JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6125 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 129 of 177 05 April 2011 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
I'm (slowly) reading the New Testament in Hebrew right now which is quite interesting as I know it very well in Greek and English:
http://mod.hebrewtanakh.com/matthew/1.htm
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etacini Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 6073 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: Italian, French, Latin
| Message 130 of 177 06 April 2011 at 6:54pm | IP Logged |
Last book I read in Italian was Orgoglio e Pregiudizio by Jane Austen.
Right now I'm halfway through Oscar Wild's Il Ritratto di Dorian Gray.
Next on will be Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
I find books originally written in Italian a lot more challenging, so I've decided to start with some English Classics translations. Later, when I feel comfortable enough with these, I'll (hopefully) get to Italian originals. :-)
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JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6125 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 131 of 177 06 April 2011 at 7:15pm | IP Logged |
etacini wrote:
I find books originally written in Italian a lot more challenging, so I've decided to start with some English Classics translations. Later, when I feel comfortable enough with these, I'll (hopefully) get to Italian originals. :-) |
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I think that's true in any language, translations are easier to read than originals.
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Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5850 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 132 of 177 06 April 2011 at 7:54pm | IP Logged |
In my French conversation course at the VHS we are reading the novel in French:
"188 contes à regler" by Jacques Sternberg (1923 - 2006)
Info about the author:
Wikipedia: Jacques Sternberg
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 06 April 2011 at 7:54pm
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5133 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 133 of 177 06 April 2011 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
JW wrote:
... translations are easier to read than originals. |
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Sometimes, yes, but not always. I've read some truly horrible translations from English to Italian (Michael Crichton novels come to mind).
R.
==
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Miegamice Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Latvia Joined 4989 days ago 32 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latvian*, English, German, Danish Studies: Norwegian, Swedish
| Message 134 of 177 06 April 2011 at 8:21pm | IP Logged |
Some translations are better than the original.
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JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6125 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 135 of 177 06 April 2011 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
Miegamice wrote:
Some translations are better than the original. |
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I actually work quite a bit with the Septuagint, which is a 3rd century B.C. translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. When the original Hebrew is vague or unclear, I look at how it was translated into Greek and many times this elucidates the text greatly. This is a good language combination as, Biblical Hebrew is a pictorial language while Koine Greek is a much more precise, analytical, and scientific language. Thus, translations can indeed be helpful.
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Miegamice Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Latvia Joined 4989 days ago 32 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latvian*, English, German, Danish Studies: Norwegian, Swedish
| Message 136 of 177 06 April 2011 at 9:13pm | IP Logged |
Yes, when translating a book, I have used other translations. It was quite interesting, once I had two different translations of one book, and both were good though very, very different.
Edited by Miegamice on 06 April 2011 at 9:15pm
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