Bilingual writers and your inner writing voice

[Azoraa]

Dear community,

I was wondering if there are other bilingual writers out there - or writers who write in more than one language.
How do you handle your bilingualism in writing?

I am having difficulties with this. I am German, and German is my (only) mother tongue. But I have been working in academia for a decade, my partner is non-German, and basically all my work and much of my leisure is not in German. Most of the series and movies are watch are in English, and 95% percent of the fiction and non-fiction I read is in English. I write and read academic articles in English, and give talks in English.
As a result of this, my "inner writing voice" has somehow transformed to English. If I have an idea, or a scene develops in my head, it's in English.
So most of the stuff I write is in English. But sometimes, I'll go back to writing in German -- and I am surprised by how elegantly I can write! It's just so different to write in your mother tongue. But I honestly haven't read much good German speculative fiction, and I am lacking a voice for that genre.

I also sometimes find that my writing voice suddenly switches languages when it's least convenient, and then I have to force myself to continue in the language that feels wrong... arghh.

Additionally, of course, I wonder if I'll ever be able to publish in my non-native tongue without excessive professional editing.

Well, so much for the ranting.

I'd love to hear your experiences with this, bilingual writers, and how you've learned (or not) to manage these conflicts...

Cheers,
Lisa

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@ctg

 

[ctg]

How do you handle your bilingualism in writing?

I started thinking in English a while ago, and it helps that I've lived in London for over sixteen years. It doesn't help that I have dyslexia. The only for that is experience, and being hard on yourself to learn the grammar well enough. But even then the errors creep in.

To develop your dialogue skills, listen to other people conversations, and try to put them in quotes in your head. As if you would be translating in live. It will help you in two ways, you will learn to translate in fly, and those lines start to drop into your character conversations. What you can't do is to give up, because you have to work harder than native speakers.

More you write and speak, better you will become. Essentially that is the only writing advice Banks gave, when he said, "Practice, practice, practice." Ultimately you will surpass native speakers and get enough of words, sentences, idioms, all the good stuff to produce whatever you want. So far the biggest bilingual writers problems is that they give up too easily and write in mother tongue. Thing is, you writing in English will also enhance the way you speak German. You will adapt that richness and that will change your stuff. Ultimately you will write well enough in both languages. But you will always be better at your native language.

 

[-K2-]

Here's a suggestion... Write in the first person, as a German who long ago emigrated to X-English speaking nation. So, your character speaks in English, thinks in English, but retains those German traits that affects his speech. Think about it. When you think in English, is it in perfect English or how you speak? If it's all in the first person, then really, your character would speak and narrate/think like you do.

Is that proper writing? I don't know, I'm a novice. But it would certainly be stunningly accurate. How well received it might be, another thing.

If it's of any consolation, English should be my first language, yet except in specific circumstances--all my life--I speak in a unique pidgin of sorts. I still speak that way and except when I speak very slow and carefully, cannot speak English well. However, when I began learning how to read and write, it was in formal English.

Find a way to make your voice work for you

K2

 

[scarpelius]

@Azoraa I do not have yet an inner voice in English, nor do I plan to have one. It will be nice to have time to practice more reading and writing in EN, but lately I am very busy. Good thing is that all the docs I read is in English and all my work conversation with colleagues, but that is not enough and is far from literary vocabulary.
Another thing, especially important for 75 and 300 contests, is the cultural background. Sometimes I read stories which make no sense to me, because the names/situations/allusions are unknown to me.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Just a quick observation, Lisa; your OP is written in impeccable English. I wish my students could write their choreographic journals as well as you write.

pH

 

[Elckerlyc]

I have much the same questions as you have @Azoraa.
Although I don't have any serious plans for writing with the ultimate goal to get published - though I do dream about it - I do wonder, if I ever reach to that point and confidence, whether I should do so in English or my mother tongue Dutch. It's one of the reasons why I became a member of this forum; to find out if my writing in English can survive the scrutiny of native English speaking critics.
As already mentioned, I'm Dutch. I have been reading books (mainly) in English for over 40 years. But I hardly ever speak in English. When I write in English, I think in English. This is essential, I think, because every language has it's own flow. Others would compare it to music, but I see sentences more as a flowing river. Sometimes slow and meandering, sometimes more rapid. But rapids break the flow. You'll have to pick the right river (Rhine or Thames!) before you start writing.

