is there any point in reading the translated version of a book

No.
Some languages do translate perfectly to each other tho. Portuguese and spanish, nordic languages, etc.

Of course, but I'll never learn all the native languages of writers that I wish to read so I'll instead settle for the second best thing.

>>9053929
What do you call 'the whole experience', and how do you get it with -any- book, translated or not?

I've got an English translation of Faust and because it's poetry I just know I'm missing the whole fucking point. As such I'm considering buying it in the original German and reading both side by side. My German is shit and this is the only solution I can think of.

>>9053929
Kill yourself piece of shit

>>9053950
Like, something that sounds really poetic in english, won't always sound good too in italian or indonesian, right ? The joke won't be as funny, the whole thing won't be as poetic, etc.

I find it easy to read books translated into English, but I struggle if it's been translated into French or Japanese.

>>9054142
It's a choice between a possibly slightly worse (than the original) experience versus no experience at all. And a possibly slightly worse experience of a masterpiece is still better than most experiences with even great books.

There's a lot of works you should be exposed to and you will never be able to learn all the languages they use. You could start off by only reading english masterpieces but eventually you'll only have great works left without turning to translations or learning a new language.