Is reading world literature only in english a true experience?

[Max Ernst]

I feel guilt about reading only in English. Is one getting a true experience reading world literature in one language, or just a shallow imitation?

[kev67]

That depends on whether you're reading British English or American English.

[YALASH]

I feel guilt about reading only in English. Is one getting a true experience reading world literature in one language, or just a shallow imitation?

Peace be on you.

According one estimate, top 10 number of speakers of languages are:

Name of Language - Number of Speakers
Mandarin - 1 billion+
English --- 508 million
Hindustani-497 million
Spanish -- 392 million
Russian --- 277 million
Arabic ----- 246 million
Bengali ---- 211 million
Portuguese-91 million
Malay-Indonesian - 159 million
French ---- 129 million

and

There are many cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_culture#Cultures_of_the_world


Literature from other languages makes up just two or three per cent of English publishers’ output – why is the figure so low? http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140909-why-so-few-books-in-translation

[Scheherazade]

I feel guilt about reading only in English. Is one getting a true experience reading world literature in one language, or just a shallow imitation?Is it optional for you?

We all read in any language that we can and capable of.

[Vota]

While it is impossible to achieve a direct translation from one language to another, a sensitive translator will do their best to convey the meaning and feel of the original author.

I think it is silly to feel guilty for not reading works in other languages. The beauty and feel of the author may not always shine through, but if they are a good writer and the translator does their job well, then you are getting the experience the writer created to within some close percentage of the original.

I don't feel bad reading Tolstoy in English. I loved War and Peace and The Cossacks, and hold him off the strength of these two works alone(in translation no less) as one of my favorite authors.

Translation is an art, so it pays to compare different translations to see whose you prefer. It is true that the quality and style of the translation can make a big difference in the reading experience you receive, but even then I have noticed no real difference in meaning between many different translations I have compared, only the way in which it is said.

There is a reason and purpose for translations. Many people are brought up with only one language, and many people are brought up learning two or even three languages, but once you pass a certain young age you rapidly lose the ability to learn, and more importantly retain languages besides the one you use most. It is impractical for most people to learn other languages when they can read a translation that will provide a very close approximation. I see no real sense in learning to speak Russian or ancient Greek to read certain works when there are scholars that have provided us with more than adequate representations of these works.

Nothing can beat reading a book in it's original language, but to be considered well read you would need to know a dozen languages if held to the standard of only reading in the original tongue.

While I believe style is very important and often contributes to why a person likes one translation over another, the substance and meaning of each sentence, paragraph, page, and chapter is the most important criteria for good translating. If you can add a pleasant style that mimics the writer while maintaining a faithful interpretation, then you have a great translator.

In sum, don't feel guilty reading translations.

[Pompey Bum]

I feel guilt about reading only in English. Is one getting a true experience reading world literature in one language, or just a shallow imitation?

I would compare reading a translation to listening to a ball game on a radio. It can be extremely vivid, depending on the skill of the broadcaster/translator. But to read a work in its original language is to be at the game. My advice would be to drop the guilt and embrace the adventure of learning new languages. You can use translations when you have to, just as the rest of us do. Good luck!

[JBI]

Peace be on you.

According one estimate, top 10 number of speakers of languages are:

Name of Language - Number of Speakers
Mandarin - 1 billion+
English --- 508 million
Hindustani-497 million
Spanish -- 392 million
Russian --- 277 million
Arabic ----- 246 million
Bengali ---- 211 million
Portuguese-91 million
Malay-Indonesian - 159 million
French ---- 129 million

and

There are many cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_culture#Cultures_of_the_world


Literature from other languages makes up just two or three per cent of English publishers’ output – why is the figure so low? http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140909-why-so-few-books-in-translation

There is no real language called Mandarin, and even under the category of Mandarin which contains a vast range of linguistic diversity, there are not one billion people. First language speakers of Mandarin in the written form are close to zero. The same can be true of most languages, though one can more or less make sense of English spoken across the world. In terms of Chinese dialects and topolects, Mandarin spoken in Shijiazhuang is not intelligible by someone who speaks the Mandarin in Beijing.