No matter how well or not my writing in English is, I'm bound to make silly mistakes every now and then. But that's something any spellchecker or beta-readers should be able to point out to you.
Writing in a language that's not your own is more demanding than doing so in your mother tongue. That is my experience as well. I am much more fluent and quick in Dutch. When writing in English I quite often have to check the meaning of words, just to see if they mean what I think they mean or perhaps have a subtly different undertone of what I seek to say. Or I start doubting a saying or expression right after using it.
There is of course the alternative of writing in your own tongue and than rewriting it in English. Any serious writing takes multiple drafts, so why not one dedicated to translating it yourself?
Ultimately, it is mostly about what you write, not how well phrased your sentences are. This is something I must keep telling myself, because I try to achieve the same style of writing in English as I would in Dutch, which might come across as just a bit off or unnatural to an English speaking person.
They keep saying here on the forum: practice, practice, practice. Perhaps we are doing it wrong and should we first become a practiced writer in our own language. And then, when confident, try conquering the English speaking world.

Just some random thoughts.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I agree with Phyrebrat, Lisa. Your English looks fine to me. Better than a very large proportion of the native English speakers I know.

 

[Parson]

@Azoraa If your German is better than your English, your German must be very good indeed. Had you not said that English was not your first language I'd have never guessed. I would say that if you "think in English" when you write English; it's a very good thing. I would think that you probably are already good enough with the language to publish a story in English. (I'm guessing that you already publish academic papers in English.)

And .... Welcome to the Chrons! You will make a wonderful addition.

 

[Azoraa]

Thanks to everyone who replied. Good to know that also others struggle with this.

And thanks for the compliments @Parson , @Teresa Edgerton , and @Phyrebrat .

Yes, I do publish academic articles in English, and have gotten to the point where I don't need editing by a native speaker.
But fiction is different. Different verbs, idioms etc... and suddenly I find myself wondering if I used the right preposition etc.
But you've encouraged me, so I guess I'll just ignore it for the moment and keep - practicing

 

[olive]

I don't think I'm bilingual yet. But I don't have a goal to be published in English and I'm only published in my mother language. (Translation.) However, I have problems with my inner voices. Not just while trying to write but also while reading between two languages. With English, I write and write and then I am suspicious that it is all incorrect or wrong or not understandable in some way. I think I just need practice.

In the last ten years or so I realised that my SFF voice has become English in time because I have read these genres in English. This affects my writing in my mother language. I can't do it for now. I can't switch. When I try, I end up translating from English automatically not thinking/writing in my mother tongue. If you consider the process is not complete with English -naturally- either. It is a mess. But my writing experience is very limited and new.

Perhaps, the translation mode being dominant in my mind is screwing things up.

 

[Biskit]

Think about it. When you think in English, is it in perfect English or how you speak?

That's an Interesting idea, and I would add the following thought: I'm a "native English speaker" with no other languages to my name, and I write a lot in first person, but the result is often far from being perfect English. The results seem to work for most of the people who have read my books. (Caveat - that does make for a small sample size.)

 

[-K2-]

That's an Interesting idea, and I would add the following thought: I'm a "native English speaker" with no other languages to my name, and I write a lot in first person, but the result is often far from being perfect English. The results seem to work for most of the people who have read my books. (Caveat - that does make for a small sample size.)

The questionable issue, is whether a Germanic inflected English would fly with readers. I know a number of folks who are German but have lived in the U.S. for many years (40+). Those individuals still speak and phrase things in a manner which is very distinct. It's not unpleasant, but it's noticeable though very natural.

So, I'd think to pull it off throughout the novel, you'd need to keep it in the first person and make clear from the start that X-person emigrated to Y-country whenever. At that point, it's genuine and appropriate, and only the most unsophisticated (or pretentious) readers should have a problem with it.

Just my opinion... No one should EVER base their work on MY opinion

K2

 

[Elckerlyc]

Think about it. When you think in English, is it in perfect English or how you speak

As a non-native English speaking person it would be very hard to say whether you are thinking in 'perfect English'. It is limited by your understanding of it. At best you are thinking in what you perceive as perfect English.
Not everyone has the same aptitude for learning languages. My aunt emigrated to Canada 60 years ago. Her English is... flawed. Or, as her grandchildren would have it, "Grandma speaks funny."
If you can't quite catch the flow of a language you'll never learn. But even if you do, it will still take an effort to loose your dialect.You don't hear that dialect when you are thinking. But you should know and recognize that dialect will you be able to, in a believable manner, blend it into your writing.

 

[Parson]

Interesting antidote and I think it applies.

I knew a missionary couple who lived almost their whole adult lives in Japan. They had 3 children while in Japan and adopted a Japanese son. Needless to say, all of them were extremely bilingual. But in speaking to Joyce, the mom, I asked if her children were really good at translation or not. She said, "Surprisingly George and I are better at it than they are." When I asked her to explain, she said, "I think it comes because they never had to think from one language to another while growing up." I took that to mean that they actually had two mother tongues.

Interesting tidbit: Their three "American" children have all married and are raising/have raised families in Japan. All have important positions in Japanese companies doing business in the USA. It is my opinion that they are highly prized in part because they have their feet in both societies. The adopted Japanese boy? --- The last I knew, he was a deputy sheriff in Kalamazoo Michigan. --- Makes me grin every time I think of it.

