If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’re probably aware that I’m from the Netherlands. I grew up on Dutch children’s literature, which is awesome (Annie M.G. Schmidt, anyone? Thea Beckman?) although I also read a lot of translated English novels (Roald Dahl!). Either way, I read these books in Dutch, which is the main point here.
When I was about ten I started to learn English at school and became more and more interested in this fascinating language, eventually studying it at university. That is also when I stopped reading Dutch books altogether. I’m pretty sure that up until May last year I hadn’t read a Dutch novel for over two and a half years (apart from the one I was writing myself at the time).
But then I started to read and review books for a Dutch literary website (www.tzum.info), which meant reading Dutch books again. Dutch translations of novels written in other languages, to be more accurate. It took some getting used to to read novels in my native language again. It’s not as if I hadn’t read anything in Dutch for all that time (that would be kind of impossible), but a whole novel? That’d been a while.
Turns out, I definitely prefer English books.
There’s something about the Dutch language that makes me get bored with a novel much more quickly. To me, English feels like a vibrant language that is much better equipped to tell a good story and to express emotion than Dutch is. Why do you think I started blogging in English? I can express myself better in this language than in my own native tongue. I realised this again when I was writing a review in Dutch this weekend: sentences started to form themselves in my head in English, and when I tried to translate them into Dutch they just fell flat.
The same happens when I’m reading. It’s not that I don’t like a novel written in Dutch at all, it’s just that I’m pretty sure I would’ve liked it even better if it’d been written in English. English is a much more imaginative language than Dutch is; it’s much easier to be creative with it. It’s more flexible and has a much nicer flow to it.
Perhaps this makes it sound as if Dutch is an extremely dull, formal language, which is not necessarily the case. There are plenty of amazing Dutch novels which are beautifully written. However, given the choice, I will always choose an English translation of a foreign novel over a Dutch one.
Having said that, the Dutch language will always be special to me and is perfect in its own way.
Books Baking and Blogging 
In your explanation of ‘uitwaaien’ I miss the beach.
Yes, me too. It’s not my explanation though. 😉
I don’t speak or read Dutch, but I read two books translated from Dutch to English last year and I loved them: The Twin and Ten White Geese by Gerband Bakker. (Original titles: Boven is het stil and De omweg).
I do read in Spanish and although I do the vast majority of my reading in English, I probably read about 25 Spanish novels a year. I don’t think I’ll ever stop reading in English, but I have noticed a preference for reading certain genres in one language or the other!
I have to admit that I haven’t read either of those two books (although they sound vaguely familiar).
25 books in Spanish a year! That’s quite impressive! I think you’re right that it sometimes differs per genre as well. For me, though, my preference will probably always be with English.
Thank you for commenting! 😀
Good post! Such an original idea to blog about, and yet so relatable :).
Thanks, Emmie! 😀
Your post is so relatable! I always feel that the Dutch language is just not as elaborate as English, where you have ten different words meaning the exact same thing. This makes reading in English a lot more interesting!
Thank you! I agree with you! I also think often there are these very slight differences between the meanings of those ten words which enables so much more different possibilites for writing. English is amazing! 🙂
I feel like I can’t take the characters seriously when I read them in Dutch. Everything they say comes across as ‘forced’ to me. I don’t know it just sounds much more believable if they shout “No” than “Nee”.
I completely understand! It all seems so unnatural, for some reason… English makes every conversation seem much more organic, or something. 🙂
I totally get this! I am from the Netherlands as well and once I started university my english imporved and I started reading books in english and now every time when I see a dutch book I just cringe, because it all sounds so weird and dry. I much prefer reading in english and haven’t read a dutch book in years, about 6 years I think? I still plan on reading Harry Potter in english as so far I only read it in dutch and I am wondering if I might enjoy it even more in english and if the experience will be different.
I’ve read all of the Harry Potter books in both English and Dutch, and I love them both! The Dutch translation is extremely well done, in my opinion. I can definitely recommend reading the books in English as well, though, because, of course, everything is better in English. 😉