Do you read books in more than one language?

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by scoff

I read in English (native) and in Chinese. I read in Chinese for work (research interests in China) and for pleasure in an attempt to become more familiar with popular Chinese lit. There wasn't an option to choose both so I had to choose 'other'

Now I'm impressed. Chinese can't be easy. Learning a decent amount of symbols to be able to comprehend a text must have taken some time.

[mores]

How about
I read books in their native language
German from german authors, english for most authors and, sometimes, french for Les Authors Francais

[mtravellerh]

I like to read my books in the original where I can: German, French, English, Italian, Latin. Original books just sound better, if you know what I mean.

[IceHand]

I read many books in English, either because they haven't been translated into German yet, the translated copies are out of print or the English version is considerably cheaper.
From time to time I read books in Danish mostly just to not get out of practice.

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

I like to read my books in the original where I can: German, French, English, Italian, Latin. Original books just sound better, if you know what I mean.

I'm getting a little bit envious.

[Lirael]

I'm a native English speaker, but I read Russian literature in Russian and Spanish literature in Spanish. This is mostly because I'm sick of bad translations and I like just going directly to the original - that way I know what the author actually meant to write and I don't have to rely on someone else's interpretation.

I've been trying to read a little bit in Finnish, but my Finnish isn't quite good enough to handle that yet, and there isn't exactly a glut of Finnish-language books available to me. Someday, perhaps...

[scoff]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

Now I'm impressed. Chinese can't be easy. Learning a decent amount of symbols to be able to comprehend a text must have taken some time.

Yeah, it definitely took a long time (good thing life as an undergrad was easy). It wasn't really hard, you just have to be persistent.

[Joerg_Mosthaf]

Same as many others here - I prefer to read a book in the authors native language. Translations always lose something.
My native language is German, I read mostly in English and German and a little French and Spanish.

[Laurentiu]

Now... how shall I cast my vote here...

Yes, I read in another language for work reason, but also because some books are not available in my language and, of course, because I try to improve my skills in the other language. Altogether I can speak fluently four languages.

[Laurentiu]

.....

[nikkie]

I'm a native English speaker and read almost exclusively in English. I occasionally attempt to muddle my way through things in German or Japanese.

With Japanese it is very hard because there are so many Kanji that I don't know yet. Has anyone seen an ereader or ereader software for Apple devices which contains the Hiragana and English translations for Kanji?

I also attempt to read in German occasionally, but not on my iPhone yet. Usually I am just trying to make sense out of a website written in German (txtr?!).

It seems to me that ereaders ought to be ideal for reading in foreign languages, but I don't know much about translation dictionaries on any of them.

[Polyglot27]

I have been reading in Chinese and English since the age of ten. When I was in my teens I got interested in Japanese and German. A series of coincidences led to my learning French without really intending to at the ripe old age of 29.
At the moment, since I read mostly non-fiction, I do most of my reading in English and Japanese since the US, UK and Japan are extremely active in publishing books on practically every subject imaginable. Enjoyment is also important and I don't seem to enjoy reading Chinese and French now as much as I do the two previous languages.
I use a Cybook and have managed to stock it up with books in all 4 languages.

[worxland]

I chose other, cos I read for reasons 2, 3, 4 and 5:

I read in my native (Hungarian) for native authors, and English for work (being an IT guy it is no big surprise), for a lot of untranslated novels, for not forgetting too much and for fun (Sir Pratchett is not translatable - I have read some of his works in Hungarian: many tried - all failed; it is not the same, the nuances and puns are not really there. Another one is Jeremy Clarkson, when you read his articles you can just hear the presentation method with which he delivers his speech - and that is only enjoyable in English).

[opitzs]

I read seldomly german and often english.

2 reasons:
1.) German ebooks are few and the prices are very high
2.) Some "translations" are catastrophes

So I prefer to read english authors in english and the rest - well german authors in german and other authors: that depends on availability and price.

Ciao
Sven

[Ea]

I voted 'other reasons' because it was not a multiple choice poll. I actually read books in foreign languages for several of those 6 options. Work, language skill, not avalable, and because I can.