The actual vernacular literature evolved off of a pidgin between literary Chinese (wen yan), the language of texts, particularly the classics of Confucius, and Guanhua, the language of politicians in Beijing from the 14th century onward (with, of course, numerous developments). The written vernacular which you see in novels and newspapers in China today has never been a particularly spoken language, nor has it ever been anybody's first language in terms of speech.

The same can be said of much of what we call Arabic; it is quite simply not a written language, in the sense that people do not traditionally write Arabic the same way they speak it.


this all being said, one is fine only reading in English. Learning languages is great, and I would encourage it, but seriously reading only English authors provides a great wealth of literature, far more than anybody could possibly need in their lifetime.

[Max Ernst]

I meant reading literature from around the world in English, not just English authors.

[JCamilo]

I do not think you can say there is no written arabic, JBI. Despite the language having a strong oral power, there is that Quran book that kind of unifies it. With the little arabic I studied, I can tell which sound is supposed to be expressed in the writtings. The big difference is of course, that they will not write down the "vowells" and you need some experience to read it, but still a writting experience.

More oral than most of our western languages, with the expected variations of a imposed language over a big number of cultures, but not that different unlike what you describe of mandarin.

[ladderandbucket]

I don't know about guilty, but I do find it frustrating.

I've read a bunch of canonical translations: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kafka et al. They are great books, but I don't get the same thrill that I do from Melville, Poe, Faulkner, McCarthy - writers in my native language who really knew how to make words come alive. That's what I love about reading, and I've rarely found it in a translation. I often wonder what those American writers might read like translated into Russian, or French. I can't imagine they are anywhere near as good. I have to assume that I am missing out on something very special by not reading European writers as they were originally received.

[stlukesguild]

I meant reading literature from around the world in English, not just English authors.

And there are more than an incredible wealth of non-English literature that has been well translated into English. Certainly, you can learn other languages and if you master these to a good extent you may be able to garner further elements from a work of literature in the original than you could in translation. But will you gain a true depth equal to that of a native speaker? T.S. Eliot argued that no poet... no writer has meaning alone. Literature involves a dialog with ones predecessors... "high" and "low".Works of literature employ turns of phrase, dialect, mottos, aphorisms, allusions to literature and other things often unique to that culture. For example, a non-English language native who has mastered the English language as it is written today would likely find Moby Dick or Shakespeare or the King James Bible... and certainly Chaucer to be quite challenging. They would likely not recognize phrases and aphorisms that have entered the broader culture... or how these writers play upon such.

[Aere Perennius]

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[Ecurb]

No doubt reading an author's work in the original language gives one more of a connection with the artist and his original intent. However, unless we think that individual art is somehow always better than collaborative art, we can't assume that the translation is inevitably "worse" than the original. Mightn't it be "better" in some ways, at times? Some great authors are not great wordsmiths -- their genius comes in characterization, insight, and story telling. Maybe the translator can (at times) write more evocative prose than the original author.

If we think of some of Ezra Pounds loose "translations" of Chinese poems, why do we care if they differ from the original, or if they are better, or if they are worse? Don't they have their own value to us English speakers?

Don't most novelists have editors? Isn't editing be a form of "translation"?

[Aere Perennius]

deleted

[Vota]

There's nothing easy about mastering foreign languages unless you have an innate talent for it, especially as you pass through your early teen years into adulthood.

I've taken a year of both Spanish and Japanese in my early 30's, and I can tell you that I remember very little of it because I don't use it on a daily basis, and because it is very hard to retain with all the information I am constantly processing. I still remember the Spanish I had learned in highschool, but the Spanish I learned in my early 30's in almost completely gone.

Age and talent play a huge role in language acquisition. I personally don't think it is worth the time to acquire other languages just to read works in those languages, as many translations have given me great pleasure. Now if someone really wants to persue this course of action then more power to them, but it isn't necessary.

