Hey Veeky Forums

Hey Veeky Forums

Do you read in your mother tongue?

I'm German, so writings that're from the period of German Enlightenment I will of course read in German since there's no real point in reading a translated version of it. Though, with works that're not natively in English, I'm not sure what to do. For English literature it's pretty clear that I will read that in English for the sake of learning and being able to experience it in the words of the writer. But if something, in example, has only been translated from Greek, does it really make a difference whether I read it in English or German?

What do you do? Do you read in your mother tongue or do you try to read everything in English?

It seems completely obvious that I should read something written in Greek or Latin in my mother tongue. Why would I read it in english? The translations are probably weaker.

I really enjoy reading books in portuguese, find it much prettier than english. French and latin are also nice.

Well it does make a difference between Italian and English given that some puns in French etc. could be translatable, Italian uses gendered words and English has but a select few nouns (see "female Acheans not male Acheans" from Homer), Romance languages, Latin and Greek are closest to Italian than English as the above post says, etc.

I go for the English translations of the literature of India and East Asia, the translations are better in both quantity and quality, as India didn't have to obtain independence from Italy nor does Italy have Indian and Asian communities as sizable as the Anglosphere.

Of course I would read English originals in English unless it's very old stuff like Chaucer or older still.

I learned French in high school and I knew enough where I could read Camus and only look up a few words per "partie". From them on I was able to expand into other French philosophers. Sartre is still a bitch to read though.

>He can't read Chaucer in english

I prefer German as a language, so I usually go with German. Old stuff, e.g. The Greeks™, has great translations and secondary works in German. For contemporary foreign Literature, you might want to asses it individually.

It's not that I can't, it's just that Chaucer, through no fault of his own, happens to write like cats on the internet:
>Oon ere it herde, at tothir out it wente
>Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese
or rather, cats on the internet happen to write like him.
>And for ther is so gret diversite
>In Englissh and in writyng of oure tonge,
>So prey I God that non myswrite the,
>Ne the mysmetre for defaute of tonge;
>And red wherso thow be, or elles songe,
>That thow be understonde, God I biseche!

Another example is German philosophy.

For instance, Dasein can be translated as Esserci in Italian. Even if they had the ability to translate Dasein in something that doesn't make the text read like eye cataract, Anglos are dominated by the analytics anyway.

>tfw monolingual and monocultural
>don't even bother reading non-english books or translations because I won't understand the author's true words

I submit to my Anglo-Saxon masters and all that isn't in written in my native language, or other languages I know, I read in English translations.

I almost never read in my native language because translated books are hella expensive and I dislike Danish literature. For example, a shitty paperbook/ebook version of a classic like Lolita costs at least €20. Instead I just torrent English and German books and read them on an e-book reader.

>But if something, in example, has only been translated from Greek, does it really make a difference whether I read it in English or German?
If you read the greeks get the german translation, ancient greek translates waaay better to german than to english
If you read sci-fi or fantasy I would stick with the english translation since german really translates awfully to 'futuristic' prose
for everything else you just have to chose individually

Why don't you torrent Danish translations?

German here too.
I read Russian works in German because of all the good translations made in the GDR.
I read Spanish works in English. My reasoning is that more people speak English and Spanish than German and Spanish.
Thus the translations to English should be better on average.
It's probably a stupid reasoning.

Spanish is so fucking easy to learn, you can master that language in a month if you study everyday.

I tend to read most translations in English because I've gotten into the habit of reading in English since I was a boy.

Any Dutch books I come across I will of course read in Dutch, but it's rare for me to take much interest in literature from my country. None of it has really appealed to me so far. Might have just been looking in the wrong corners, though.

I read the original in german or english, sometimes in french. If it's not in one of these languages I read the translation to german, except if it's not available, then I read the translation to english. I think this is the only rational way and cannot fathom why somebody would do it any other way.

same here

>Dasein
>Being

Wow tough translation.

Native level: French, English
Fluent in: Spanish, Portuguese
Struggle in: German, Italian

I'll read in the original publication. If it's a language other than those mentioned, I'll prefer the English version.

Please do read works from foreigners. The parts where they say no one can translate only account for 5% (totally non-scientific stat) of the message conveyed.

Then how would you translate Sein, to prevent an English reader from confusing the two?

this is actually true but I still don't understand why

Well, 'Sein' would be 'being', whilst for 'Dasein' would be almost acceptable being translated as 'present', but put in an adequate context, wouldn't it?

