This post is kind of specific , so…
For those fellow readers from all around the world, how it was your first encounter to a book that was NOT in your native languague. How did you feel? How the impact of reading a “new” language influenced how you looked books back then? etc.
I speak ‘Português’, so obviously my first book was in the same language.
However when i read a Spanish book things did not change as much as the way it was to when i read an English book.
What i’m saying is: The formatting of books are different along cultures and languages.
My first book in Spanish had a Em dash — to represent Dialogue, as well as it is in Portuguese. My friend had a french book and it was also —. (i dont speak french, tho)
But then I discovered that it was not a common thing when i read a book in english, along with other few things that are small but still relevant. At first I thought that it was “wrong” and that it didn’t make any sense to use “quotation” to… speak?! I mean a quote was to quote, right?
Anyways, right now i’m used to reading english format, so the question is: if you find a book, lets say, written in your native language but formatted like the german books, or written in english but formatted the way its done in your native language,
How would you feel?
To me, I think that it would take me some time to understand and get used to it, but I wouldn’t dare to not learn this “new” way of reading and would even look for other kinds of books that way.
What bout you guys?
by BadaRokeY
1 Comment
I pay so little attention to formatting that I couldn’t even tell you what German (native language), English or Spanish formatting specifically looks like. I didn’t even realize on my own that the formatting is different, I saw some post about it at same point after I had been reading books in foreign languages for about 10 years. I just completely gloss over that aspect of books when I read.