I remember reading something once that said there is a benefit to only knowing your own language, if you really master it, and that's being able to use it and understand when it is being used to the highest level. This ability is harder to develop when being exposed to many different languages. Some might disagree with this, but there seems to be some logic to it.

[Aere Perennius]

Deleted

[JBI]

I do not think you can say there is no written arabic, JBI. Despite the language having a strong oral power, there is that Quran book that kind of unifies it. With the little arabic I studied, I can tell which sound is supposed to be expressed in the writtings. The big difference is of course, that they will not write down the "vowells" and you need some experience to read it, but still a writting experience.

More oral than most of our western languages, with the expected variations of a imposed language over a big number of cultures, but not that different unlike what you describe of mandarin.
I meant nobody speaks like that as a first language.

[lichtrausch]

I don't feel bad reading something like The Unbearable Lightness of Being in translation, because really, when am I ever going to get around to learning a minor language like Czech? But I would feel bad reading works written in major languages in translation.

Translations become more and more tricky as you get to works where style and nuance are of great importance. So basically you can feel relatively confident about translations of straightforward writing a la Dan Brown, but when it comes to very refined prose and especially poetry, you're going to have to accept that a lot was lost in translation. In fact, I will only bother reading poetry in translation if it is something very, very special which is worth reading even if a lot is lost (like Homer's works).

[mortalterror]

Being fluent in one or two extra languages is nice, but a quick scan of my bookshelf came up with books originally written in 14+ languages. After a certain point, it becomes a choice. Do you want to learn languages or read literature? Are you a fan of fiction or a linguist? I can't see the point of learning a language just to read half a dozen books I might be interested in. In my opinion, you should have other motivations for wanting to learn a language beyond the purely literary. There should be some utility or necessity. JBI is living in China, studying Chinese literature, talking to people, and translating texts. He's a sinologist, who is making a living using Chinese. Lokasenna makes his living translating ancient Norse texts. It's not just a lark to them.

[ladderandbucket]

I've discussed this topic with two fluent foreign language speakers, and both said that they struggled to appreciate the poetry or style of a book written in their second language. Not saying this is the case for everyone, but I think you must need to put in a lot of hard work to get to the point where reading in a foreign language is worthwhile. If only I had another lifetime or so...

[sandy14]

Yes, it is a true experience, although it is a slightly different experience than reading the original.

Different translations are an experience in themselves - I've read different versions of Homer, Beowulf & others - and part of the fun is seeing how different translators use language for effect - especially across the ages.

Translations are an art in themselves - combining the gift of the original author and the talents of the translator as well.

So, I would not discount translations as a "true experience."

[Eiseabhal]

I would tend to agree with Vota. Reading prose in a translation can be fairly similar to the original. Reading poetry in translation hmm? Quite often that's "new" poetry, only "after" the original. It can give you a general feeling but you will miss a lot too. But what can you do? It gets harder to be multi-lingual as one gets older and there are some cultures where being a limited monoglot is seen as some sort of perverse virtue.

[kiki1982]

I've read a bunch of canonical translations: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kafka et al. They are great books, but I don't get the same thrill that I do from Melville, Poe, Faulkner, McCarthy - writers in my native language who really knew how to make words come alive. That's what I love about reading, and I've rarely found it in a translation. I often wonder what those American writers might read like translated into Russian, or French. I can't imagine they are anywhere near as good. I have to assume that I am missing out on something very special by not reading European writers as they were originally received.

OK, so after my well thought out reply got deleted yesterday, I'll make another attempt.

I'm fluent in 4 languages and have read in all of them. Dutch being my mother tongue, English, French and German. I once aspired to learning Russian to be able to read the works in that language, but as I haven't got the time to dedicate to it with work and other hobbies, I think I'll wait until I've retired ;).

