Reading in English as a Non-native Speaker

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Yes, humor and swearing is the hardest.
For the latter you have to know both languages very well or, you WILL get it wrong. If it's archaic swearing then you definitely have to do a lot of etymology digging to get it right

Swearing isn't hard to learn, but it's hard to learn per local. Many times the words are double-use. So in a given area, it is a bad word, but in other, only vaguely understood as a swear word. Sort of like saying "Bloody hell." That doesn't sound like much of a swear word in the US, but from what I understand it is in Australia.

I grew up in a Spanish/English speaking community and the slang and curse words there have changed over the years. To an outside being called some of the words wouldn't really be recognized as a curse word. But they're common swear words locally and carry a lot of not-complimentary meaning. Shrug. Languages are what we make of them and it's a living art. It changes.

I agree with the headache of all the written characters in Japanese. It is probably the only thing that makes the language difficult. Must of the rest of it (structure-wise) is nice and orderly. Forms of address can be a bit tricky, but if you're an obvious foreigner, people don't get too uptight if you don't get the honorific right. Well most of the time.

[bucsie]

Originally Posted by Majorix

@bucsie:

What did you study at the college? I am asking it since you mentioned reading computer-science books and not many people read them. I am studying Software Engineering myself, even though I am an old fart to do so (I am 26).

BTW, I hear younger girls do like Twilight, even though it gets really bad reviews everywhere. Since it is a "she" who gave you the book, oh well... If you are female, please forgive my rudeness

I studied "computer science". I'm not sure how it translates to what other countries teach, but my degree says I am an engineer in computer systems...but I am actually a programmer. And saying 26 is old has got to be a punishable offence somewhere .
I am a grown-ass woman, and yes, I did like Twilight and I am actually grateful I did, otherwise I wouldn't have discovered the world of books again. I acknowledge its crappiness, so I guess it can be considered a guilty pleasure.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by bucsie

I studied "computer science". I'm not sure how it translates to what other countries teach, but my degree says I am an engineer in computer systems...but I am actually a programmer.

It depends which specialisation or education you choose. If you choose to do less theory, but more programming, and more software design, then it's "Software Engineering". That's mostly taught at a university of applied sciences. If you choose to do more theory, more mathematics and more abstract and fundamental stuff, then it's called Computer Science. It's mostly taught at a research university.

Of course, Software Engineering has a bit of Computer Science in it, and the other way around too. My degree actually says something like "Applied Computer Science" if I remember correctly. It basically was Software Engineering, but with an inordinate amount of Computer Science mixed in.

[rethec]

I'm german and my first english lesson was at age 12. I wasn't very good and I finished school with a bad grade in english. I begun to study computer science in media and with this subject you can't get around english. I watched a lot of english and british tv-shows, first with german, then english and know mostly without subtitles. It helped a lot to understand the language better. A few years back I started to reread my Harry Potter books in german, but at the end I switched to the english version. Now I can't imagine to read those books in german. Mainly because I don't like the sound of the german translation like "Zauberspruch" oder "Todesser". But I also that you lost the british-feeling with the translation. That is what I thought after I read the sherlock holmes novels in english. Another point is swearing. I think german swearing sounds funny, specially if you translate it from english. I had a reading example from The Casual Vacancy in german and the swearing was rather poorly translated. This is why I read rather the english original. I think humor, swearing or the feeling of the culture is very difficult to translate. But there are a few things you don't get if you don't live in this culture, but if that is happening I google to look it up.

through books and tv-shows I improved to understand english, but I don't like to speak or write it, because my grammar and spelling isn't very good. I'm on my way to improve this too, but sometimes I'm just to lazy to sit there and study ;p

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I agree with the headache of all the written characters in Japanese. It is probably the only thing that makes the language difficult. Must of the rest of it (structure-wise) is nice and orderly. Forms of address can be a bit tricky, but if you're an obvious foreigner, people don't get too uptight if you don't get the honorific right. Well most of the time.

There is a good gauge for that. When you start out learning Japanese, they (the Japanese) will compliment your Japanese profusely. Then when you actually get to know the language, they will start to compliment your skills profusely when you make a mistake.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Majorix

Most books are written in English, and if not, you can expect a translation into English before any other language.

I mostly read in English because I dislike translations. And most books I read are by English or American authors. And I've read translated-into-English books (from Dutch), where I really wondered who the translator was (the same as translated-into-Dutch from English books).

