It's not easy to read in your target language, specially if you're an avid reader in your native language; because it's frustrating to not being able to read as fast as you do in your native language. It's quite challenging, but it's a great way to learn the language more deeply and access resources that weren't translated yet (or that won't never be).

@coocoointhebrains

2 жыл бұрын

I relate to this so much 🥴 it's frustrating yet rewarding at the same time, like 2 sides of the same coin

@lazymajou

2 жыл бұрын

Oh my gosh finally someone who I can relate to! Like,,, I read 100 pages/h in my native language but every time I read in Japanese, my goshhh!! Each page takes 3 minutes and it’s soooo frustrating 😭

@Sammy-wc1ey

Жыл бұрын

The funny thing is... I can read waaaay faster in English that I can in German (my mother tongue) but now I'm looking for advice on how to manage that exact same thing in French cause I have no clue how I did this the first time and just keep failing hahah 🥲🥲🥲

this is so true! my native language is Spanish but once I had a decent level of English and I re-read some of the Classics, it blew my mind. Now I cannot read translations (because God no) just as you can't read Cortazar or Mistral in English- a lot of other layers like idioms, culture & history make more sense in its original language P.D: rn I'm reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman and man! it's a whole new level for English narrative

@RCWaldun

2 жыл бұрын

I started reading excerpts of Balzac in my French unit and I realized the same thing. Wordplay, humour and idioms simply cannot be translated. Thanks for the comment. :)

@lex6819

Жыл бұрын

English is my native language and I majored in Spanish in college. I couldn't agree with you more. Literature in translation is very hit or miss. I read Don Quixote in Spanish, and it really made me appreciate how terrible most English translations of this book are. The only good one I found was the Norton Critical edition translation of the Quixote. So now I mainly try to stick to the Norton Critical editions of translated classics, whenever possible

I read english ( my second language) sometimes it’s difficult not because I don’t understand it just because I read slower than normal but yes it’s a whole new world and your video is beautifully presented.

I’ve been studying ancient Hebrew for about a year, and it has been difficult to grasp such an old and foreign language. Everything is still strange to me, from grammatical structuring down to how vowels work. But it really is like dipping your mind into entirely different way of thinking, a whole new world that you just got to see with all sorts of different analogies and figures of speech and tonal qualities that you simply can’t directly translate. At this point I recommend that everyone at least learn one other language, because it really is mind-opening how different languages think so similarly yet so different.

One thing I noticed is, that when I read something translated, they mostly sound ridiculous, but when I read them in the original language, they make a lot more sense. Just like translating a joke.

Seriously? That’s impressive. My second language is Spanish and I still haven’t read a Spanish book. I would like to read (say) A Rebours in French.

@RCWaldun

2 жыл бұрын

It's kind of like jumping into a cold pool of water. At first it was very uncomfortable, but then at some point there's a discontinuous leap where the words start to make sense and turn into stories. Just persist through the discomfort, and one day you'll definitely reap the pleasures of reading in another language. :)

I've been studying Korean for 5 years and I love reading in it. I read a lot of manhwa 만화 (Korean comics). American comics don't feel the same. I can understand so much more context when I read stuff in the original Korean. There are innumerable things in Korean that just can't translate into English while having the full meaning. Even though I'm not native Korean I understand these untranslatable phrases and words through context and feeling them in my soul.

I could listen to your voice all day, it’s so calming yet stern. Keep up the videos, please, I recently re-engaged in this channel and I couldn’t be happier.

I’m a Spanish native speaker, and I remember the first time I read a book in English, I was terrified, nervous and even anxious; it was in 2020, basically almost two years ago, and from that moment on I never stopped reading in English. You know, it was the best decision ever. Now I’m reading almost everything in English, even pieces of literature in translation, which is quite good. For instance, now I’m reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, which is my first McCarthy by the way, and reading it in its original language is a superb experience, I’m truly enjoying it quite a bit. And I’m also reading Crime and Punishment in English, Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation, and oh wow! It’s even much, much better than when I read The Brothers Karamazov in Spanish. I love learning my target language every day, and I couldn’t be happier with my comprehension progress - it is slow, but it is still working. ☺️😁

@lizzethmancilla5197

8 күн бұрын

Pasa tips amigo , cómo has aprendido Inglés, crees que es más útil leer o escuchar el idioma?

Great video! I've been studying Spanish for about ten months now and have been making my way through the Harry Potter series; it's been incredible! Even though there are SO MANY words I don't know, I'm still able to comprehend everything, partly because I already know the stories so well. Best of luck with your French!

