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/lit/ - Literature

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4796771 No.4796771 [Reply] [Original]

Hello /lit/

This is a question mainly for the people who speak more than one language. I wondered how you decide, if you can't read a book in the language it was written, which translation to choose.

A friend recommended me, for example, the translations of Dostojewskis work by Swetlana Geier so when I'll read Russian literature I'll read them in German but for the greeks that I want to tackle next I wouldn't know whether I should read the myths in German, English or French.

So how do you do it? What are good resources to compare translations?

pic related, greek stuff.

cheers

>> No.4796860

Read it in your most natural language. The language you speak most everyday. For me, I'll read a book in English if possible. Unfortunately any book without English translation sure as hell won't have a Romanian translation, so that's kind of a moot point.

>> No.4797083

Depends on the translating, if the French or Italian translation is more enthralling I'll read it, though I prefer to use English due to native familiarity. Also Latin for practice, but that is different.

>> No.4797158

>>4797083
But how do you know which version is more enthralling, as you say? Are there good resources to compare translations both within a given goal-language and different goal languages (the goal-language here being the language to which the original is translated to)

>> No.4797460
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4797460

SP,EN,FR here.

I think it also depends on your relation to the language in question. I have two criteria, a subjective(S) and an objective(O) one. The first is simply my feeling of the language plus my feeling of the subject of the text; the second is the level of the translator or academic field from which the text comes.

Thus:
I don't read in Spanish anymore, except maybe for hispanic literature (O:Spanish academia is shit; there are too many local dialects under the name "Spanish" / S:i don't like reading in Spanish)
I read primary sources in English (O:good academia therefore good translators / S:it was a "natural" second language for me, I never studied it as such nor made an effort to learn it)
I read secondary sources in French (O:great academia therefore great intros and analyses / S:I lived in France some years so I'm familiar with its academia and writing style when exposing or analyzing a given subject)

I was on the road to German but dropped it... I wonder if the German academia is as good as the French one.

>> No.4798662

Thats hard, one has to rely on the reputation of the translator or on reviews about it. I think one only knows after having read and compared them.

>> No.4798696

I read any book I can in it's original language. If I can't do that I read the English translation.

>> No.4798870
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4798870

Native portuguese here. I like to read books as close to the original language as possible, so if they're in english I read in english, and since I can mostly get by on spanish and french I try to read the original books in those languages too.

The rest I read in what I feel most comfortable with, based on how close the languages are. So italian-portuguese, german-english, everything else in portuguese because at that point who cares. Most times I end up reading everything in english since portuguese translations are either rubbish or insanely expensive.

>> No.4801056

>>4798696
Because you're a native English speaker or because you think translations into English are generally better because of the bigger audience?

Right now I'm thinking about reading greek mythology and the bible and I'm unsure what translations to chose, whether German or English