 

[Azoraa]

@-K2- my English inner voice is very English. US English. It's not my translated German inner voice. It's been feed different things, different media, different books. It'S of course particular to my particular mix of life experience.
I don't worry so much about that. It's just, that suddenly I don't know whether I should write... "as she swam deeper into the cave, glowing barnacles attached to the rock wall illuminated her way"
... or if "swimming deeper" sounds stupid, and if there is a better verb to describe that action without an additional adverb, and if instead of "attached to the rock" there is a verb that grasps exactly that action for marine animals, and if I should add a "down" after "deeper" etc... And -- does anyone even know what barnacles are?? I didn't, I looked it up, but then again, I'm missing lots of words I was never exposed to, so I can't evaluate how specific the words are that I choose...
and then suddenly everything sounds weird.

 

[olive]

The questionable issue, is whether a Germanic inflected English would fly with readers. I know a number of folks who are German but have lived in the U.S. for many years (40+). Those individuals still speak and phrase things in a manner which is very distinct. It's not unpleasant, but it's noticeable though very natural.

From my point of view in translation, I'm always very comfortable with native English writers. And bilingual academic writers have excellent English. It's not about that. It's about the general expression they use versus how our minds work while using the English language.

I had this book written in English by a foreign academic, it's brilliant, he is brilliant but while it was written in excellent English the nature of the text was so complicated, I wondered how it would have been if written by a native English user which is ridiculous, obviously, the mind produced the ideas, the text in English didn't use English to do so.

So this is, in my opinion, actually about the tradition a language creates in different forms. And which one we get into.

With English, this is more different than any other language in the world -probably with Spanish too to a lesser extent, but not Mandarin for example- because there are different English languages in the world. As British-American culture is dominant in a lot of mediums, people, communities take English and make their own.

 

[Elckerlyc]

and then suddenly everything sounds weird.

I recognize the feeling! Insecurity strikes frequently!
I try to solve it by being creative and write things like: "glowing barnacles covered the walls, illuminated her way." or "the walls were thickset with glowing barnacles..."

... because there are different English languages in the world. As British-American culture is dominant in a lot of mediums, people, communities take English and make their own.

I was once - long ago, I might add - 'accused' by an American from Hawaii that my English sounded British. Which wasn't surprising really because that's what we get taught at school; British words, British pronunciation, British spelling. American culture wasn't so widespread at the time as it is now, except for some TV-shows like Lucy Ball or the Dick van Dyke-show.
I have since read numerous books by American authors and watched many TV-shows, series and movies that were born in the USA.
As a result I now have not a single notion of what I am saying or writing would be construed as British, American or (most likely) some horrendous mixture (to the native ear). If I ever meet that Hawaiian guy again he won't recognize me.

So this is, in my opinion, actually about the tradition a language creates in different forms. And which one we get into.

By this you mean: Different languages create different mindsets? Different ways of logical thinking? Or would that be more culturally defined?

 

[Azoraa]

I think what olive means is that there are different "Englishs" all over the world, language-traditions -- ways of speaking -- also outside the native-speaking world.
I notice it when I speak with non-native international academic colleagues. We understand each other very well in high-level English, and discuss complex issues. But the whole dynamics change when an English native-speaker enters the floor. Completely different way of speaking...

 

[The Judge]

It's just, that suddenly I don't know whether I should write... "as she swam deeper into the cave, glowing barnacles attached to the rock wall illuminated her way"
... or if "swimming deeper" sounds stupid, and if there is a better verb to describe that action without an additional adverb, and if instead of "attached to the rock" there is a verb that grasps exactly that action for marine animals, and if I should add a "down" after "deeper" etc... And -- does anyone even know what barnacles are?? I didn't, I looked it up, but then again, I'm missing lots of words I was never exposed to, so I can't evaluate how specific the words are that I choose...
and then suddenly everything sounds weird.

I can't help with the bilingual thing since I can barely order a coffee in another language, but if it's of any comfort what you have described would probably apply to some extent to most native English speakers who worry about their writing. I'm always trying to think if there's a better verb, if the sentence reads correctly, and eg if adding "down" would sound better or make the line clumsy, and while I do know what a barnacle is, I would be checking whether it does actually attach itself to a rock wall! So while I don't arrive at this problem from the same direction as you, I am going through much the same worry in the effort to write something that is both elegant and understood.

As for everything sounding weird, I've often re-read a word or sentence so often it sounds like complete gibberish!

Interesting antidote and I think it applies.

I'm being very naughty here, Parson, but it's in revenge for you nearly causing me to choke to death! Laughing out loud while trying to swallow a slurp of coffee is dangerous!