The other day, Vassiliki wrote about reading a novel in Greek, which got me thinking about my reading habits in languages other than English.
According to Vassiliki:
I regularly read Greek. I have a Greek twitter feed which keeps me updated with publishing and library news. I read Greek library blogs, I occasionally read the local history essays from my dad’s region of Greece, Agrafa (mum’s area doesn’t have a local history section). I’ve read my bilingual publications of poetry, church guides and ancient plays with the English translations helping fill any gaps in my vocabulary. To add to all these, I read picture books, magazines and newspapers. However, these are all short forms of reading.
Vassiliki, even if they’re short forms, at least you’re reading!
Me, I’m very unorganised when it comes to reading in anything other than English. I’m fortunate in that I can read (and speak) Malaysian, Indonesian and Chinese. However, aside from following a few Twitter accounts by Malaysian and Chinese speakers, and very very occasionally reading news sites in these languages, I don’t currently read much in any languages other than English.
I don’t have any excuses for not reading much Malaysian (or Indonesian) material, really. My reading skill in Malaysian is high – practically the same as my English skills – so I don’t find it a chore to read in Malaysian. I quite enjoy reading Indonesian novels, too. (Malaysian and Indonesian are based on the same language, Malay. Their differences are in vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural influences.)
In the past when I have read Malaysian or Indonesian language novels, I tended to borrow them from the public library. Now I think I would be more likely to read Malaysian/Indonesian novels if I could get them in ebook formats. I was browsing the Western Australian Public Libraries Digital Media Collection site the other night, and I noticed that out of all the ebooks they have on offer, they have two fiction titles in Swedish and one nonfiction titles in Afrikaans. Here’s hoping both the number and range of materials in languages other than English increase in time.
I don’t think there are many Malaysian publishers/booksellers selling ebooks, and of the Indonesian publishers/booksellers who do have some ebooks, it would appear that their titles aren’t available to people living outside Indonesia. The usual frustration.
In the meantime, I could definitely boost the amount of reading I do in Malaysian and Indonesian. Even if my access to books is limited, there are many blogs and other websites written in the two languages. I could definitely also start adding more Malaysian/Indonesian speaking tweeps to my timeline.
My Chinese reading skills on the other hand are not as advanced as my English or Malaysian skills (the reason why this is the case is probably the subject for another post). Sure, I can read Chinese, but it’s much more of an effort. In fact I think I’ve only ever read three novels in Chinese: 家 Family by 巴金 Ba Jin, and translations of a rather twee cat detective series, originally written in Japanese by 赤川次郎 Akagawa Jiro.
For me reading in Chinese has tended to focus on shorter forms – blog posts, magazine articles, news reports, that sort of thing. I’d love to read 西游记 Journey to the West by 吴承恩 Wu Cheng’en or some of 张爱玲 Eileen Chang‘s works for instance.
So in the case of Chinese, it’s much more of a chore, and therefore I will probably have to work harder at it if I want to add more of the language to my reading routines. Ironically it’s easier to get Chinese language materials online than it is to get Malaysian/Indonesian stuff – including ebooks – so I really have no excuse here.