Does anyone else feel weird about reading translations? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by daggermoon@lemmy.world to c/books@lemmy.ml

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The only language I know with any fluency is English. I want to read The Trial by Franz Kafka. The Trial was written in German and if I read an English translation I feel I am not really reading Kafka. Am i the only one who feels this way? Does it even matter?

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[-] jbrains@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Weird? No. I might be missing something, but I probably won't know what I'm missing, except in the abstract.

Also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Ton_beau_de_Marot

[-] daggermoon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I'm intrigued, I'll look into this book.

this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025

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