People whose first language is not english --- Do you prefer to read novel in your first language or not?

[Mari]

Just interested. To me it's 50/50, if the book was originally written in english, I would prefer to read it english more often than not, but if it was for example, a russian or german book I'd like to read it finnish. Mostly I think because I understand the cultural context and references of US - Brittish books fairly well, but when it comes to german etc I'd rather have it localized for me ^^;

Though I prefer the finnish translation to Pride and Prejudice for some reason, but that might be just because the hard cover is really beautifully bound with kinda archaic language (it's a really old print I stole from my mother) and lovely ink drawings. I have bough a soft copy of it in english too, but it doesn't just have the same feel o/

[vothnthorvaldson]

Interesting question with various facets.

• I prefer an original to a translation as soon as I understand the language well enough. I don't mind struggling a bit, because I like learning while reading. However, as often as possible I will have a translation at hand to compare if my knowledge of the language is a bit poor (which means.. anything other than English or French or German when it comes to novels or any large or complex work).

• I don't have a preference between French or English for originals. German is always a bit of a struggle so not for casual reading.

• I do tend to prefer whatever language the story was first thought in even if the author is not a native speaker and thus does not have the best expression. Especially for more casual works like comics. The spontaneity is easily lost while translating.

• I love to read in languages I know very little of but can start to guess from another close language. Comics are great for that. Old scientific literature too. Novels not so much.

• I also like to learn completely new languages from comics but it requires having also a translation in a language I know better, and it has to be relatively literal translation. So it does not happen often but I'm always glad when it does.

[Wocalich]

Whatever the original is in is my preference but usually, I read English/English translations since that's the language I know best(excluding Turkish). If the original is in Turkish...then I will most likely not have an interest in it, tbh, since the voice of most Turkish authors feels heavy to me.

Edit: I recently started reading some manga in Japanese and I'm pretty sure I can read Korean webtoons as well but anything heavier than that, I will have to resort to English translations.

[Puck]

I read german comics in german and everything else in english,
the same like with movies

[surenlicious]

Hell no. I will take English over Dutch any day, any time. XD

[Crusoe]

I prefer reading in english, because the linguistic possibilities for it are just broader than those in my native language. Dutch generally only has one or two words to express something whereas English has more possibilities.

[Llyrel]

I'm a lazy butt and I prefer to read novels translated in my language... unless:

a. The translation is so bad that I can't stand looking at it (as was the case for David Gaider's Dragon Age books: I swear the translator had no effin' idea how to use verbs).
b. The books are unavailable in my own language (like Michael Moorcock's books: the only Italian translation dated all the way back to the 70s and the books were impossible to find anywhere, so I ended up getting myself the e-books in English... and then, of course, Murphy's Law hit me and six months later we got an all new Italian translation of the entire saga <3).

Other than that... gimme the Italian version, plz

[Macarenaoftime]

The novels I usually read are in Spanish, the English works I usually read are here on tapas.
I would like to try to read classic novels in English but I don't know where would be a good place to start since my vocabulary it's pretty small. So if you have any suggestions on what novels to read in English, I'll be very pleased!

[PapaDom]

I usually prefer English works over german ones. But then again, I don't read that many books, to begin with.
But then again I'm not too picky as long as the ones I can read are available in a language I can understand.

[cookieroach]

I prefer the original language if I can read it, otherwise I prefer english translations over my native language. It's often better in my experience, and if there's a lot of specialized vocabulary english is almost always easier to understand.

With that said, I still love my native language and sometimes wish I could use it for my comic. I think every language has some words and concepts that just aren't the same when you try to translate them.

[Jophiel]

English all the way. I don't know man, I feel uncomfortable at anime dubs made in our language AND novels here that are written in our own language have either the same effect of me as dubs OR it's because they're written purely in Tagalog.

Just for reference;; Filipino has 26/28 letters of the alphabet while Tagalog has 20 only. Filipino is more or less derived from other languages like English, Spanish, etc so it's kinda like speaking two languages sometimes if that makes sense. And I feel like Filipino is too casual at many times so I won't read say...Bleach or Naruto in that tone and Tagalog is too serious imo.

[Eiranyx]

it depends on the genre actually, hahahaha although I don't really mind if it was originally written in my language but, when it's a mature romance-heavy themes written in Tagalog/Filipino, some sentences sounds so wrong when you translate it back into english and if there are mature scenes involved it can sound a bit idk... too vulgar(?)
also we have a lot of loan words so sometimes, some literary piece requires a nice grasp of vocabulary to understand ^^

[AmandaJ-art]

I dislike reading books in Latvian. Even though it's my first language I feel like I can't read without getting caught on words. It's easier to read in English.

There's a bigger library for books in English as well.

[lomcia]

I prefer in my language but if you want to find more readers you need to translate it into english T_T

[mlocik97]

Language doesn't matter too much for me.. but I would say, I read more English than Slovak or Czech books. I think, English is better for storytelling than Slovak. So if,.. I prefer Czech or English books even when I'm from Slovakia... btw... CZ and SK is nearly same lang, differences are like between US and UK English, I still don't understand why it is classified as two languages.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I don't really care.

Yet I admit translation from English to my native language sometimes is a miss and make it either stiff or awkward.

[domisotto]

I have been living, reading and writing in English for over 20 years, so I prefer everything in English. Though I credit my adolescent love for Shakespeare to reading all the plays in awesome translations, because English version is pretty much incomprehensible to me even in a movie format. We tried to watch the famous version of Hamlet by some reason in Victorian costuming and I didn’t last long.

[sushy00]

I read comics in both English and my native language (Dutch).
For novels I find it difficult to read big chunks of English text, so for novels I would prefer my native language.

[Kann]

Depends on how tired I am. xD

[haitchu]

It depends how hard words the novel contains. If there are constantly difficult words and I can't figure out their meaning from the context, I get annoyed. I should be relaxing, not studying! With comics it easier, since I can look up the meaning from the pictures, unless it's something too difficult again.
Some mangas include translator's notes which explain some cultural things seen in the story. I think that should be used in novels too!