re: About books and their translations (My Rule for Reading Translated Books)

10 Aug 2026 #books

Being a bilingual speaker, Joel wrote about his struggle to read books and their translations:

I just can’t decide what to do when it comes to translated works at all. Be it old books in English translated to Spanish—or modern ones to be fair. And what about Spanish books that I could read in English, or picking between Spanish and English for books that are in a completely different language?

I’ve had the same struggle, so I came up with a reading rule:

Read non-fiction books in their original language, but fiction in my native language.

Non-fiction is a piece of cake. Writers want to get a point across without showing off about their rich vocabulary or literary devices.

That’s precisely what makes fiction challenging.

The other day, I read Angels and Demons in English to study suspense, flashbacks, and cliffhangers. I had to read it twice. The first time I underlined unknown words and guessed their meaning. Then, I revisited it with a dictionary. My copy ended up full of notes and folded corners.

I bothered to read it twice because my goal was to dissect the writing. But when reading for fun, to replace my doomscrolling, I want to enjoy the story, not stop every other sentence to look something up.

Being a bilingual speaker, I translate my own books. And I end up with slightly different books than the original versions. Find my books and their Spanish translations in my Amazon page. Books on coding and personal growth that respect your time.