I am desperately envious of people with more than one language. Whenever I try to learn another one, my mind begins to reduce my English vocabulary in accordance, as if I only have enough space for one language at a time. It's bizarre but I guess it's just the way I'm wired. It would be nice to have something else to draw on when English just won't do; it's so hard to convey fire/passion in English, for instance, without drawing on expletives! And I love the way non-native speakers jumble syntax sometimes, especially in poetry, because it can bring new meaning or depth out. I guess that's one of the great things about English: there's such variety in the etymology that it adapts really well to the application of creativity and can evolve rapidly.
I write in my native language (Norwegian). Whenever I try to write in English it seems like I'm trying too hard, if that makes sense. Also, when I think I know how to write in English, I always end up realising that there is so much I don't know.
Your english is good. You probably know that. You can write in whatever language you feel most comfortable with for whatever story or medium you're trying to write. Just know that the language you're writing in is going to be limited to only those who can understand that language and so maybe you'll want to stick with the language that can reach the largest audience. But if it's just for personal reasons, who cares?
Due to my personal history, I happen to have a native-level command of Portuguese and French. However, having to the US some 6 years, I am now very familiar with English as well. Nonetheless I feel that when engaging in writing as an art, I am able to produce in much more natural and sublte ways in Portuguese or French, than in English. Do you write in more than one language, or just one? Do you think I should give up on English?
I used to be able to write in French when I was younger. It wasn't anything good, however, so I chose to focus on improving my writing skills in just one language (English). You definitely shouldn't give up writing in English. Being able to write in multiple languages is a good thing. From a practical point of view, you should write in the language you're most comfortable with and have the most command over. It makes the publication process a lot easier. But while you're writing in French or Portuguese, keep practicing writing in English. Hopefully one day you'll be able to publish works in all three languages.
I started writing creatively to improve my english (second language) when I moved to the UK when I was 14. Now after 6 years of living and more importantly studying in the UK I need to start writing in my native language to improve the grammar (which is much more complex than English) in my native language.
You write in whatever language is comfortable for you. I speak English and Spanish while learning Portuguese and Italian and I like to add them into my writing.
I'm Danish but prefer writing fiction in English...just feel like I can express myself better that way.
I usually write in English, as it's my first language. But I delve into Spanish when I'm writing poetry. Poetry sounds so much more romantic in Spanish, to me anyways.
I write in my second language, which is English. I generally prefer the language to Norwegian, I feel it's... prettier and that it is easier to say what I want using the English words rather than Norwegian. I'm quite annoyed by that fact that I could have been bilingual, actually. My father's mother tongue is English, and I'm slightly bitter about the fact that my parents didn't teach me both languages whilst raising me.
I feel as though everyone considers foreign languages better sounding or more romantic or whatever. The grass I always greener. I can also empathise with certain thoughts coming to mind in one language or another, but I remain sceptical of nonnatives writing fiction. I wouldn't dream of writing fiction in German, no matter how good I got with the language. This might be tempered by the fact that English language publishing seems to be the real dragon.
I am a native German speaker but I write in english. It's more suited to what I want to express (I have never been that comfortable with German as I am now with English).
You are bilingual. Bilingual simply means someone who speaks two languages. There're different types of bilinguals - those who acquire their languages since birth, those who acquired their languages as an adult, and I believe there's a third category. There's also almost no such thing as a multilingual person who has equal fluency in all his languages, merely because of the lack of an available environment to truly nurture all languages to the same standard (just think literacy) and also, one simply does not know the vocab needed in specialised areas sometimes. Even monolinguals do not have complete fluency of their own language - just try quizzing a regular person on their mechanical terms or medical terms, and they'd be stumped. Yet we seem to expect this level of knowledge when someone is multilingual. Sorry for the rant Bilingualism is something that interests me greatly, and my baby will be bilingual herself and I still have a smattering of hope that perhaps she could be trilingual. But since I'm the one who speaks both minority languages, that's kinda tough I'm surprised your father chose not to speak English with you. It's usually the one language people push their kids to learn. Your father's Norwegian must have been very good and who knows, maybe he tried and was met with resistance from you as a toddler/child it's a known issue that children favour the majority language, which also becomes their dominant language. And when kids start to fight, some parents choose to abandon their languages altogether in favour of a smoother relationship with their child. Other times it's just lack of discipline on the parents' part - you know your kid understands X language, so when she doesn't respond in Y language, you switch to X to get a faster response. Cantonese is already suffering precisely because my baby understands English and not Cantonese, and I don't even speak Czech but I've started using Czech words with her too because she understands it and it's just the first word that comes to me when I hear it all the time! Have you asked your dad why he didn't speak English with you? Anyway I get you - I regret the fact that my parents abandoned our Chinese education because "we don't need it in England" Now my Chinese literacy is, as the Chinese say, "half salty and half bland" - neither here nor there. Good for my background but nowhere near peer level, but just good enough for me to see how beautiful the language can get and how inaccessible it is to me - when it should have been my mother tongue! ETA: I say "should have been" - technically it is my mother tongue. I was near monolingual for the first 8 years of my life. English is now my dominant language and the one I consider my "mother tongue". I don't possess this level of fluency and the ability to talk about any and every topic in Cantonese anymore - through sheer lack of exposure really, since I am still fluent but just lack the vocab.
