Casual Conversation Saturday Eve: Do you read English books or its Dutch translations?

19 comments

1. For me, personally, I read only novels in English even though I am Flemish speaking. Fantasy novels & Sci-Fi are not common by Dutch & Belgian writers so I have to look at other languages.

   I do love reading Belgian comics in the original Flemish/Dutch or French

2. Fantasy or sci-fi in English, Non-fiction in Dutch (most of the time).

3. I too prefer reading in English over the Dutch translation. I want to read what the author wrote and not rely on the translator’s interpretation.

4. I prefer English. Mostly because the books I read are either written in English or the English translation is typically much better than the dutch version.

5. I only read non-fiction and most of it in its original language (English, German, Dutch, Italian). Certainly for art and history there are many works that do not translate well. For science it is somewhat ok.

6. Try to go for the original language whenever I read.

7. Read the second Anne Rice vampire book in English because it never got translated and basically never looked back. I read virtually only fiction, and all genres that don’t get translated a lot – fantasy, sci-fi, space opera,… so I stick to English. Plus, meaning comes across better in the original language, adds way more depth that doesn’t always come across in translations. The fact that I’m on the USkindle store makes it even better as those books are just way cheaper then they’d be here, even with the USD now strengthening.

8. Original language usually. If I can’t read the original language (like the witcher books) I google which translation is better and read that.

9. I prefer to read books in the language they were written in, whenever possible.

10. >It never had crossed my mind until reading that article how much translated books to Dutch can suck for us because we just can’t relate to it based on the use of words, proverbs and syntaxing difference.

    This! I tried reading novels in Dutch but as soon as I read a word, proverb or grammatical construction that’s more leaning toward the northern Dutch, I immediately get pulled out of the illusion.
    The same goes for cookbooks with typical northern Dutch names for ingredients or odd instructions.

    On top of that, I’m a translator myself and one of the professional habits is noticing when something is translated and trying to figure out what the original was and make it better. So reading any translated novel becomes a time consuming and tiring pastime.

11. I read in Dutch, English and French. If possible I read in the original language. Sometimes I prefer a book translated in English to the Dutch translation. French is mostly to improve my French (so books I’ve already read or French books I find interesting).

12. I read tons but almost always in English, unless the original language is Dutch or very rarely when it’s in a language that’s close to Dutch. Say Kafka, Czech is much closer to Dutch. I’d probably still have more trust in the English version.

13. I read way more in English than in Dutch. For what it’s worth, I spent about a decade abroad so am not really a good example I think.

14. That article hits the nail on the head why I read in English. Dutch translations are often aggressively Hollands. I love _The Martian_ by Andy Weir and I can not read the Dutch translation. The main character is a NASA astronaut from Chicago, why tf did they make him sound like he’s from Amsterdam?

15. Once when I was on holiday in Spain I read Harry Potter in English because that was all that was available. I had read it before in Dutch and it was mind-blowing to me how much better it was reading it in the original words of the author.

    Since then almost always read in English if that was the original language the book was written in.

16. It’s not that I dislike my language It’s that I prefer to read the original word and not a translation where able. Simple as that.

17. As seems to be the trend in the answers to the question, I also like to read in the original language. Things seem to get lost when translated.

18. Dutch translations are expensive. The publishers know this, so they target their books at an audience that has money. They thus often make the books even more expensive by only selling luxury hardcover versions.

    And yes, the translation are often terrible. Almost all publishers and translaters are from the Netherlands and it´s very obvious. It´s not for me. It´s not my language.

    On top of that I also don´t read Dutch language writers. I didn´t really like most of what I read before. The language is often very artificial and boring, with lots of unnessecary and even ridiculous methaphores. It´s like these authors are having a contest with each other. There are some authors that don´t/didn´t do this and are readable: most famously Elsschot.

    I mostly read French and English language books. I read some good German language books as well. For books in other languages I moslty rely on English translations, since they are cheap and easily available.

19. If I understand the language a book i written in I’ll read it in the original language. That is limited to English, Dutch, French and German though…