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A little bit related to article, as I'm not bilingual but just speaking English as another language and this come up after conversation with friend (another not

A little bit related to article, as I'm not bilingual but just speaking English as another language and this come up after conversation with friend (another not native English speaker). I learned my English mostly thanks to computers and playing games, including classical RPGs. I started to read Malazan Book of the Fallen[0], a very dark and heavy fantasy series. I started in English, then switched to my native language, now to have maximum fun from it (as I like it a lot), I read one book in native and then reread in English. What I've noticed is that reading in my native language makes me feel much more connected to characters, I see the whole relations between persons more vividly and intensively. Then rereading in English, the same characters (which I already know and like!) feels much more distant and abstract. But :) All the fantasy scenes plays much better in my head in English than in my language. For some reasons sentences like "blood dripping from sword", "screams of souls", "massive", "darkness", "spread his wings" etc instantly trigger the feeling of magnificent and out-of-this-world scale of experiences. Even though translation is top-notch, for those parts I prefer the English version. Very interesting experience. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen

johnchristopher 11y ago
What about fantasy in your native language ? How does it feel ? I am of the opinion that translated works are (unintended) betrayals of the original text. And that a `native` author will produce better wording (sigh, sorry about that) than a translator.
- SimpleMinds 11y ago
  Do you mean originally written in my language? As coming from post soviet block, most of our fantasy is a bit different in a sense that from the beginning it doesn't involve epicness of Tolkien, Malazan, Black Company scale. From the beginning books focus on different things. I would like to read some of them in English to see how's the difference in perception.

johnchristopher 11y ago

What about fantasy in your native language ? How does it feel ? I am of the opinion that translated works are (unintended) betrayals of the original text. And that a `native` author will produce better wording (sigh, sorry about that) than a translator.

SimpleMinds 11y ago
Do you mean originally written in my language? As coming from post soviet block, most of our fantasy is a bit different in a sense that from the beginning it doesn't involve epicness of Tolkien, Malazan, Black Company scale. From the beginning books focus on different things. I would like to read some of them in English to see how's the difference in perception.