I have moved around a lot and therefore English is the language I think, dream and write in. It is not, however, my mother tongue, but probably the languages I speak the best. Actually, I don't feel perfect or an expert in any language, which is a bit sad as a writer, but then I am more of a story-teller than a linguist.
I outline in Dutch because it's easier for me. I write English perfectly well and use it in my actual works for the same reasons already expressed (wider reader base, more suited to the genres I use) but somehow it's easier for me to spot when an idea doesn't make sense or just isn't interesting when I write about it in Dutch rather than English. I don't know if this is a thing for other bilinguals or not.
In my first language. However, every times I write in my second language about the same topic I just wrote about it in my first language, I write different opinions on the same topic. Thats why I love to write in more languages. It helps me come up with more ideas and more different opinions on the same topic.
That's interesting. I've heard it said that many languages have concepts in them that are difficult or impossible to translate exactly. That's probably true.
I was about to have a similar response! When I'm planning out a scene, I have an easier time writing it in Spanish and tidying it up when I convert it to English. I find that the flow in my sentence structure is worse if I start with English.
Depending on what I write about. What interests me to write about it in my native language doesn’t necessary interest me to write about it in my second language. Different languages have different interests in terms of topics. For me, what interests me to write about it in my first language doesn’t necessary interest me to write about it in another language. However, when I write about a topic in my first language and then I write about it in my second language, I don’t get the same ideas and opinions I got when I wrote about it in my first language. In other words, I write different ideas and I express different opinions even though the the topic is the same. However, just because the language is different, the written thought is different too. It is very interesting to note that human brain gets affected by the language it thinks of.
If I'm not mistaken I've heard @Wreybies say that everything can be translated, but you may need more words to do it. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, Wrey)
I'm not entirely convinced. While you can translate the actual words, you may not get the nuance of the language, and some of the concepts will only be familiar to someone who already knows the language. For example, how would you translate the word "keigo" from Japanese? It means the most formal and polite form of speech. While you could say "He must speak humbly", I don't think that really captures the essence of what it means to use keigo (which indicates a difference in status between the two speakers). I shudder to think what real-time translators cope with.
That is correct. Under the umbrella of linguistics, it is the very litmus test for a true language. Trust me, if I can interpret the Portuguese word saudade, a word that is not only highly nuanced, but also a kind of vehicle for personal sentimental feelings, then it can be done for any word from True Language A to True Language B. As the interpreter, how detailed or how precious you get about capturing every shade and nuance will depend on circumstance and situation. Sometimes a more blunt interpretation is fine; other times that just won't do. But words like saudade and the word @Naomasa298 offered as example are not the boogeymen of interpreters and translators. Words like that are kinda like slang in the sense that they are showy little gems that actually have negligible impact in the grand scheme of things. Saudade feels difficult to interpret because of the layers of meaning, the specificity. But that very specificity is actually what makes it easy. You simply will have to use a few sentences, simples. We have ways of making them fit. Much, much more challenging are vague bits of vocabulary, the sloppy vagaries of idiomatic speech, the fact that the word guagua as used by Latinos in the mainland U.S. is different to how they use it here in the Caribbean, and that while both uses can certainly be interpreted, there is no direct term in English. In New York it means a city bus; in Puerto Rico it can be absolutely any vehicle that is not a coupe or a sedan. This is why mere bilingualism - even perfect bilingualism - does not an interpreter make.
