can feel my brain muscles stretching... Anyone else?
I do actively try to read books that have been translated. I'm woefully lacking in any linguistic talents so I have to rely on translations! I love Murakami and I really enjoyed Steig Larsson but I am trying to read more, lesser known, translated works. For example, I loved The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto who is a slightly lesser known Japanese author and that inspired me to dig a little deeper when looking for what to read next!I just think translation is a wonderful thing, I imagine it is amazing to read a book in it's original language but not everyone had the fortune to be taught another language and translation just opens up the world of literature to everyone! My world would be so small if I didn't HAVE translations, if I were only able to read books originally written in English... I'd be miserable!
Vanesa wrote: "translated works are not as good as the original ones. It is true that we enjoy them, however I think that I would have enjoyed them more in the language which they were written in the first place..."I agree. I'm trying to read The Iliad. I have three translations up for that task, and only one actually rhymes (obviously that's a challenge due to the huge language barrier). The rhyming is how it *should* sound as per the author, but the words chosen are dissimilar to the original intent by a little or a lot (depending) in order to get there. I'm perusing all three hoping to get a concept of what was actually intended without becoming fluent in Ancient Greek!
Just try reading the Harry Potter books in Germany - worst translations I have ever read :P
Being Finn, I read books mainly in English and Finnish. Several of those books are translated, but I haven't read Finnish book translated into English (if comics are excluded). I have also read few books in Swedish. Tried to also read few in German, Russia and Chinese, but skills in those laguages mean that I cannot read much more than simple texts and reading with vocabulary isn't very convenient. So I have read In several languages and from multiple countries. It is still pity that I cannot count different language versions of same book on my reading challenge.
My native language is Portuguese. I feel the other way around: I read more books that were originally written in another language. Though I'm starting to read more Portuguese literature and I have some favorite authors.
A lot. I'm a Belgian living in Finland. Friends and family usually send me works by Flemish or Dutch authors (chances I already bought them are zilch!) & I've made reading in Finnish part of learning the language (children's and middle grade books); the rest is in English. When the originals aren't available, I settle for a translation. No big deal :)
This is a question that has been on my mind a lot lately. Thanks for asking. A good proportion of the books I read are in translation. And I always wonder how much I'm missing. Yet they are so good that I think I would be poorer for not having read them at all. If that makes any sense. Am currently reading 1Q84 by Murakami and loving it. But still that nagging voice in the back of my mind. Is this really what he meant to say? I used to read a lot of books in German and if I read the same book in English I would notice serious discrepancies. Sorry to be so long winded but I did want to mention that the New York Times Book Review just recently had an article comparing and contrasting the ten or so different translations of Anna Karenina. It is a dilemma.
Guy wrote: "This is a question that has been on my mind a lot lately. Thanks for asking. A good proportion of the books I read are in translation. And I always wonder how much I'm missing. Yet they are so ..."I know what you mean. I'm Czech and it's not as if the translations here aren't good (especially fantasy and sci-fi books have some of the best translations I've ever read), but it was only when I learned English enough to be able to read longer text that I realized how much you can't really transfer from one language to another. I've read the Czech translation of Larsson and then the first book in English and the English translation disappointed me a lot.
I've also read a few Czech books that were translated to English and it's an incredibly bizzare experience :).
I actually found a book for this topic. It's called Forty Days Without Shadow by Olivier Truc. It was originally written in French as Le Dernier Lapon. Before I realized it was translated, I was going to use this for #5 (A book with a number in the title) but since #46 is harder to fill, I'll use it here and get something else with a number. My review of it is on GR (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) as well as my blog, FictionZeal.com.