Learning a language to the point where you can just read and not wonder about what is being said (instant comprehension) takes years and years. And practising this ability means you need to start out reading pretty riveting stuff like Winnie the Pooh before you can move onto the good stuff. It can be fun, but it's mentally not really rewarding other than getting the necessary self-confidence. Even when you have reached that level of language where you can just read and be confident you haven't missed anything, it is the question whether you really do have the same experience in the foreign language you're reading, as you have when you read in your mother tongue.
I say that because, despite getting instant comprehension in English and French, I have noticed that mental images (the picture of what the author is painting) come more slowly. German is better, maybe because it's closer to my mother tongue. Although this mental image trigger tends to get better with practice, it also depends on difficulty. Hardy is slower than Trollope and Dickens. Maybe because reading Hardy means my brain spends more time processing what is being read.

Being a freelance translator too, I can see a few problems with literary translation:
1. There are very few people who appreciate literature completely; who appreciate style, imagery, motifs, metaphors, cultural/historic and the author's own context and all those things that are strictly distinct from the plot, but matter to the interpretation and experience of a novel and an authors as a whole.
2. From amongst this limited pool of people you need to find someone who can fully appreciate your novel in the original language which is foreign to them or can render that full appreciation into the language you want to publish the novel in (here English).
3. Literary translation takes bags of time.
4. Time costs money.

If you've been lucky enough to find a translator who is really suitable, you get to point 3 and 4 which are a problem in the world of English translation. Literary translators get about 1/3 of the fee of a normal translator who does press releases, manuals and certificates. You can also opt for royalties, but unless you have been on Oprah's bookclub there is little chance you will ever make millions from that one book you translated, affording you the time to dedicate to another one. In the EU (or only Dutch?) they solve this by giving grants to literary translators, so their fee per word is higher, but this means that publishers need to invest time and money into applying for these grants and also that translators are those with paper to prove they have the linguistic knowledge, not necessarily those who would be best suited.

To confound the issue, most publishers work with their 'fixed' translators and these are not necessarily the best of the best, far from. Perversely, I need to prove more extensively that I have an exceedingly high level of a language before I'm welcome to translate a press release than when I can translate a book.
Recently I read a critique about a German translator who has translated several books by a Scandinavian author, I forget who. The German was so abysmal that even I could see it. But even worse, apparently sometimes it was nonsensical and had little to do with the source. The translator was a self-proclaimed specialist in this foreign language, evidently with poor comprehension skills. The same translator churned out novels at a few per year, way too high. A good translator works at a maximum of 2500 words per working day, depending on the difficulty.
These mishaps don't only occur with modern authors either. I remember a discussion on LinkedIn about a particular translation of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain into Dutch, a member commenting that 'OK, X clearly had a problem with modal verbs in German, but for the rest his translation was OK.' For those who don't know what a modal verb is: there is a difference between 'I may go to the supermarket tomorrow' and 'I might go to the supermarket tomorrow'. Then I dread to think what misinterpretations are hidden in that translation.

Which is maybe why you don't get the buzz from a translation.

[Vota]

Nice post Kiki1982.

A good translator makes all the difference. It is also interesting to compare two or more translators that are both good, to see what they do or do not emphasize.

I always make it a habit to compare as many translations as I can before settling on one. Literalness, adherence to the feel of the author and their message, and the overall pleasure of actually reading the translation all play a factor in which I one I choose. What's really interesting is that I cannot breakdown exactly what it is that ultimately makes me choose one over another. It's like a feeling I get. Sometimes I'll prefer one translator over another for a different work for completely different reasons. The best example of this is The Iliad and The Odyssey. I love Fagle's translations of both for their speed and force. I like Lattimore's The Iliad for it's grand feel. I like Pope's The Iliad, but didn't care for his The Odyssey (probably because it was a hodgepodge of translators' work on it). Similarly, I liked Fitzgerald's The Odyssey and The Aeneid, but did not care for Fagle's The Aeneid. It's funny how that works.

[Pompey Bum]

Literalness, adherence to the feel of the author and their message, and the overall pleasure of actually reading the translation all play a factor in which I one I choose.