Originally Posted by Ansileran

That sounds quite narrow minded. Yes, it happens quite often, but it doesn't mean it's right. What about poetry? Not worth reading? You loose so much with any translation...

Taste differ, but I dislike poetry, for me it's not worth reading .

Originally Posted by Ansileran

TV is a great way to practice a foreign language. Reading on a reader is great too because of the dictionaries (assuming there is a dictionary in the language that interests you). If I can, I read in the language the book was written, if not... French translations unless they are too expensive (they often are).

Sadly, a lot of countries don't use subtitles (there was a news item about Argentina, I believe it was, the other day, regarding that. All shows on TV had to be dubbed in Spanish, instead of subtitled...)

And I prefer an English translation if I cannot read the book in the language it was written. The awful Dutch translations being the cause of that.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It depends which specialisation or education you choose. If you choose to do less theory, but more programming, and more software design, then it's "Software Engineering". That's mostly taught at a university of applied sciences. If you choose to do more theory, more mathematics and more abstract and fundamental stuff, then it's called Computer Science. It's mostly taught at a research university.

Of course, Software Engineering has a bit of Computer Science in it, and the other way around too. My degree actually says something like "Applied Computer Science" if I remember correctly. It basically was Software Engineering, but with an inordinate amount of Computer Science mixed in.

The English name of the course I took was Computer Science and Information Technology. And it wasn't a university education, but something we call Higher Profession Education, which is one step below university. So I guess it depends on your school (and maybe country )

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Swearing isn't hard to learn, but it's hard to learn per local. Many times the words are double-use. So in a given area, it is a bad word, but in other, only vaguely understood as a swear word. Sort of like saying "Bloody hell." That doesn't sound like much of a swear word in the US, but from what I understand it is in Australia.

Nah, swearing is pretty standard in Aus ..... time and place of course, but still every-dayish behaviour

'Bloody hell' may not even be considered swearing, but irrespective it's very tame compared to the catalogue of available expressions, and it's definitely not blasphemy any more, although decades back it probably was.

[samhy]

Some of my housemates were from England and New Zealand. The word "bloody" seemed powerful to them (they used it a lot, but warned me to not over use it - maybe a men-women thing). Whereas the American guy thought the word was funny

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by samhy

Some of my housemates were from England and New Zealand. The word "bloody" seemed powerful to them (they used it a lot, but warned me to not over use it - maybe a men-women thing). Whereas the American guy thought the word was funny

I have two friends who also warned me away from using "bloody" whatever. One guy was from Australia. The other might have been from there or New Zealand; I forget. That was 20 some years ago. Bloody Hell just doesn't sound all that damning to me. But I get the idea. There's a word that is local to where I grew up that roughly translates to "little goats" and people have been fired for using it. Yet if you used the word in the context of actual little goats, it's not a swear word. And if you said it outside of that region or called someone that, they'd probably think you were a loon.

Some words take on an almost mythical dimension past the actual meaning of the word.

[IorekB]

Hi, here are my 2 cents... I'm from Germany, and I love to read fantasy and scifi, where many works are written by anglophone authors. Though many of them come translated, there are a few downers:

• Translations often come much later (quite excruciating when a beloved series is continued after years of waiting...)
• The original books will often be split up in several tomes
• A single German tome will often cost more than the English original
• Some books of a favourite author might not be translated at all
• Translations may lose some of the original linguistic "flavour" (for example the "Britishness" someone mentioned above, e.g. of the Harry Potter books)

Years ago, I decided to begin reading the english version of many books, dictionary close at hand. Since looking up the words can be quite tiresome and cumbersome, I tried out an electronic translator quite some time ago. I was pretty disappointed by its scope, and quickly returned to the unwieldy paper version.

Now that's where ebooks come into play. I took the plunge in the end of 2011, buying my first reader (Sony PRS-T1). I couldn't be happier since then, I am still amazed by the scope of the built-in dictionary (Oxford), it will rarely fail me when looking up unknown words. Just being able to touch them and to immediately see their translation is a bit like a dream come true. But I think I wouldn't have got into ereading if it weren't for the dictionary functionality, since I find the DRM to be quite restrictive.

[jineapple]

I'm German as well, began reading in English somewhere around 12 or so. Started with the Harry Potter books as well, I guess that's a common starting point :P

I've never been a fan of using a dictionary - Usually I would get the meaning from context, and if not, I mostly just read on without bothering. With a reader I guess that would've been different, but by now I very rarely need one.

