For readers who speak multiple languages, but not the original language of the work in question, how do you go about picking the best translation?
For example, I’d like to pick up Virgil’s Aeneid, but my Latin is not good enough to allow me to sight read it. I can choose between any of the Italian, French or English translations, but I’m not sure which one to pick?
I thought that in this case the Italian one might be the best as it would be “closer” to the original Latin? But how much value should I put on the authorial input/style of the translators themelves?
I usually pick English translations, but I’m now wondering whether I’ve been missing out on some great translations.
I go for the original language of the writer/book. If not available I’ll go for the language that has the most reliable translations.
With ancient classics, it is very difficult. I have once amused myself with comparing six translations of Plato’s “Kritias” in three languages (German, French, English) and discovered phrases about whose meaning all six of them disagreed with each other!
(This said, I prefer to read Saint-Exupéry in German because the translator has much improved on the rather dusty style of the original French.)
Knowing Dutch and English, I basically always go for English unless the original is in German. The idea behind this is that there’s statistically a much better chance for someone to be able to translate X to English because English is much more common, but German is so similar to Dutch that the translation of a German book is much closer to the original in Dutch than it would be in English.
I’m fluent in English and Finnish. If the books was originally written in Finnish, I’ll read it in Finnish, then in English. If it was originally written in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Estonian or Russian, I’ll read it in Finnish. Everything else in English.
I’ve no idea why I do it like this, but I do.
I typically prefer the original language. If the original language is something I cannot read then I usually pick the translation in my native language (if available) or the language that is closest to the original language (a Swedish translation of a book written in Icelandic for example).
I speak English, Malay, Mandarin and Japanese. My rule of thumb is to go for English translation for Western works and Chinese translation for Eastern works, to minimize the chance that contexts are lost in translation considering the cultural distance and language structure.
I speak Turkish, English and German. If I can read the original language I will usually pick that, unless the translation is way way cheaper :D To be fair I rarely read German books because I have to speak legal German all day every day and I don’t want my free time to be associated with that too.
If it’s originally in English, I read it in English.
If it’s originally in Spanish, I read it in Spanish.
If it’s originally in Italian, I read it in Italian.
For everything else I usually read the English translaton.
I mostly read in English, but I prefer Croatian when it comes to poetry. I love reading Neruda’s work in Croatian, I find the English translations lacking the emotions and beauty that Croatian translations have. I also really enjoy Croatian translations of Shakespeare, and preferred reading them in uni over the original.
English, unless I plan to learn that said language in which case I just postpone reading it.
I speak Slovenian and English (a little Italian too, but not enough to easily read most books in). I usually look at the original language first - if the book was originally written in a Slavic language, i will read it in Slovenian, because the sentence structure and other grammatical things stay similar, and I find the book reading experience is better. Other than that, sometimes a book will only have one translation to Slovenian, dated to the mid 20th century, and I find those to be lacking sometimes, so I prefer to read a more updated/modern English translation. Besides that, usually just what language I feel like reading in. :) But if I were you I’d read it in Italian for sure.
I always read in English becauss translated books domt hit the same (i speak dutch, english and serbian)
My local library only has a good variety of German books. So… I often stick to German.
(Broke AF)
Usually the one most readily available is the one in my native language, often the only one that’s easy to find. It’s not really a matter of “which to pick”.
I read in French if the book was originally written in French. I deliberately seek out great French books to read.
For any other language, I read an English (my native language) translation.
I can speak and read some other languages (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese , German) at a pretty basic level but not well enough to read novels without investing a lot of extra time.
When a famous book has multiple English translations that are equally available, I might research to choose which one most people think is the best one, but that’s rare. I usually just read whatever English translation I can get at the library.
If I can’t find an English version of something originally written in, say, German, Spanish, Italian or Japanese, I read it in French. I did that with a Stephan Zweig book.
If I know the original language in which the book is written, my first choice would be that edition. I’m just not a fan of translations when I already speak the language anyway. The only books I read in my native language are the ones written by Swedish authors.