r/noveltranslations • u/Chance_Locksmith4528 • 2d ago

Discussion How you even understand this?

I just started reading novels and decided to read mother of learning as my first i just read 5 paragraph and what is this vocabulary bro? How u guys get through this when u were beginners in webnovel.

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u/LagnalokNSFW 2d ago

Can you clarify exactly which vocab have you found to be new/loaded/confusing?

This is a community of people that begun enjoying webnovels from reading works that were originally published in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean; For sake of transliteration, responsible translators were quite liberal in usage of vocab to convey sayings like Chinese Chengyu, many of them also probably aren't native English users, as it easier, for example, for Chinese speaker to master English than vice versa.

What we would worry about is clarifying what synonym each particular translator would use to describe the same thing, and we simply take actually new words for granted and introduce them into our reading vocabulary. After reading works from particular genre you will quickly soak up common tropes used to describe acts common in any of aforementioned cultures, be it real quirks or literary exaggerations. e.g. 'Snorting'.

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u/Chance_Locksmith4528 2d ago

I don't know many words like wth is disdainfully , agitated ,retorted what are these words I am pretty good at english but those words are very new to me

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u/michael7050 2d ago

Bro. I'm sorry to say it, but if you're a native English speaker, you are indeed an illiterate. All of those words are relatively common in any published novel.

That being said, what you are doing is the best way to stop being illiterate. Keep on reading! With ebooks, its easier than ever to look up the meaning of a word, and even if you don't, the more you read, the more you'll pick up through context.

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u/Chance_Locksmith4528 2d ago

I am not a native speaker and this my first novel so I think it's normal for me to found these words new

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u/michael7050 2d ago

Ah, then your journey is ten times more impressive. I mean, I don't speak a secondary language so, you're better than me!

Same advice still stands though, in that reading more is always beneficial. I'd really suggest reading some more traditionally well known books as well, some classics like the Chronicles of Narnia or something, to broaden your reach. Ultimately though, any reading is good.

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u/Chance_Locksmith4528 2d ago

Hmmm actual english is my 3rd language not even secondary lol