I usually don't have any problems reading in English (The only book in the last few years giving me problems was Cloud Atlas - Though that was somewhat intended and would likely have been the same in German. At some point I want to read Ulysses though...wondering how that's going to work)

English books have several advantages to me:

While in school, they have been very useful for learning English...somewhat less now, but I still do pick up the occasional new word.

English books are distinctly cheaper than German ones - This is both for paper books and for ebooks, even more so for the latter ones (In Germany, Book Prices are fixed - I can get any English ebook without price fixing though - only some German ones).

On top of that, a lot of German books split volumes in translations, particularly in Fantasy - Wheel of Time has over 30 books in German - Book 6 and 7 were split into four books *each*). Obviously this makes them more expensive, and more of a hassle as well.

And obviously, a translation will always be inferior to the original text. Obviously if it's from a German author I'll read it in German, but only one of my preferred authors is German, the rest English, so that's not a big deal.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by jineapple

And obviously, a translation will always be inferior to the original text.

Why? I don't find this obvious at all. I can imagine that there are more books around than those by Dan Brown that win through a translation.

And on a more subjective note: I also prefer reading English books in English but I would not necessarily say that the mental translation in my head is better than the written one of a professional translator.

[IorekB]

Well, I think that most of the time, the original should be a bit better than the translation, at least to some degree. I guess that a good translator can succeed fairly well at getting the general meaning across, as well as some of the undertones and details. But I think that there are quite a few challenges difficult to overcome:

• Many words have no perfectly exact counterpart in the other language, so some shades of meaning are lost and/or some new connotations not intended by the author are added.
• Even if a fairly exact transfer is possible, it may miss the elegance or poignancy of the original formulation, the new construction being possibly longer and more convoluted. Additionally, a German translation of an English book will need some 15% to 30% more letters from the get go, due to the language structure (According to an article where employees at German publishers are quoted).
• Dialects are very difficult to get across. Right now, I'm reading some young adult fiction located in Cornwall ("Over Sea, Under Stone", by Susan Cooper). The locals are portrayed speaking with different degrees of dialect, which I scarcely can imagine being easy to translate.
• If we're talking big franchises, translations may be rushed for marketing reasons (ok, I hope something like this should be fairly rare...). The Steve Jobs biography seems to be a notorious example for a pretty bad German translation (at least according to many reviewers on amazon, they gave plenty of examples). Many false friends, obviously different translators for different chapters etc.

All that being said, I can fairly well imagine that a well-versed translator may be able to infuse some fresh poetic life into a text originally being a bit dry. Assuming a given book can fascinate by its page-turner qualities rather than by its possibly bland and dull style, a good translation may be able to round off the whole thing stylistically, rendering the whole even better than the original. But I guess for that to happen, many favourable circumstances have to coincide. But maybe I am to pessimistic...

Ah, one example came to my mind, admittedly being slightly off topic, but nevertheless possibly illustrating my last point: "The Persuaders!", TV series with Roger Moore an Tony Curtis, seems to be generally reputed for gaining much by the livelier and wittier dialogue of the German dubbing (The series is known as "Die Zwei" in Germany).

[bevdeforges]

Originally Posted by samhy

Do you have a link to that thread or group? That sounds interesting

If it's the English language book discussion group, I'm afraid it's a F2F group only. I tried setting up a discussion group on Goodreads, but no one from the real-time group showed much interest.

I've attached one of our more interesting book lists, though. Our member have a wildly divergent set of interests, and I've found more than a few great reads from what others have mentioned.

[bucsie]

Originally Posted by Billi

Why? I don't find this obvious at all. I can imagine that there are more books around than those by Dan Brown that win through a translation.

And on a more subjective note: I also prefer reading English books in English but I would not necessarily say that the mental translation in my head is better than the written one of a professional translator.

I disagree. In most books there are many nuances, cultural references, puns that are simply untranslatable. Not to mention words that don't exist in the translated language, and are approximated to a (not always) close meaning.

As for translating in my head, I've reached the point where I don't even do that any more (at least not consciously). The words just flow like I'd be reading my native tongue.
The downside is not finding words in my tongue when I need them - only the English ones come to the tip of my tongue, and I have to stop to think of an appropriate translation. That sucks, it makes me look silly/inarticulate.
Sometimes I forget myself and interject the English words, and that can be embarrassing .