Yes, those are the choices. Poetic ability can also be important (especially with ancient epic). I'm glad you mention the "pleasure of actually reading a translation", too. Too many readers torture themselves with dull, slavishly literal translations of the classics (Penguin used to have a horrendous set of these back in the day), or assume that a modern idiom translation must be preferable to an older one. Never underestimate the charms of a little brandy and a Victorian translation of Tacitus.

You express a similar idea very well on another thread:


In my opinion, unless you are reading Rabelais for scholarly purposes I would recommend a translation that best fits his mood and style, rather than one that is a more literal translation.

It's best, of course, to read the originals, but as this generation seems to be convinced that such magic is beyond its learning, good translations become more important than ever.

[Vota]

I wouldn't say that reading works in their original seems to be magic or beyond peoples' learning ability. The problem, if it is actually one, especially here in America, is that most people are only brought up speaking English, with their first introduction to a secondary language in highschool. This country is for all intents and purposes a one language country in the way it educates it's children.

I'm 34 and it would be a struggle for me to learn a language so well that I could read a work with as much ease and pleasure as I do in my own tongue. I don't see the point. I personally don't think being able to speak multiple languages denotes much of anything, except that the person from a young age was taught them. It is no great feat to learn 2, 3, even 4 languages if you are exposed to them from childhood and continually use them as you grow up. It is something to learn a new language, and gain a high level of proficiency with it as an adult. I'm not even convinced that learning another language would increase the pleasure of reading a work if you can't read it comfortably with understanding, compared to a translation.

I've known several people that were born outside of the U.S. that can speak 3-4 languages, and without fail their vocabulary in English is fairly limited. It doesn't appear so at first, but in mastering a language you must understand some of the history of the place you are speaking it in, and you must understand slang, as well as many somewhat archaic words in order to really have what I would call great proficiency with it. It would seem to me that unless you are introduced to these languages from an early age you will have an uphill struggle in attaining a level comparable to your native, or main language, and therefore will find it likely more enjoyable to read translations unless you find singular pleasure in acquiring new languages, in which case, you are likely more interested in languages themselves, rather than the literature.

[Eiseabhal]

Being able to speak several languages fluently is like being able to play several musical instruments well. It is a sign of virtuosity. It is probably the case that one instrument or one language will be the favoured one but I have not noticed the vocabulary depletion that is mentioned above. Indeed I have noticed the opposite.

[kiki1982]

Hm, it depends what you mean by 'exposed'.
I mean, I think it's important for children to be exposed to the idea that there are other languages they can't understand, but which they can learn to (even if they are too young) rather than always having their films, books and what have you, dubbed.

Personally I was part of a monolingual Flemish family. Although my parents obviously knew French (as we all do), English and some German (as we all do too in Belgium), we never spoke any of it. But children in the Netherlands, the Flemish part of Belgium and Luxembourg are confronted all the time with the idea that other people speak other languages. They hear them and maybe even hear their parents speak them. The news is always subtitled and so are even children's series for reading ages. For a long time, I got frustrated, because I read too slowly, but although children won't learn Arabic from news pictures about Syria, they will get acquainted with the concept of not understanding people and that there are people who do.
I started English when I was 14 and German when I was 15. Admittedly German is easy for me, I only struggle to reproduce perfectly, but let's say even when we started French at age 11, I didn't see it as something that was difficult. Just different. I think there is the huge problem in English-speaking countries and also in France and where we live in Germany: they live in a monolingual culture, they'll never hear anything else but English (save from in certain areas) and so they won't have a need to understand what's being said. Our neighbours' son is 16 now and although he's got an English-speaking neighbour in my husband and his parents tell him to practise, he says he can read English and that's enough. I find that quite astonishing. My cousin, when he was 8 repeated English sentences from Power Rangers off the TV. And he probably speaks now, albeit with (potentially lots of) mistakes.

