Just so annoyed at this mindset of English being the natural language of story telling. Like I went to the library w a friend some time ago and I spotted a Godchild collection in Swedish, I donāt mind reading manga in Swedish but a lot of people do! Including my friend who was like āeugh thatād be cringe to read, i prefer reading in Englishā ??? Like I can understand this a little bit if the original language of a story is English, but manga quite famously is from Japan. This isnāt a manga translated from Japanese then English (the true language of storytelling) and then Swedish, it was translated from Japanese to Swedish. And like weāve all noticed this lack of Swedish translations right? Asking my fellow Swedish speakers. I canāt think of a single manga translated to Swedish in the 2020s, I think Iāve seen Solo Levelling translated to Swedish but thatās a manhwa and also bad. I have one (1) manga in Swedish, itās the second volume of Basara because thatās the only one easily available. I actually tried to find it again and Iām pretty sure itās just gone, I mustāve gotten one of the last copies. Anyways, like I sort of get it. Because the thing is, as second speakers of English we mainly learn it because it is practical. So this will be a bit difficult to explain to native English speakers but Iāll do my best. Many of my friends, me included, have joked/described the surreal feeling of hearing people casually talk English when visiting The UK or US. This is because English is almost like an exclusively TV and communication language. My cousin, whose first language is actually Spanish though, said it pretty much perfectly by describing reading manga in Spanish like āwhy are these fictional characters suddenly talking like real peopleā. It sets a degree of separation, having characters speak English makes the story feel more fictional, and when they (for me) speak Swedish itās quite jarring. But like, thatās a bad thing ! Swedish is by no means a small language, but itās also not a world wide language. I hate that this makes me sound like a Swedish-Democrat, I hate that party, but I think itās a good thing to have stories in Swedish! I think itās a good thing to translate and dub things into Swedish, if anything because 1. itās clear that the easiest way to learn a language is to consume media in that language and 2. so we donāt end up with such a one-note culture. I hate that Swedish is seen as something weird to use in writing and should only be designated to casual conversations, I just do ok. I just think we should maybe not give up our native tongues because of some Germans that ended up invading an Island that later ended up invading the rest of the world has a really convenient language. You know ? Like itās good thereās a universal language for communication reasons, but I donāt want it to be the only language I just donāt. I donāt have any good arguments this is a tumblr post not an essay, but thereās really nothing to lose with having stories translated to Swedish, no matter how cringe you the language is. Ok sorry for the rambling !