In what language do you prefer to read books?

I'm talking about non-learning books.

Let's say you speak three languages. For this example I'll use Swedish.

Let's say you know how to speak Swedish, English and Russian

Your native language is Russian. You speak/know English on great level and your Swedish is not that great but you are still doing all right.

So let's take the book "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"

The book is originally written in Swedish. And the book is translated in Russian, English and Swedish.

Do you:

-Read it in English cause you want to read it in a foreign language but you still want to understand all of it

-Read it in Russian cause you want to enjoy the book in your native language which you know best and which will make you enjoy the book most

-Read it in Swedish so you can experience the book as it was written but risk not understanding everything while also using this as a way to test and improve your knowledge

?

Of course, I prefer English or Filipino because they are the only languages I know as of now. But I would love to read books written in Spanish in the future. I actually started reading Spanish books for children last year like "The frog prince" because it's easier to understand. 

I will read it either in english or tagalog coz I dunno how to read japanese words written in Katana :sweat_smile: 

I mostly read English novels though I wish I could read some books without having to rely on translation. I bet there's a bunch of subtleties and wordplay that I'm missing. I'd love to read Little Prince in French, Kazuo Ishiguro and Murakami's books in Japanese, and Noli Mi Tangere in Spanish. :)

That's interesting. My immediate gut feeling is to read in primary reading language, in this case, English, then work on the original at a later date. 

But thinking back about my language-learning experience, I think you have a point about reading it in Swedish (or the original language) first, if you can manage it. 

I remember reading Pramoedya's Bumi Manusia/This Earth of Mankind in Indonesian first (class assignment). I came across this very veiled reference (translates to his face darkened), and was wondering what that was referring to. The English version was a lot more explicit (protagonist was pissed off after he found out his girlfriend wasn't a virgin). None of us reading it the Indonesian original at that point actually got the reference, because it was so nuanced, and required some explanation by our teachers. If I had actually read it in English first, I would have completely missed that point. 

Rose.Angelie wrote:

I always prefer to read in English. This might be strange to some but I have a hard time reading in Tagalog and Bisaya (Cebuano) - two of my native languages.

There also aren't a lot of very good books written in Filipino, I think. I have a couple of great books by Filipino writers but about half of em are in English.

Personally I find reading easier (meaning I read the book faster) in my own language, but I try to read in foreign language more cause I want to increase my vocabulary 

I prefer English, but the one exception would be French. If there were a French book that I really wanted to read, I'd do it in the original French because it's easy for me and I hate what translations do to a story.

I would prefer to capable of choosing which language tor read in but in not there yet

leosmith wrote:

I prefer English, but the one exception would be French. If there were a French book that I really wanted to read, I'd do it in the original French because it's easy for me and I hate what translations do to a story.

Couldn't agree more so much is lost in translation