ITT: Question for the not english natives

Do you always read the book in your native language or do you prefer reading it in english in order to improve your knowledge of the language?

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If book has not been written in my native lang, I'd rather read it in english as most often english translations are much better and more available.

If it isn't in either Serbo-Croatian or German, I'd avoid reading A*Glo translations, unless, of course, the original is in E*Glish.

I mostly read stuff originally written in my own language. Shakespeare I've read in English, but there isn't much english or american literature that interests me anyway

I read in my language and I was avoiding reading English works, waiting for the moment I have more vocabulary.

But I think I've reached a point where I cannot improve without reading, so I guess I'm gonna start reading in English and using a dictionary every time I need it. It's going to take longer to read one page but I guess there is no other way.

When the level of vocabulary is too high like Pynchon or David Foster Wallace I prefer to read a translation in my native language in order to enjoy them. Cant really sit down to read a book with a fucking dictionary.

It depends, I read English books in English but sometimes I want to read books from other countries in my native language

Nowadays if the book was written in English I'll just get the original. Specially because it's so easy to pirate and insert it into my kindle. I buy books in Portuguese.

If it's originally written in English or there's no translation to my language, I'll probably read it in English. Unless it's non-fiction, in which case I rarely read it in English if I don't have to. And I make an exception for certain types of fiction, e.g I haven't read lotr in English.

Why is Serbo-Croatian acceptable?

I'm Norwegian, and if the original is in English I will always read it in English. If it is in some other language I don't care whether it is translated into English or Norwegian as long as the translation is good.

Native French and English bilingual.
I read French and English language authors in the original text.
As for others it depends on the quality of the translation. For example English translations of Dostoevsky have long been the best until Markowicz published his new French translations.

This
Spanish translations suck ass most o the time

Because it's my native tongue.

Russian here
The only books I read in English is anglo literature - Shakespeare, Dickens, etc
The books written here are meant to be read in Russian

It depends on the origin. For example, if it's from my country or popular in it or initially printed in a language I speak, I'll read it in that language. But, if it's something entirely foreign to me, say Tolstoy's books, I'll read it in English.

Not true, at least not in Spain. In fact there's a way bigger translation tradition in Spain than in any anglo country. Take a look at this.

wordswithoutborders.org/article/viva-translation

For works that are not written originally in English or Spanish, always go for the Spanish translation.

Even though there is so much literature written in my native language(Arabic), I tend to favor reading english stuff more than reading stuff in arabic. This is probably because I learnt english when I was about 7. I read both English and Arabic literature throughout my school years, even though Arabic literature is far better than english literature imo, I read more english novels than arabic at home

Do you think Arabic literature would be untranslatable, or at least would lose too much in translation to be worth a read? If not, can you reccommend me some poets or novels?

>do you prefer reading it in english in order to improve your knowledge of the language?
English is not that hard. Everyone in Denmark speaks/writes it fluently.

I prefer to read in danish unless the original book is in english.
Same goes for German, french and russian.

I bought Storm of Steel in english because i preferred the penguin cover
Like, it doesn't make that much of a difference for me if it is in english or on my native language

Oh, I misunderstood, I thought you wanted to avoid English translations, apart from English translations of German and Serbo-croatian works.

I read in English because it's more easily available and its vocabulary is much more extensive and precise than Norwegian.

I do not think arabic novels are as untranslatable as arabic poems. Anyways, some of the stuff that I read and really liked are One Thousand and One Nights(Although this one is a collection of folk tales, I am putting it here because it was one of the first arabic literature that I read and thought it was amazing), Risalat Al-Fadil Ibn Natiq(I had this one during high school since it had some complicated themes that touched stuff like Religion and philosophy) and Opinions of the residents of a virtuous/splendid city(not sure how it is called in english). Last one is non-realistic fiction and had some fantasy elements. I think these are the pieces of arabic literature that I enjoyed a lot that I can still remember them clearly

Reading is the only thing i do exclusively in my native language

Philosophy in English, novels in my language.

Anyway I can't fucking stand the English language, sorry.

ESL fag here. I convert words to sign language and fill in blanks with English words.

Ps. If you think that being fluent in a language means mastery. You're completely wrong. Unless you're equivalent to a native speaker, you haven't mastered shit.

Wrong.

-Best Greek-Latin translations (Gredos).
-Best German translations (since Ortega many Spaniards have gone to Germany to learn German philosophy and language, see José Gaos, Félix Duque, Ripalda, etc.).
-Best Russian translations (the Spaniards who ran away during the Spanish Civil War to the Soviet Union and worked as translators, translating both literature and philosophy).

I prefer to read in my native language unless the book is written in very simple English and I can focus on the book instead of translating some parts in my head.

Do any English natives have success reading literature/philosophy in their 2nd or 3rd language?

I like to consume my media in the most enriching way possible - and usually, translations are somewhat worse than the original.