No, in case you’re wondering, I did not read the Metamorphosis in the original language — though I often found myself wishing I could. Take for example, this passage from Wikipedia about the opening line of the story:

“The opening line of the novella is famous in English:

As Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.

“However, this English translation of the opening line is spurious. The actual German line runs like this:

Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

“English translators have often sought to render the word Ungeziefer as ‘insect’, but this is not accurate, and is based on a misguided attempt to clarify what Kafka intended (according to his journals and letters to the publisher of the text) to be an ambiguous term. In German, Ungeziefer literally means ‘vermin‘ and is sometimes used to mean ‘bug’ — a very general term, totally unlike the scientific sounding ‘insect’. Kafka had no intention of labelling Gregor as this or that specific thing, but merely wanted to convey disgust in his transformation. Literally, the end of the line should be translated as …transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin (this is the phrasing used in the David Wyllie translation, although the feeling of the word in German is more colloquial sounding (like ‘bug’).”

The version I checked out of the library (tranlated and edited by Stanley Corngold) subscribes to the more literal translation mentioned above, and the opening line is as follows:

When Gregor Samsa woke up one moring from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

Notice how different this is from the English opening line listed in Wikipedia. So, maybe I should make one of my goals in learning German to read one of Kafka’s short stories in the original language? I’m a long way from being able to do this, but wouldn’t it be so wonderful?

P.S. You can read more about the translation controversy over this story here.