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L-R English L1-Danish L2-Book Suggestions | ||
Tags: Danish | Listening-Reading (L-R) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4751 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 1 of 16 31 May 2012 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hello,
I've been interested in L-R for some time, and have practised it to improve my German. I'm now hoping to include it as part, maybe a major part, of learning Danish, where I am pretty much beginner level. (I've spoken about this elsewhere; I've so far whizzed through TYS Danish (+CDs), which I will go back to more carefully, but I want to put L- R into practice before too long). So, I am looking for suggestions for Danish books where I am likely to find reasonable English translations, and also hopefully audiobooks. If I can do this cheaply, then so much the better. The books don't have to be parallel or in computer-readable format. My "requirements" for books would include:- - Should be originally written in Danish, not the other way around. - Should be able to get hold of a reasonably accurate English translation. - Something reasonably simple, but not too simple, so e.g. crime whodunnit would be fine, if not too trashy. I don't think children's books would work for me, although perhaps Hans Andersen might be an exception. - Something reasonably up-beat, if possible. Comedy, even love story with happy ending :-) (If this exists in Scandinavian books... :-) ). - I doubt if I'd be ready for any "classics", but if there are any in simple enough language that people can suggest, I'm open to it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ikinaridango Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6048 days ago 61 posts - 80 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, Italian Studies: German, Polish | Message 2 of 16 06 June 2012 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've been doing a similar search myself recently as I've also grown interested in
learning the Danish language. Here are three authors with texts in English translation: Lene Kaaberbøl, is a writer of fantasy fiction. I know that the four-volume set known as the Shamer Chronicles are availabe in English, and I think that other books of hers are too. The Shamer books seem to be more the young-adult market and so may not be to your taste but I fancy they're probably worth checking out. William Heinesen is a Faroese author who wrote primarily in Danish and many of whose novels are now available in English. His works probably are leaning towards the 'classic' literature end of the spectrum, but I've just started the English translation of Mother Pleiades (Moder Syvstjerne) and so far I'm yet to find anything to suggest that the original should be a syntactical nightmare for the second-language learner. Sara Blædel is a mystery writer whose novels are shortly to appear in English translation. From what I've read about her, her work seems to be very much nuts and bolts crime thriller sort of stuff with very little in the way of over-complicated syntax or vocabulary. Not a long list I'm afraid, but it is a start. Hopefully others will be kind enough to provide further suggestions. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4751 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 16 06 June 2012 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hej ikinaridango, Many thanks for your suggestions. I will follow them up. . . . While I'm posting, I'll record and pass on something I've discovered along the way:- With saxo.com or saxo.dk, it's easy to find audiobooks simply by clicking on the "Lydbøger" tab. One can also include the keyword "Lydbog" when doing a normal author search, and that seems to work at least sometimes. Sometimes they are MP3 downloads, and sometimes they are MP3 on CD. One thing I've discovered is that they have the "Wallander" series in audiobooks and real books in Danish. I know I said I wanted things originally written in Danish, but something translated from another Scandinavian language isn't so bad :-) and we happen to have all the Wallander books in English already :-) I also discovered that Danish libraries loan out audiobooks (by internet download) to their registered borrowers. Sadly, that doesn't include me, which is fair enough. They pay Danish taxes and I don't :-) It's a nice idea though. Edited by montmorency on 06 June 2012 at 4:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6520 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 16 06 June 2012 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If you don't mind translations from another Scandinavian language, there are audiobooks for the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson. (I also REALLY LOVE the Harry Potter audiobooks in Danish. perfect, just perfect.) Edited by Serpent on 06 June 2012 at 7:01pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5341 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 5 of 16 08 June 2012 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Avoid the Millenium Trilogy for L-R. Unfortunately, whole paragraphs seem to disappear in the English versions. Found that to my annoyance when trying to L-R the second book in Norwegian.
The Harry Potter books, however, seem to be more or less universally translated very well. The Norwegian translations are excellent. Getting used to all the new names for characters and magical things takes some getting used to though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4751 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 6 of 16 09 June 2012 at 2:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks; that's an interesting idea, as we have the books in English already, and my son has lent me the film DVDs. However, Jazzboy's comment below does give cause for concern there. In passing, I'll pass on the name of another online bookshop that's been suggested, although I have not really looked at it properly yet:- http://www.arnoldbusck.dk 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4751 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 7 of 16 09 June 2012 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's a shame. I wondered if they rushed those out for commercial reasons? :-( Thanks for the warning, anyway. I might just give it a shot, anyway, and hope I don't miss too much.
:-) Well, I do like the HP books in English, and have read them all, some of them several times, especially the later ones, where it's all getting a bit dark. I'd thought they could not possibly work in translation, because of all the English word-play, but ... well, maybe :-) Thanks for the ideas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5341 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 8 of 16 09 June 2012 at 3:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You could still use the Millenium Trilogy for general reading and keep the English translation handy for reference but it gets confusing trying to L-R it when so many random sentences and some paragraphs vanish. For a very easy starting book though, check out the Danish translation of "Naiv.Super." by the Norwegian author, Erlend Loe. It's written in fairly simple language but the subject matter remains interesting and is quite endearing. It's quite short but the style of writing makes it very accessible for L-R or just reading alongside a translation. There is the odd sentence dropped in the English translation but very very few. I read through it Norwegian with the English translation and it made moving on to Harry Potter much more manageable. I'd imagine using Albert Camus' "The Stranger" (or Outsider in some translations) with the Danish translation would also be a good beginning book as it also uses pretty simple language on the whole. I'd recommend the English translation by Joseph Laredo published by Penguin as "The Outsider". It is much better than the translation made by Stuart Gilbert and keeps much closer to the original French. Whatever you do, avoid Gilbert's! Hopefully you'll be able to find a good Danish translation of it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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