I speak both English and Spanish at a native level and I’m curious to know if other fully bilingual readers read in one language over the other or if it varies.
Most of the reading I do is in English, but if a book is originally in Spanish, I’d rather read it in the author’s original language. If you read in both, is your reading list 50/50 or does it skew one language over the other? I’m so curious.
by palm-tree-queen
4 Comments
I actually speak 3 languages fluently but read only in 2 of them (German & English). I dropped reading in Russian because I didnt enjoy it at all. I always try to keep a good balance of English and German books to improve my abilities in both languages, but I like reading in English much more.
Whenever possible i read books in their original language, if that is not possible I’ll research the translator and pick the one i think did the best job.
English books do tend to be cheaper than Norwegian books though, so if the translations are equally good, I’ll often pick the English copy.
German native speaker here. Apart from German authors, I prefer reading books in English, even if it isn’t the language the books were originally written in. Basically – Book originally in German – read in German / Book originally in any other language – read in English. Most of the books I own are in English.
I alway read in the original language, if possible. I also look for the best translations if the book isn’t in any language I understand but I alway end up thinking « hold on, how did they translate that in my first language ? » when I read sooo….If I have the time, I end up reading different translations.