Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

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acorngalaxy
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Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby acorngalaxy » Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:01 pm

* Compared to reading books written by authors that speak your TL natively.

I’m currently reading The Walking Dead Woodbury series of novels in one of my TLs (Portuguese).

I’m a huge fan of the TV series and the whole TWD universe as a whole, so I thought why not seize the opportunity and read the books in my TL as well?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying my read so far, but I’m just wondering if it’s a better idea to read books from Brazilian authors instead.

Although the book I’m currently reading uses a lot of descriptive language, which is good for vocab learning, I’m worried that I’m missing out on regionalisms, slang and idioms+ natural ways to write/speak through the dialogues. (stuff that can only be found in books originally written in your TL and elements I find crucial to sound more native-like both in speech and in writing, as well as to better understand natives).

By the way, thanks for all the suggestions on my previous posts (and this one as well I guess)! I didn’t have time to reply previously.
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby Cavesa » Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:51 pm

No. But it depends on the quality of the translation. A bad one is not that enjoyable and not that great to learn from, perhaps not even that natural, but it still shouldn't contain mistakes at the very least.

Good translations are a perfect way to widen your options in the target language, and they can often be a good stepping stone towards the literature originally in the TL.

I’m worried that I’m missing out on regionalisms, slang and idioms+ natural ways to write/speak through the dialogues. (stuff that can only be found in books originally written in your TL and elements I find crucial to sound more native-like both in speech and in writing, as well as to better understand natives).


This is not the reason to be worried, it doesn't work like this.

-many books by native authors actually don't contain much regionalisms or slang. It depends on the genre, on the author's style, on their choice of characters.

-a very good translator uses all this stuff appropriately too, so the difference is not as huge as you imagine it. The main problem of a translation is the difference between the original work and its own translation, not this.

-your worries would be founded, if you'd read just very few books in the TL. But as you need to read at least 10000 pages in order to be really good in my opinion, you'll need to read many varied books and cover everything. It would be stupid to expect one or two books to show you everything, wouldn't it? But if you read plenty, you don't need to worry.
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby einzelne » Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:56 pm

If you enjoy reading it, how it can be detrimental?:) It's not like it's your last and only book in your target language.
You can always add original books later. The key is to read a lot and to do that you need to read stuff which you're interested in.
Last edited by einzelne on Thu Aug 26, 2021 3:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby simplicio » Thu Aug 26, 2021 1:22 pm

I second einzelne! For me, the best I can do in a first reading is focus on having fun and experience the feeling of finally understanding the written language.

It came to my mind that a translated book might also become an advantage in the first steps, as there are books in which intrinsic cultural or social aspects are crucial to a smoother reading.
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby gsbod » Thu Aug 26, 2021 3:23 pm

As far as I can see there are 4 perfectly legitimate reasons to read translations in your TL:

1) Reading a translation of something you are already familiar with can be a useful stepping stone when you are starting to read real books (hence the popularity of translations of things like Le Petit Prince or Harry Potter among some language learners).

2) The original text is in a language you can't already read. If you're going to have to read it in translation anyway, why not read a translation to your TL?

3) A translation exists to your TL, but not to your native language.

4) You are free to read whatever you want to read (as long as it's legal...) ;)

Obviously if you're learning a language because you're interested in the/a culture associated with that language, it makes sense to read books from that culture. But that doesn't rule out reading other things too.
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby rdearman » Thu Aug 26, 2021 3:57 pm

gsbod wrote:4) You are free to read whatever you want to read (as long as it's legal...)

I have been racking my brains to think of something which is illegal to read (in UK for example). Obtaining something might be illegal, e.g. downloading pirate copies of books, but the actual reading of the books isn't illegal. If you legally obtained the materials then it should be legal for you to read it. Freedom of speech and all that jazz?
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Aug 26, 2021 4:29 pm

rdearman wrote:I have been racking my brains to think of something which is illegal to read (in UK for example). Obtaining something might be illegal, e.g. downloading pirate copies of books, but the actual reading of the books isn't illegal. If you legally obtained the materials then it should be legal for you to read it. Freedom of speech and all that jazz?
The Anarchist's cookbook might be an example.
Oliver Bel, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was convicted of collecting information useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-56864490

A definition that broad could include lots of books.

EDIT
Re: original question, no nothing wrong in reading translated books.
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby lusan » Thu Aug 26, 2021 5:22 pm

What a question!

I read when I was a kid Russians, Germans, French, English, Italian, Indian, Japanese, etc... I loved War and Peace and Crime and Punishment, French Poetry, etc... All them translated into Spanish... There is nothing lost even with a bad translation.... have fun! Read, read, read till the end of time!
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby galaxyrocker » Thu Aug 26, 2021 9:05 pm

I'm going to take a slightly different spin on this. For minority languages, I would argue it is detrimental. However, it's not detrimental to your language abilities as much as it is to the literary culture of the language itself. I'm speaking solely from my experience with Irish, so please take this all with a grain of salt.

However, what I've seen is that translations get all the media attention when they're released. There's little-to-no press hype, outside of the publishing houses, for books that are written only in Irish. But every Irish language magazine/newspaper, and sometimes even the English ones, pick up on when Irish translations are planned, especially if it's a very well known book (the Irish translation of Game of Thrones is one I'm thinking of). I think this itself is detrimental to the literary culture, as it takes away influence that those who are developing said culture could have. When all the focus is to appeal to the mass of English speakers who want to read the latest English book in Irish (or classics, as Matilda is set to be translated this year), it harms the promotion of Irish books. It also promotes the outside literary culture over the development of the native Irish culture, and how people are interacting with Irish themes in Irish. Instead, we just get hyped about reading the same books we've read in English, dealing with English themes, etc. and it comes at the expense of Irish language literature itself.

So I try to not read translations, especially if it's a book that's come from English. I'd be more willing to read something like the book Eoin P. Ó Murchú translated from Scottish Gaelic to Irish, or something from Basque, etc., though I still tend to prefer literature that was written in Irish at first (and the older the better as the Irish is much richer)
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Re: Is reading books that have been translated to your TL detrimental?

Postby Sumisu » Sat Aug 28, 2021 1:05 am

I think reading translated books is very valuable, maybe even critical. Assuming the book has been translated skillfully to appeal to the TL's native speakers, you can gain a lot of insight into how certain concepts are expressed in the TL. In the case of Harry Potter, there are many examples of these kinds of insights, such as Hagrid's ungrammatical speech patterns compared to Dumbledore's highly educated speech, compared with how the children speak to each other. It's also interesting to see how certain British sensibilities, say around class and dignity, get expressed in the TL. There's really an endless amount of cultural stuff to mine from these translations, provided you can trust that the translator has done a good job.

I can imagine how this might be different in a language like Irish, if the translations end up being read mostly by native English speakers. But Portuguese likely doesn't have this problem.
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