Very glad that you talk about this, my native language is french and some fiction novels that I enjoyed quite a bit were those of the metro 2033 trilogy. As it turns out, many other novels were written in the metro 2033 universe in russian and polish but none of them have been officially translated to english and only a couple in french. About 10 of them were translated to german however, and I have already spent a significant amount of time learning german, so this was a great reason for me to start reading in german in 2018. It went really slow at first but it has worked quite well and been really enjoyable, I encourage others who want to do this sort of thing to just keep doing it because it gets significantly easier

right now I am reading "the catcher in the rye" by J.D. Salinger to read more things in english (I haven't read in english for a month or so) and It's TRULY something else :)

Bilingual readers are perfect for intermediates afraid to read complicated novels. Allows you to dive into a difficult book and you can spend time on every paragraph going back and forth until you understand the French and the English and how the languages compare or not. Difficult sentences are worth reading multiple times anyway. For French, i especially love the Dover, Pocket, and Folio bilingual books.

I think that translations can be just as amazing as originals, and even theoretically more so, for example the channel Days of French and Swedish used the example of an English author writing about a landscape that is more prevalent in Nordic countries - so Nordic languages have better words for the features being described, but I definitely understand the excitement of reading an original, particularly a classic.

Discovered your channel about a week ago, mostly for reading in general but I started learning French 2 months ago and hope to read Marcel Proust and the other greats(I've yet to read on) once I'm at that level. Matt Vs Japan and Days of French n Swedish have great videos on language learning and reading.

Love the reference to Paterson, such a great film

I'm a native Spanish speaker and I barely read in Spanish now. I started reading in english as a challenge, and I loved it. I had already been studying english for about 10 years when I first read a book in english entirely, and I did have some trouble, but since I had prior knowledge, I didn't struggle that much. I started learning french about a year ago, and I felt somewhat comfortable listening to it, so I wanted to try out reading in french, and so I did. I tried with le petit prince but I gave up. I noticed how much it varies when a language is "informally" spoken and "formally" written. I'll probably try out reading in french again, because it will for sure imprive my understanding of the language.

@paulac.munoztorres

2 жыл бұрын

Hey, fellow native Spanish Spanish here! I read quite a bunch of books written in English, and it just gets easier. My next challenge is French, it’s such a beautiful language. Good luck in your reading journey, keep it up!

@nataaalia

2 жыл бұрын

@@paulac.munoztorres good luck to you as well!

I'm reading a French gardening book called Cultivez l'autonomie. It is wonderfully written and as a gardener it's an invaluable book full of gardening tips for beginners. Thanks for sharing your experience. I learning French and Italian and I want to learn Greek and relearn Spanish. I love to read so this video really struck a cord. Nice one :)

Thank you so much by your video. I'm from Brazil and I'm learning English. I'm sorry for my mistakes. I'm trying to read as well in my target language, but it so hard.

Been enjoying reading Science Books for 1st to 3rd graders in Japanese. Just read a simplified version of "The Wizard of Oz" again it was definitely easier the 2nd time around. I suggest only setting a set # of look ups per chapter it's helped me not feel overwhelmed.

Haha I grew up reading Goosebumps and Nancy Drew books!

Even though my understanding in english is good enough for it for quite some time, I have only recently started reading english works in it‘s original language and as you say it‘s a whole new world! It also is of course more difficult the older the work is but even Shakespeare can be understood with enough time. I‘m also at the moment learining french and while my level is not good enough to read prose, what helps me are bilingual editions of poetry.

Thanks so much for the great video, finally got myself inspired to start reading fiction in English and Polish. Despite having quite a high level of these two, I've always postponed this inevitable thing.. have been reading literature in my native Ukrainian and russian languages my whole life, now it's time to be brave and patient!! haha

I’m a Spanish speaker and a book that changed my perception is Rayuela from Julio Cortázar. After reading it in its language I believe there’s never gonna be a proper translation of the book, which feels so pitiful as it inspired a big flow of ideas over me. This barrier is particularly imposed by language innovation, a handcraft of word selections that allows the author to reach new feelings. For me, this book has been all about finding answers, and as you said, it has traced my identity as a reader. Now I’m a fervent seeker of ideas and I would love to hear any recommendations for a book like that in English.

Well, I've spoken English my whole life but my mum is a Hindi speaker. While I can understand the language fairly well, I'm not entirely proficient with my speaking or writing skills. When I started to dip my toes into Hindi literature, it was so fascinating to see how certain sentences sounded so much more poetic in the original language as opposed to reading its translation and it kind of made my heart sink when I thought of all the translated works I'd read instead of the originals and what I missed out on.

Good stuff...

Great vid!(having now watched it) What platform do you use to listen to audiobooks in French?

