this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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I also only read English for a long time instead of my own language.
I picked up some books in my native language and was pleasantly surprised.
The language in itself doesn’t matter but I could notice the writer was from my culture. There’re slight cultural references in books written by people from my culture.
In books from American writers theres also these cultural references which I understand because I grew up on the internet but still it’s not my culture.
I would recommend to check if you’re country/culture has some literature award prizes and check out some of the top books. Make sure to try a couple as a well reviewed book might not mean it’s a good fit for you.
If you don't mind me asking, were you raised speaking English, too? As a monoglot, it blows my mind when people are fluent enough in a second language to enjoy reading fiction in that language. I've tried to learn Spanish, and would love to get to that point, but I really wonder if I'd be able to enjoy reading for leisure in another language, or if it would feel like a chore.
I'm not the original commenter, but I am from Germany and was not raised other than learning English from fifth grade onwards. This was just the basics though, the bulk of my English proficiency comes from playing games, watching shows and movies and reading in English. In the beginning I did it to improve my English, but the German synchronization in videogames was especially bad, so I only ever play games in English, and adopted this practice for other types of media as well. On the rare occasion I find German books I like, I read it in German though, for example the fantasy books "Die Zwerge" by Bernhard Hennen.
Step 1: learn English for 7 years from grade 5 to 12
Step 2: the Internet exists and is overrun with Americans.
Step 3: profit
Once you are at the level where you don't translate words, but instead the words are linked in your mind to the concept itself, consuming media is no longer a chore.
It will probably be harder to learn a language other than English, because so much content is available in English (I know three YouTubers from the top of my head that create english content despite not being native speakers and one fiction writer). Though I obviously can't properly judge this as I only speak German and English. I have no idea if there is a Spanish focused YouTube for example. Due to the great firewall Chinese will probably be easiest to learn in that regard.