Sein = being ≠ Dasein

Excuse me, I meant 'presence', not 'present'.

Sein - being
Dasein - Being

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I'm unreasonably wary of translations of things to anything other than English. I'm a heritage speaker of Spanish, and I'll often look for Spanish media, etc. to improve my skills, but I'm always a bit paranoid that Spanish translations of things will be sub-par. Is that unreasonable? I always feel that it's more likely for a translation to the current lingua franca to be accurate and carefully made than a translation to any other language, even if said language is more closely related to the original language. Or, if not individually better in terms of quality, at least better in terms of quantity, to the point where I can easily research and find someone who has actually put together a fairly faithful translation.

I am Spanish. I only read in English if the book is originally written in English. If not, I read it translated into Spanish.

Lol nope, I'm not going to invent a way to pronounce that capital B when speaking to the classroom to get the difference across. And I'm not going to try to decipher which capital B it is when reading a sentence that happens to begin with Dasein.

I'll take being-there any day of the week over that shit.

Well presence would be a most bizarre translation for Heidegger's Dasein, because on the German side there are far more commonly used German words to say presence, and on the English side we need a word for a particular type of being that asks too many question, as opposed to a translation things like Vorhandenheit where "presence-at-hand" is the go-to classical English translation... as presence is what Heidegger's getting at, unlike with Dasein.

What the English translators do is to translate both Da- and -sein and write a dash in between. English is limited when it comes to having a copula within the same word.

I usually don't recommend being a smartass and attempting the job of the philopher's translator without the text, particularly when Sein und Zeit is involved. Believe it or not, it is a tough translation, even when you do have the text. Wow indeed.

Explain in a German sentences when you would ever need to make a distinction between Sein and Dasein.

I have spent too much time on imageboards that it is now hard for me to fully comprehend even more trivial works of english literature. I can understand the plot but artistic metaphors or unordinary sentance structure go over my head.

So I read books in Russian more often than not.

Diesen Fehler des bisherigen philosophischen Denkens, nicht die Bedeutung der Zeit für das Verständnis des Seins in den Blick zu bringen, sollte eine fundamentalontologische Untersuchung korrigieren. Heidegger wollte also in Sein und Zeit die Ontologie auf ein neues Fundament stellen. Ausgangspunkt seiner Kritik an traditionellen Positionen der Ontologie war das, was er die ontologische Differenz[61] von Sein und Seiendem nannte.

Mit Sein bezeichnete Heidegger in Sein und Zeit grob gesagt den Verständnishorizont, auf dessen Grundlage einem innerweltlich Seiendes begegnet. Jedes verstehende Verhältnis zu innerweltlich Seiendem muss sich in einem solchen kontextuellen Horizont bewegen, in dem das Seiende erst offenbar wird.[62] Wenn uns also etwas begegnet, dann verstehen wir dies immer nur durch seine Bedeutung in einer Welt. Dieser Bezug macht erst sein Sein aus. Jedes einzelne Seiende wird demnach immer schon transzendiert, d. h. überstiegen und als Einzelnes in Bezug zum Ganzen gesetzt, von wo aus es erst seine Bedeutsamkeit empfängt. Das Sein eines Seienden ist daher das im „Überstieg“ Gegebene: „Sein ist das transcendens schlechthin. […] Jede Erschließung von Sein als das transcendens ist transzendentale Erkenntnis.“[63]

Geht man von der ontologischen Differenz aus, dann wird auch jedes einzelne Seiende nicht mehr bloß als gegenwärtig Vorhandenes aufgefasst. Es wird vielmehr überstiegen in Bezug auf ein Ganzes: Im Ausblick auf etwas Zukünftiges und in seiner Herkunft aus der Vergangenheit ist sein Sein wesentlich zeitlich bestimmt.

