[pivic]

I believe this type of 'translation' can't help with learning a language unless the person who's reading already knows a lot of idiomatic expressions, grammar, and knows both English and Swedish on an everyday-conversation level. Let me show you what I mean.

Here's the first paragraph in English:

> The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on the top floor of an old eight-storied building in the West Fifties. Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial establishments and light-housekeeping apartments.

Here's the first paragraph in the Swedish translation:

> Signor Jacobelli hade en ateljé högst upp i ett gammalt hus med åtta våningar. För trettio år sedan var huset fullt av konstnärer, men nu fanns där både butiker och lägenheter.

I get that the translation is to a 'simplified' version of Swedish; translations of fiction are often restructures of the original language, but this is to a point where one not only needs to know what the words in Swedish mean, but be able to interpret them based on a vast restructure compared with the original.

Compare with a Kagi (DeepL) translation of the text:

> Signor Jacobellis ateljé i staden vette mot väster. Den låg högst upp i ett gammalt åttavåningshus på West Fifties. För trettio år sedan hade detta uteslutande varit ateljéer, men nu var det uppdelat i en mer lönsam blandning av halvkommersiella etablissemang och lägenheter med enklare hushållning.

Kagi maintains the original structure, which makes it far easier to compare words and the original structure.

I could be wrong but to me it seems far easier to learn a language when a translation doesn't come with a vast restructure of the original content.

[pastage]

I think these issues stems form translating to the language you are learning being a bit backwards. It serves a purpose though you learn how to say complicated stuff in an easier way.

I am at a basic level in many languages. Often it is enough to know that I have the gist right: is it "please step out" or "Please do not step out".

[zersiax]

You're not wrong but I think there is absolutely a case to be made for these kinds of restructurings as well. For one, giving you the restructured version exposes you to different ways of stating the same content, it might make reading longform content (without falling back to the original source material too often) more fluid, and more situationally, this kind of simplification and restructuring actually happens really often in subtitling, where character count is more leading than the lip movements a dub is based on. e.g. you'll hear one thing, but the sub is that same content often radically redone :)

[ftrobro]

Is "ateljé" (meaning art studio) really the correct Swedish translation here? I suspect "etta" (meaning one-room apartment) would be more suitable.

[BurningFrog]

Yeah, 99% sure it's an apartment in this context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_apartment

[Kiro]

No, it's not. The book is taking place in some kind of arts center for music and art.

"And at exactly the same instant Signor Jacobelli was bursting without warning or ceremony into a studio on the second floor where a model posed."

[tapland]

My SO has lived in Sweden for a few years, gone through the provided Swedish classes to be eligible for university studies, but really feels the need to consume more swedish text.

The easier-to-read books in the libraries are all too simple, and they don't want to learn by regularly reading a lot of news (which is probably the easiest way to be trickle fed new and niche words), but this seems really nice.

This looks promising for their situation. I'll plop LoTR, Antimemetics Division or something in there later and see how it turns out!

[dehrmann]

The problem with learning Swedish is 95% of Swedes speak English and are more than happy to speak English.

[amarant]

And will switch to English as soon as we detect the slightest hint of a foreign accent, in a often misguided attempt to be helpful.

[cycomanic]

Except when asked if they speak English, where they then very hesitantly say (in perfect English btw) "a little bit".

Quite interesting cultural differences btw. In my experience, if you ask the same question in Denmark, the answer is "of course... Everybody here speaks English"

[stevesimmons]

When I was learning Dutch, I found the same gap between kids' books that were too simple and proper novels that were too complex.

Newspapers were the easiest and best way to bridge that. They made it easy to pick a story where you had both some interest and enough background context.

I started with De Telegraaf, a popular newspaper, with short, simple stories and lots of photos. And over the course of 18 months worked my way up to serious papers like NRC Handelsblad and de Volkskrant.

So I'd give newspapers (and magazines) a go.

Back then, I'd sit in a cafe with my dictionary, reading their newspapers, and handwriting lists of words to learn. Nowadays it would be reading the paper's website on my laptop, pasting paragraphs into GPT, and adding the words to Anki etc :)

[marssaxman]

Funny timing - I just finished today's episode of "NOS Journaal in Makkelijke Taal". I have not regularly followed "the news" in many years, but this channel offers a pleasant way to get some daily practice; it's simple enough to follow along, with a few new words and phrases to learn each time. I'll check out De Telegraaf as well - thanks for the recommendation.

[mistrial9]

news is uniquely terrible for learning a language IMHO. One word changes meaning substantially.. lots of long form statements when a short form would work; lots of references that take local, political or cultural context to know; lots of ideas and words, very fast.. etc..