Imgureaders discussion

Hey guys,
It seems we may be a fairly international community of giraffe-loving, book-reading people. I wanted to start a board on reading books in their original language (yes English too, but mainly to talk about books from non-English languages that have been translated and gained popularity).

What books have you read in the originals, and if that language is not your native language, how difficult was it to understand, how long had you studied that language, and how was the book?

To start, I read the first 7 chapters of The Count of Monte Cristo (French) before the library kicked me out (I had a couple hours of free time before having a really long week of classes and projects, so I didn't check the book out of the library). I had studied French for 2 years, the chapters I read were awesome (personally, I was stoked to be able to read SOMETHING foreign that wasn't from a textbook), though I had read the story twice in high school (one of my top 10 books for sure).

Another book club I'm in is currently reading Love in the Time of Cholera (Spanish) for this month, and it's going very well so far.

So that it's out there, I speak English (1st language), Spanish, French, Russian, and enough German to get by.

-Shaun

Fellow polyglot here. I speak Estonian (1st language), English, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic, Russian, German and some Finnish but that's mostly because I speak Estonian and the two are very closely related.

I don't even remember the first book I read in English. I do remember that my mum gave me a book containing English nursery rhymes when I was two. I think the first serious one must have been a book on various fairy tales before I moved on to the likes of Harry Potter etc. Since I live and study in the UK, I mostly read in English now.

I read Urlaub mit Papa in German when I was at school because my German teacher recommended it to me. I had only studied the language for a year but I was doing really well and she thought I might like it. It was more or less perfect as a first read since it wasn't too difficult to understand and I did like the story as well, it was nice and light.

I read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest in Finnish because it hadn't been translated into Estonian yet. My parents and I were in Finland at that time and they bought it and after they had both read it, I gave it a go as well. This was slightly more difficult for me than the German book since I have never actually studied Finnish. I was quite fluent when I was a kid, mostly because of Finnish TV shows and most of what I still know just comes from TV and going to Finland all the time because it's so close to Estonia. I managed surprisingly well, though. I was very pleased with myself afterwards, haha.

I speak Scottish Gaelic quite well but I have never read a whole book in the language, just various chapters for uni. I might try and tackle something though in the future. It's the same for Spanish, I understand it well enough to read something but I have never tried.

I have plans to read Crime and Punishment in Russian. I've already read several translations and I hear that the Russian is quite easy to understand so I might give it a go.

So English is my first language, in that it's the language I'm most comfortable with, but I did grow up in a Polish house. To practice my Polish, I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Polish. I have to say that it was a lot more different than I had expected it would be. I sort of felt like Harry came off as being really bratty. It seemed less like he grew up in a terrible environment, and more like a family where everyone is just constantly nasty to each other. Needless to say, I think I would have had trouble liking Harry as a character if I had read the Polish versions first.

This is where I'm jealous of US education regarding languages. I had the option of French or Spanish GCSE and chose French, I spent a year with a teacher who delegated her work to the assistant because she was pregnant, and the next year with a teacher who hated everyone who wasn't 'barbie doll' perfect.

I learnt more German in a year of listening to German music than I did French in two years of French lessons. My cousin went to a boarding school for a year in the US and came back speaking Spanish really well. They had proper guidance and explanations of grammar, whilst I had a text book asking me to fill in the blanks.

On a lighter note, I've always had an aptitude for languages, my brain seems wired to German, I catch myself thinking in German then forgetting the English translation, when English is my first language.

Speaking of Harry Potter,
Probably old news, but "wand" in French is "baguette."
If you didn't know that already, thought you might =P

Shaun wrote: "Speaking of Harry Potter,
Probably old news, but "wand" in French is "baguette."
If you didn't know that already, thought you might =P"

I didn't know that! That is epic!!!

Speaking as a US educated person and US after school educator. The US system is pretty awful in my experience. In my school, which was like 90% Mexican, most kids (myself included) too Spanish because it was already part of their home language and because it would be easy. Now I wish I'd either taken harder Spanish classes or taken French. I can't speak to college though because I was good enough to test out of the language requirement, but friends I know who took a language generally don't carry their retention very far.

I've started and stopped El jinete polaco and Noli Me Tangere so many times. They're both supposed to be pretty classic / foundational but it's frustrating to read at a much slower pace than I'm used to.

Samuel wrote: "Speaking as a US educated person and US after school educator. The US system is pretty awful in my experience. In my school, which was like 90% Mexican, most kids (myself included) too Spanish beca..."

Yeah,
To not go too far into it, the US education system doesn't invest properly in foreign language education because there's no greater economic incentive. Because English is the dominant language used in international trade/business, native-English speakers don't have to try too hard in order to conduct business. Whereas non-native-English speakers have a huge economic incentive to learn English.

There was a good Freakanomics podcast (Thursday, March 6, 2014, "Is learning a foreign language really worth it?") that goes over the economics of it. English speakers learning another language might see a 2% increase in salary for knowning Spanish, up to 5% for knowing Chinese or Arabic. Whereas peoples in other countries see a 20% increase in pay when they know English in addition to their native language.

It comes down to money.

Not to say that I agree or disagree. I see the economic side of it, but I'm also a proponent of international travel and experience/education (heck, I studied languages for my undergraduate studies in university). Following the money explains why other countries place such a high emphasis on learning foreign languages, which is applicable world-wide.

If anyone speaks Polish, I'd love to hear their opinions on Andrzej Sapkowski 's books about The Witcher books, such as The Last Wish.

I've read um, I think 7 of The Witcher books as English translations, and I often catch myself wondering if I'm missing something. Some parts of the stories just seem jagged and unfinished. Other parts simply make no sense at all. I'm curious if I have a bad translation or if the fragmented writing style (knowing that the first couple books are short story collections) is just like the original Polish versions?

Well, Libby. I don't speak Polish (only russki, of the Eastern-European languages), but I've certainly run into bad translations before. A book was originally in German, and had a negative phrase, the English translation had a negative phrase, but the French translation had an affirmative phrase without negating everything else.
I try to read in the original, if I'm able to =/ Then it's only my comprehension errors instead of translation errors.

My mum bought the Estonian translations of Harry Potter for my dad because he doesn't really speak English and the first few books were fine. When I realised that the translator had confused "custard" with "mustard" somewhere (Fred and George had bewitched a custard pastry so that if you ate it, you'd turn into a canary) and also decided to translate "Give our love to Neville" (it was something like that) literally which sounds completely nonsensical in Estonian, I told him to beware of lost-in-translation moments. I absolutely love good translations but bad ones just ruin everything.

Libby wrote: "If anyone speaks Polish, I'd love to hear their opinions on Andrzej Sapkowski 's books about The Witcher books, such as The Last Wish."

I speak Polish!! I haven't read Andrzej Sapkowski's books though - in Polish or in English. I'll certainly add them to my to-read list though, and let you know. :)