I’m currently reading *Crime and Punishment*, and this made me wonder: for bilingual/multilingual people, what are you preferences?
I read the original version in the languages I speak, and of course, for any work in my native language, I pick the original as well.
In languages I don’t speak, I usually don’t mind reading the English translation (recently finished *Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead*). But I will seek my native language’s translation for classics in languages I don’t speak.
Just curious what others’ opinions are 😊
by shortforalex
16 Comments
I too read in the original if I understand it (in my case Swedish and English). But for languages I don’t, I don’t think I have a preference.
At the very least none I’ve thought of. But I suppose if I _had to_ chose then English would be most convenient if I ever feel like discussing it online (especially if it’s a book where names get translated).
I am a German native speaker and read mostly English books in English. Obviously I read German books in German. Other languages it depends but lately often English as well as my husband and I share many books.
I just got the English translation of a book I read before in German (Dutch original) and I have to say, I enjoy the English version a lot.
Are you reading Crime and Punishment in Russian?
Russian is my second language; I lived in Russia for several years (though more than a decade ago), and now I work with native Russians in my own country. In fact, Russian is really the only language I use at work.
Despite this, it’s still pretty challenging to read a lot of literature in Russian. Ive read a fairly large portion of Anna Karenina in Russian (but not all of it yet), and excerpts from a lot of classics in Russian, but I have read all of them in English (native).
I am a German native speaker, and I read the original if I am proficient enough in the given language. Which means German, English, and Latin stuff gets read in the original language.
If I am not proficient in the original language, I will probably choose an English translation because most of the time it is cheaper and I enjoy reading in English.
I’ve been learning Spanish for a while and really enjoy reading books in Spanish if they were originally written in Spanish. I definitely read at a lower level but it’s fun and I learn a lot of new words and grammar and what not
I mostly read in English. But for classics with arcane and hard to understand English I read the translation in my own language. Also, I’ve recently started to read nonfiction books in my own language wehn available, because I learn better that way. My English isn’t too bad, but it’s not perfect, and it sometimes interferes with my understanding of the book.
Usually in the language it was written in. However, I prefer certain translations to eg English more than the ones to my native language (German).
I think most people would prefer to read a fiction in original language it was written.
In terms of Dostoevsky I think he is not a good writer in terms of writing style. My native language is Russian and the translation of Brothers Karamazov is better in English than in Russian.
If I am fluent in the language, I read the book in original. Otherwise I read it translated in my native language (Italian).
If it isn’t translated in Italian, I pick up a French or English translation.
I try to read books in their original language if possible, which limits me to Romanian, English and French literature (kinda haha).
German, Nordic and Japanese literature I generally consume in English, but I read Russian translated in Romanian. Exclusively. I remember reading the Pevear translation of “The Idiot” and it sounding like absolute gibberish. I found the Romanian translation to be much more readable. I suspect it’s due to the shared slavic nature of our languages (Fun fact: Romanian used to be written in Cyrillic!).
I read in English, Swedish and Finnish. I used to read books written originally in other languages in English translations, mainly because of availability. Lots of books simply do not get translated into my mother tongue.
I switched most of my reading to my native language (Finnish) when I noticed anglisms creeping into my own writing. These days I try to read everything in Finnish translations, including most of the books written originally in English.
I’ll only make an exception if the Finnish translation is horrible.
My native language is French, and I exclusively read books in French. Not that I don’t understand English (I’m bilingual) but I read to ease my mind, and it’s easier to do when you don’t have to think about the meaning of some words or sentence’s structures different from your everyday language.
For shows and movies, however, I like the original better.
I read them in the original if it’s in one of the languages i know (English and Norwegian), but don’t really care very much which if I read a translation from a third language. If the original is Swedish or Danish I’d prefer the Norwegian translation (can read them in their original too), a slight preference for English otherwise. But price and availability is more important.
I actually just read Drive your plow… in English too, and I remember very well that the same was the case for Crime and punishment, as that was exactly what I was doing when I got a call with some news on 9/11 2001.
I mostly read in english but I do read in German aswell.
I used to read exclusively in my native language, Serbian, because when I read a book I want to really understand it well and not to miss anything. So my idea was, if I read it in a language in which I have a poorer vocabulary, I might miss some important parts… and out of the reverence for books missing anything would mean not “properly” reading the book.
However, recently my approached has relaxed a bit, and I’ve recently read a whole book in Italian. I hope to read some books in English too.
As a Dutch reader, i read books originally written in English in English. If the book isn’t english or dutch, i’ll usually still read it in English because the Dutch language is very direct and practical, so many books lose their lyricism when translated to Dutch. The only exception is German books, which i’ll usually read in Dutch because German and Dutch are pretty similar.