The Malazan Fallen discussion
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Gardens of the Moon
Malazan Chatter (General stuff)
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How hard is Malazan to read for a non-native english speaker?
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I have read all you have read in English, but Erikson was really hard for me in English :) so it depends on your english language level :) try one book and you will see :) It is the language, description, I was lost :) So I read just translation after that, but still going to try it in English as reread :)
Your english sounds fine to me if you are able to read all those books. I am a non native myself and I don't have problem reading Malazan language wise
If you are concerned about the book having words you don't understand, get a kindle or a reading app with an in app dictionary. I use a kindle myself and its working fine for me
uh oh^^ @Romison you just told me exactly what I didn't want to hear xD Yes, I've been thinking about just buying book 1, to hell with what everyone else says! But, I am very apprehensive about jumping in and realizing that my english is just not good enough. I can see myself getting so frustrated that I never want to pick up the book again after failing to comprehend it.
I just really don't want to read translations anymore. I don't know why, but english sounds and feels so much better than German. Especially all the made up fantasy terms are really jarring once they've been translated, it never fits 100%...
@Attack Salmon thank you for telling me exactly what I wanted to hear xD
Also, the in app dictionary is a good tip. I have a kindle myself and rarely use it for anything else than self published books (I loooove physical copies). But it might be really clever to read Malazan as ebooks because of the inbuild dictionary!
It's so cool to get actual answers from non-native english readers here, thanks guys! Maybe there are even more people with tips around :D
You'll be fine. Language wise it's not any more complicated than some of those other books (some authors in that list are Young Adult though and are thus far more simple). These aren't complicated books because of the language, but because there is no info dumping whatsoever. You're dropped into the world and have to figure things out yourself. The world itself is also very complex.Even then I think that the difficulty is somewhat overstated. There are people who say they've read the whole book and have no idea what's going on. That's nonsense. It's more like that there is an understandable plot, but that you don't have the context to grasp all the connections and background.
There is also a helpful Malazan wiki where you can look up things. I did that for some terms and concepts at the beginning. That helps with understanding the magic system for example, or some of the world history
It is hard to read in English,at least for me, because author uses lot of arhaic English words that I'm not familiar with. I live in Serbia, here we got first seven books published. The publisher promised to finish the series, i hope it's true.
It was a lesson in patience and determination. One piece of advice, though. Do not give up on the first book. It seems really hard to read and understand, but it evens out. The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a journey in masterful use of language and deep thinking.
I am also not a native English speaker, I read the first 2 books in Dutch, there were no more Dutch translations available so I had to switch to English. Only the beginning was a little slow but if you keep reading you will get used to it and you will start to enjoy it.That was many years ago, now I read more English than Dutch books, so enjoy en keep reading
In my case, despite its many mistakes, I respectively read and am currently reading the Spanish version for the three first books, and as a native Spanish speaker, it was already pretty hard to understand. For a second lecture, I want to read it the books in English.
So far, I have read in english: A Song of Ice and Fire, Kingkiller Chronicles, Harry Potter, Codex Alera, some Romantasy stuff (mainly Richelle Mead and Sarah J. Maas), and some Brandon Sanderson (Rithmatist, Warbreaker, started Stormlight Archive (in the middle of Oathbringer rn)). I guess you could look at my profile here, too?
Sorry, I'm new to goodreads in general^^ This is my first post in any group here :)
So, do you think I can start reading Malazan or should I keep building up my english skills for now? Is the vocabulary hard? Are there sentences that are so long and sequenced that they are hard to understand? Or is it "just" the story, loads of characters and plot points that make those books hard to read?