I actually somewhat prefer reading in French and Spanish now because I still feel an intense dopamine rush by my progress to a point where I read fluently. Also, I feel like reading in other languages has improved, or rather helped my comprehension and refocus on reading in general, because the prospect of reading another language demands more attention, attention which carries over to the concepts and the story arc of the novel itself. In your native language, this is not a problem and you may find yourself more easily distracted and more susceptible to skimming passages cursorily without digesting their meaning. Language, essentially, is an instrument and every instrument offers resistance to the operator, so the operator who gets to comfortable will cease to use the instrument effectively.

I've read the entirety of Drakengard in Italian and looked up every word that I didn't understand if I couldn't figure it out on context. Is this an exception? I also plan to read it again in French and will take your advice to just skim by it. Also thanks for the advice and content! I've been getting ahead in spanish, french, and italian especially.

Still now my favourite foreign language book is The book thief and The Alchemist 😀😀. And i want to explore more by reading.

Thanks for this video! I’ve been trying to read in French and find it very frustrating because my vocabulary is so limited and I am forced to read waaaaay slower than in English.

I feel like english and spanish are almost the same language, but it is cool to read books in the language they were written if you can.

the thing i am struggling with rn is not having enough courage to read in my target languages (for me english and french) any time i am about to pick up a book in a foreign language, i am for some reason scared to death, because it shows me how little do i know it doesn't encourage me to improve myself and simply be better at it, it just makes me feel like i am not enough for it :(( i really want to overcome that fear (it is not just with reading in a foreign language, recently i have this problem with many things that are interesting for me, such as writing or acting), inner perfectionist is still telling me that doing nothing is better than being imperfect and making mistakes (while making progress)

I am a reader for more than half my life. I mostly read them in English or translated to English.recently i started reading a novel in my mother tongue ( not English). It felt so odd, this is the language that i communicate in but it felt like reading through haze. It felt.... like a foreign language. But it's not. It just makes me question what is a foreign language at a more individual level.

Reading russian literature in russian is amazing.

I’ve only read The Little Prince in English. Has anyone read this in both languages? Does reading in a different language evoke different emotions? I just have a sentimental attachment to this piece and I can’t wait to read it in its original language

@daadaa6356

2 жыл бұрын

I definitely prefer the French version over any other. French isn’t my first language so when I finally read the original it felt so much more authentic, it’s awesome

@coocoointhebrains

2 жыл бұрын

I also liked it better in it's original language, i better understood the vibe, energies and the meaning it was conveying

My native language is Portuguese, and I have been working to improve my English and Italian, and I found it very rewarding specially in poetry and musicality in poems... So, I liked Poe but I am not sure what other poems to read in English, so, if someone could help me out with some tips, I would be very grateful :)

I was planning to read Camus's Stranger simultaneously in English and French this summer lol. I wonder if anyone's tried this method.

That is the problem with me I look up every instead making sense from the context.

I've heard the raincoat shower example for condoms, not translation. Hahaha

well, my fav books in foreign lang are all english, so 😂 i'm currently learning other languages, so, hey, wish me luck! i may bring u book suggestions in a few years))))

Bahasa Indonesia is my mother tongue (as I'm an Indonesian). But frankly, I enjoy reading, watching (or enjoying entertainment in general) in English more. For example, whenever I go to a bookstore and see translated novels and whatnot, and those books happen to pique my interest, my mind automatically goes, "where's the original, English version of this book?"

Hey I’m thinking of doing French novels at unimelb next year, is it a good subject? What is it like studying it?

@RCWaldun

2 жыл бұрын

It’s a fantastic subject. Pick it!

doors open like a book on hinge

well english is my second language

for me it was totally different, I am a Spanish native speaker and the first time I read Hemingway in English it becomes really boring, it's strange but I prefer to read him in Spanish

California accent is thick

We read in order to acquire grammar (plus all of the other elements of a foreign language), not first get to know the grammar "like the back of our hand", and then read. What in the actual fu&k. Stephen Krashen for fu&k's sake. Comprehensible input. Immersion learning. Refold and virtually the entirety of modern polyglotism. What a hot and steamy &hitload of crap I just sat through.

I can't even stand reading Russian novels because of the unfamiliar names. Reading in a foreign language would drive me mad. Thanks dyslexia (edit to typo 🙄).

@aesthetewithoutacause3981

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah I remember the struggle! Honestly I don't read much but I've been chipping away at the Brothers Karamazov for about a year, and finishing it feels like the end of an era. I would probably start with something shorter, but I really hope you decide to pick up a Russian novel afresh! The name system is a bitch for native English (and similar) language speakers, especially with the nicknames. But you would habituate to it, and you can always keep a cheat-sheet to help out. Regardless, happy reading :)

first