Als Begriff bei Heidegger kennzeichnet Dasein ein Seiendes, das sich zu sich selbst und dem Sein verhält, wie auch zu anderem Seienden: „Dasein versteht sich in irgendeiner Weise und Ausdrücklichkeit in seinem Sein. Diesem Seienden eignet, dass mit und durch sein Sein dieses ihm selbst erschlossen ist.“ (S.11f). Das Dasein ist ontisch besonders ausgezeichnet. „Die ontische Auszeichnung des Daseins liegt darin, dass es ontologisch ist.“ Dasein ist kein nur passives Einordnen in eine gegebene Welt von Dingen, sondern hat den Charakter eines Entwurfs in Hinblick auf Möglichkeiten, die in einem strukturierten Zusammenhang von Bezügen (den Heidegger Welt nennt) offen liegen. Insbesondere: „Das Dasein versteht sich selbst immer aus seiner Existenz, einer Möglichkeit seiner selbst, es selbst oder nicht es selbst zu sein.“ Dasein ist für Heidegger durch etwas gekennzeichnet, was er die „Hinfälligkeit“ und das „Geworfensein“, nennt, etwa sofern die Möglichkeiten, auf die hin Dasein sich entwirft, nicht nur selbstgewählt sind: „Diese Möglichkeiten hat das Dasein entweder selbst gewählt oder es ist in sie hineingetragen oder je schon darin aufgewachsen“.

„Das Dasein hat sonach einen mehrfachen Vorrang vor allem anderen Seienden. Der erste Vorrang ist ein ontischer: dieses Seiende ist in seinem Sein durch Existenz bestimmt. Der zweite Vorrang ist ein ontologischer: Dasein ist auf dem Grunde seiner Existenzbestimmung an ihm selbst »ontologisch«. Dem Dasein gehört nun aber gleichursprünglich – als Konstituens des Existenzverständnisses – zu: ein Verstehen des Seins alles nicht daseinsmäßigen Seienden. Das Dasein hat daher den dritten Vorrang als ontisch-ontologische Bedingung der Möglichkeit aller Ontologien. Das Dasein hat sich so als das vor allem anderen Seienden ontologisch primär zu Befragende erwiesen.

I said a sentence.
I'm not translating all that shit.

>user claims to know the difference between Sein and Dasein
>doesn't know the difference between sentence and essay

When reading a book not in english or in my native tongue I generally go with the english translation. it's more likely there is a translation in english, and I just really prefer english to my native language.

I'm reading the Greeks in German because I'm on my way to become a history teacher so I want to improve my German skills and get to know the German mythology names first before I get confused because of different ways to call someone. It can be quite difficult and expensive to get decent ancient text editions, also it seems way much harder to find annotated editions. I. E. getting the Homeric Hymns cost me 25 Euros.

The translations have been pretty good so far though, German classical scholars have done a lot of amazing work in the past. I would particularly recommend Johann Heinrich Voss' translations, he usually hits the poetic note of old texts perfectly. Also his editions are cheap but don't have annotations (got Illiad+Odyssey for 10 Euro). If you want to save money you can also look for used books on rebuy.

For me another plus point is that I more easily explain and discuss ancient texts when I don't have to look for the German words first. Its also more helpful/creates more of a seamless transition going to a museum. Names will be in German there and not English.

However, I did just order the Landmark Thucydides after people praising it here because my gf spilled some water on my German copy which is dislike anyway (it's one of those small Reclam editions).

I thought a definition of Dasein, one for Sein and a few words on the ontologische Differenz could have helped. I don't want to leave people to their own devices and context-free.

But if one is all you want you could start with:
>Dasein ist Welt- und Selbstverhältnis und dieses ist charakterisiert in Daseins Sein als In-der-Welt-sein.

>Being is globe - and self-love and this is characterized in Being's being as in-the-globe being.

If it's available I go with the my language's translations, Polish. If not, I buy the English one.

But I still try to find as much in my language as possible, because when I was in school I didn't learn much grammar and now that I'm semi-working with writing, I guess I kinda wanna make up for it.

You don't understand English either

Much in keeping with the continental tradition, interpretation is a synthetic science, not an analytic one.
My new and updated translation has uncovered in this classic text new meanings for a new age, upon which I will expand in my forthcoming book.

Wait, so you didn't learn much about Polish grammar in a Polish school?

Oath cunt I always read banjo and lawson in aussie

what a cuck

sci-fi is best read in english. Philosophy better in your native tongue

>german was the first language I learned
>moved to the states as a toddler
>forgot german
>moved to germany at 15
>learn german again but suck at it
>writing german makes me feel like a retard
>really embarrassed about it
>love german poems and wanderlieder
>only read english
I don't know. maybe it's a mix of things, but I just don't enjoy reading german. I try, I keep buying german books to read, but I always feel like it's sterile. I read it, I understand it, but I don't enjoy it.

Translations in English are far better than those in my native language. Unless you live in a first world country (in a restricted sense, not in a "we have two highways and most people can afford smartphones" sense), chances are it's the same for you.