Book a Week 2020 - BW38: September Equinox

[Little Green Leaves]

15 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

 

I find when I read translations, it quite does not capture the voice of the original. It could be that the language does not have the vocabulary to handle it which I find often in English translations of Indian languages. But even in closest languages, I find in languages I can understand and not read, if I hear it read to me vs read a translation in the closest language, it does lose some of the original voice of the author 

 

This is very true. I had forgotten how different French is from English -- not only the vocabulary but the verb tense and the idioms. There's been at least one sentence where I really couldn't figure out the meaning even though I understood all the individual words. Thankfully it's getting easier now that I am past the early descriptive scenes and the action has started.

 

 

15 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

I am not quite sure if I vastly over estimated my knowledge of French reading comprehension because it seems to work better than I anticipated when I read newspapers and children's books. The Bible though is a whole different story. I am reading a English-French Bible with translation side by side and when I close the English side and read the French side and then look at the English translation I go woah, that's not quite what I thought it was. Now I am confused if I am reading the Bible correctly and my comprehension is really that bad or I am reading the news wrong even though it does not seem so. 😊

I know the feeling! It's a bit of a mind warp when you realize that you've misread something. I think it must be good for our brains, this act of searching for meaning, grasping at it, missing it, and finally discovering it.

[Robin M]

Week 39 is live - please continue conversation in new thread 

[VickiMNE]

@Robin M  Um, with the recent board update and log-on glitches, I needed to change my password and when I did, it gave me back my old, old user name.  SO, the last time I posted I was Vmsurbat but now I'm back to VickiMNE.  No idea why I got my old username back (Lord knows I tried when the board first switched over).   

Been reading, not posting.  Finished: 

Becoming by Michelle Obama, which I found very helpful as we were already living in MNE when Obama made his appearance on the national scene.

a Retirement book for those in their 50s+ (title forgotten) by Suze Orman, also found very helpful.  We are playing catch-up (pastoral salary, not debt) and this book didn't depress me like so many others.....

The Simple Art of Murder, by Chandler--a collection of short stories, hard-boiled detective genre, suitable for small reading windows

A Marriage Under the Terror by Wentworth--quite different from her Miss Silver's series.  Less predictable than I expected, so I finished it, but not one I'd particularly recommend or ever reread.

Currently Reading:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.  I have to say, that my reading of The Warmth of Other Suns has greatly contributed to my understanding and appreciation of books like Becoming and The Vanishing Half.