I'm not sure whether acquiring a language automatically means your vocab is less profound. How many native speakers find Shakespeare too hard and how many non-natives wouldn't bat an eyelid? I do feel that when I'm in the UK, I lack colloquial vocab and colloquial word order, so I speak probably in a posher way, but I think my in-laws would be quite amazed that I'll just go and read some Austen or something.

In this, you can't underestimate the value of other languages you know. Lots of English vocab is from French. And some dialect is from Germanic. Having learnt Russian for two years to level A2 reading (straightforward and not too detailed; directions and restaurant menus, easy newspaper articles), I now try and learn Czech when I'm over there. Many words are related, though not totally the same. The vocab you have provides a hook to hang your vocab on, so to say.

I would say the greatest challenge in reading in a different language is the culture around it. The corpus of literature the author has read is different. English authors quote from Shakespeare where French ones quote from Voltaire, to put it simply. Some things like the Grimms' and Andersen's fairy tales cross over, but other things don't take off. And that's excluding the country/language's history itself. Although, reading in a different language makes you appreciate today's culture of that language/nation more, because today's world has grown out of the past.

[Pompey Bum]

I personally don't think being able to speak multiple languages denotes much of anything, except that the person from a young age was taught them. It is no great feat to learn 2, 3, even 4 languages if you are exposed to them from childhood and continually use them as you grow up. It is something to learn a new language, and gain a high level of proficiency with it as an adult.

It's really not a question of how it makes you look in the eyes of others but what it can do for you as a reader and a person. Just learning French can open an enormous literature to you, some of which is not even available in English translation. And Greek and Latin open another world--a place where they truly do things differently. And of course it's hard. Things worth doing usually are. Ah well, not my business. Adieu.

[Vota]

Knowing multiple languages is probably useful for helping someone appreciate other cultures and languages besides their own, but their's no guarantee of that.

Things that are truly worthwhile are usually difficult to achieve, but whether learning other languages as an adult is worthwhile is massively debatable. It really depends on the reason why. I could probably list 50 things off the top of my head that would be difficult to achieve that would confer far more benefit and enjoyment to me than learning a new language, but this is in relation to my living circumstances and world view.

I find it highly unlikely that a non-native English speaker would find Shakespeare easier to read than a native speaker. The problem with many American kids is their pathetic reading requirements nowadays and the tripe that passes for literature study at the university level. That and the inability to draw comparisons between the past and present and find the relevance in older works. The ability to discern universal truths, emotions, problems etc, in all ages and stages of literature, is a skill that is falling by the wayside in favor of multiculturalism, lowest common denominator curriculum, and other such detrimental hoopla. I find Shakespeare and Milton quite easy to read, easier than The King James Bible tbh.

You can just as easily read translations from other languages to gain appreciation for other cultures. I do it all the time.

I won't disagree about having literature open up to you in other languages that isn't currently available in translation, but generally the standout works of most European cultures are already in translation. I've got Voltaire sitting in front of me on my shelf (just read Candide, it was ok, looking forward to his philosophical dictionary) next to Musil, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, The Bible, Bhagavad Gita and many others. There may be works of merit that I do not have access to, but there isn't enough time in one life to read everything, so again, most of the best stuff is already available. Now if I wanted to specialize in the literature of a particular culture, then I could see not knowing the language being a huge problem.

[lichtrausch]

I think it is quite useful to learn at least one language other than your native one. It gives you some perspective on language in general and even on your native language. But beyond that, it is definitely a matter of personal priorities. IMO, knowing only one language is something like only being able to listen to music played by one instrument. Yes, you can still listen to any song. Is it anything like the experience of listening to songs played with a wide variety of instruments? Not really.

Personally, I have found it incredibly rewarding to learn several languages. It has brought me immense joy to be able to read Japanese literature in the way that the author intended it to be read, i.e. in its original language.

[Clopin]

Being largely monolingual is one of my greatest shames, I can read and understand French aaaaallright, but I don't have anything close to total comprehension or instant understanding. I do plan to learn at least two languages in addition to English in my lifetime, but I don't know when it will happen.

