As a somewhat new year’s resolution (yes I am fully aware that it is June) but better late than never right? when writing this. I decided to read more books in German.  I can speak fluent German as I live here and well read and obviously write as well. It’s just that I don’t actually like the language. 

You’re all probably thinking now well isn’t that great to speak a second language and in a way you are right but I have an aversion to the language you see I learnt it not because I wanted to but because a decision was made that wasn’t in my hands to move here at the age of ten. So I had to learn the language and I have to say German is a hard language to learn. There is so much grammar to take into consideration. And for me personally it has never seemed to flow well. 

After having a discussion with a German friend she then said maybe you aren’t reading the right books which I think is right. 

So let me backtrack to last year I bought this book.

English cover

Well this is the English cover.

 

This is the German one. 

At least this is a hawt cover which kind of helps.

I really didn’t like this book there was so much wrong with the translation but you see I’d already read books by this author in English so that is where I went wrong a lot of the humour was lost or even left out. So I gave up. I quickly resold the books so that I could at least get some cash back.

I gave up for the moment but at some point I knew that I wanted to go back and try again. So I did. And I hit jackpot on one book and one series.

The one series is Elemental Assassin by Jennifer Estep.

English Cover

German cover

 

The translator for this series is Vanessa Lamatsch and she truly is very talented. She got the humour right, the suspense and the characters. I guess it also helps that the translation was done by a woman because the heroine Gin Blanco is a woman. I’m sure only a woman can explain how a woman acts, can feel and the wrath and revenge that they can carry around and execute it without an issue.

I contacted Ms. Lamatsch and said how she did such an incredible job. And she wrote back, thanked me and was so very humble. She explained that it is a joint effort and what is involved. I won’t bore you with the details.

 

They will still <——— have no idea what I wanted to say here. Sigh. My mind is a sieve. All I can say though is that if English is your mother tongue and you can speak another language then just give it a try you never know like me you may just find some winners when it comes to foreign books. 

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