[Vota]

I'm not convinced that knowing multiple languages well confers any more appreciation than at least attempting to learn other languages. I took two college classes on Spanish and Japanese and that gave me a much greater understanding about the complexity of language, especially as it relates to people with English as a second language.

It is unfortunate that a lot of people, particularly the young, often smirk or find people that don't speak perfect English sound stupid, but a lot of people think like this, or do without realizing it. Knowing multiple languages or having experienced learning another language to some degree rapidly destroys this negative and ignorant viewpoint. This is probably one of the greatest benefits of knowing or understanding languages.

P.S. The first sentence of the second paragraph is atrocious in its syntax, but I would rather comment on it than take the time to change it. Conserving energy and stuff.

[ennison]

Clopin. I've worked out that's not you in that thing they call an avatar so who is it. She is either a pretty woman or god forbid a pretty boy

[kiki1982]

I find it highly unlikely that a non-native English speaker would find Shakespeare easier to read than a native speaker. The problem with many American kids is their pathetic reading requirements nowadays and the tripe that passes for literature study at the university level. That and the inability to draw comparisons between the past and present and find the relevance in older works. The ability to discern universal truths, emotions, problems etc, in all ages and stages of literature, is a skill that is falling by the wayside in favor of multiculturalism, lowest common denominator curriculum, and other such detrimental hoopla. I find Shakespeare and Milton quite easy to read, easier than The King James Bible tbh.

Exactly, it's a matter of practice, but as I take it, there isn't much in the way of that in the Anglosaxon world nowadays. We did Romeo and Juliet in our third year of English. It took a while before we 'got' the flow of it, but in the end, it's not that hard. How many people are taken aback by Chaucer? It's surprisingly easy if you know French and German.


You can just as easily read translations from other languages to gain appreciation for other cultures. I do it all the time.

I beg to differ. There's nothing like reading Austen in English and Hugo in French. Obviously you have to make some sacrifices (you can't learn all the languages of the world), but nothing really compares to reading an original. In fact, I've tried Austen in German and Dutch. It's just terrible.


I won't disagree about having literature open up to you in other languages that isn't currently available in translation, but generally the standout works of most European cultures are already in translation. I've got Voltaire sitting in front of me on my shelf (just read Candide, it was ok, looking forward to his philosophical dictionary) next to Musil, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, The Bible, Bhagavad Gita and many others. There may be works of merit that I do not have access to, but there isn't enough time in one life to read everything, so again, most of the best stuff is already available. Now if I wanted to specialize in the literature of a particular culture, then I could see not knowing the language being a huge problem.

Ah, yes, that's true. At some point, people made a selection and you're reading that selection. At the moment, that selection is largely governed by the answer to the question "Will it sell to the masses?" Some stuff that's in the classic canon now would probably never have made it, had the populace that bought books not been only the well-educated.
If you read in translation, you may be missing out on stuff because it's been mistranslated (see my comments on the literary translation world), but even worse, the corpus the author (unconsciously) drew from when he was writing the original might not exist in translation, because it was never picked up on by foreign language publishers at the time. You won't even know it's a reference, because you can't even look it up. And that's excluding entire fashions or contexts in writings that may not have crossed to the culture of the target language and which you are totally unaware of.

[Clopin]

Clopin. I've worked out that's not you in that thing they call an avatar so who is it. She is either a pretty woman or god forbid a pretty boy

Pffft, how do you know I'm not a fourteen year old girl? She at least has my demeanor (is there seriously no 'u' in demeanor?).

http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/images/cinema/Mouchette.jpg

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouchette

[Clopin]

It's really not a question of how it makes you look in the eyes of others but what it can do for you as a reader and a person. Just learning French can open an enormous literature to you, some of which is not even available in English translation. And Greek and Latin open another world--a place where they truly do things differently. And of course it's hard. Things worth doing usually are. Ah well, not my business. Adieu.

You read Greek and Latin? What kind of Greek, all kinds? How and when did you pick up these languages?

[Pompey Bum]

You read Greek and Latin? What kind of Greek, all kinds? How and when did you pick up these languages?

I studied the classics at "a famous college in Massachusetts" many, many eons ago. We read Attic, and if you can read Attic you can read Koine. I taught Latin for a while, too. (Similarly, If you can read Classical Latin you can read Vulgar and Ecclesiastical Latin). I studied French in Elementary and Middle School. I later served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the former French colony of Gabon, where I spoke only French for a number of years. All three are pretty rusty now, especially the French, which I haven't really used in 30 years. I try to read from the Greek and Latin Bible sometimes, but even that is slipping now. I don't like to talk about this because people take it as boasting. It isn't. It's just an interest. Okay?

[Clopin]

So you learned as an adult?

Hahahaha also any mention of Greek or Latin nowadays reminds me that I post on another message board occasionally, populated mostly by twenty something guys who refer to themselves as patricians and other members as plebs, based pretty much solely on how many of the Greeks and Romans they've read (in English). If you went to Harvard and read that stuff in the original Greek and Latin you could probably conquer the whole place.

[Pompey Bum]

Thank you, but my conquests are over. But to answer your question, I learned French as a child, Latin as a teenager, and Greek as a young man. The languages support one another to some extent, especially Latin and French.

[ennison]

Ah Mouchette. Quel dommage! La pauvre petite!

[HSPS]

It depends on the translation. Though I don't know any language well enough to be an authority, when I sample translated literature I sometimes get the feeling that the translator is trying to be too faithful to the language of the original and is not trying instead to convey its spirit and beauty in a unique English voice. Undoubtedly there needs to be a certain degree of compromise between accuracy and artistry. Still, if I were a translator, I'd focus less finding the closest individual words and more on the essence of the work as a whole, and, based on my enjoyment of the translated books that I took the time to finish, I assume some of them have done just that.

Remember, just because we can't hear Bach play his own music doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't enjoy the playing of his interpreters. (I know that's not a perfect comparison, but I think it still has weight.)

[Eiseabhal]

It's an excellent comparison. Anyone musical and bilingual will get your point synaesthetically at once.

[BartV90]

I've read works in Dutch (my native language), English, and a few in German and French. I pretty much only read in English these days, but do intend to pick up again Dutch literature at some point.

I don't really care that I can't read original works in Russian, Spanish, or these days even German and French (especially the latter). It's not easy to learn a new language. I'm happy I can read English so well, allowing me to read translated versions of works that I wouldn't have been able to read otherwise. I personally look more at the content (plot, characters, ideas and messages) than at language style etc.

[talleyrand]

I always try to read books in their original language in order to get the real meaning of the words. Indeed, it worth making the difference between an original content and a translated one; there are lots of mistakes sometimes. That is the reason why I enjoy reading English authors in the English language, German authors in the German language and so on. I learn new languages to be able to read that way.

[beatsandpeaces]

It depends on the reader, as to which language is he/she most comfortable with, regardless if it's her mother tongue or not. The quality of translation is a very huge factor indeed.

[HSPS]

It's an excellent comparison. Anyone musical and bilingual will get your point synaesthetically at once.

But with music anybody can be reasonably sure that the notes, rhythm, etc. that he is hearing/reading are what the composer intended, with allowance for third-party editing in some cases. A monolingual person reading a translated book is entirely dependent on the translator. I agree that it's a good comparison, though. It's certainly the closest one that I can think of.

[kiki1982]

And can you be sure, if you are reading in the original language that what you are reading is exactly what the author intended? Arguably everyone hears musical notes the same (although maybe that's debatable like with colours), but comprehension of a language might not be the same. If only because you don't know about the history of words or various meanings.

Then again the fact that it's your mother tongue is not really a a guarantee that you actually understand the work better than if it's someone's second language, I reckon. It's largely practice.