Malone

I've been kicking this around in my head for awhile, and I thought I'd bring it to the forum to see what kind of answers I got.

Do bi-lingual writers have a better ability to express their ideas than only English speakers? I often wonder how much I'm losing in translation when reading French, German, or Russian. After reading Lolita, and seeing how he played with English words, I started getting the impression that non-English speakers may be better at that than us. We have to stick to this comparatively limiting language (so I've been told) while others have a word the expresses like ten feelings at once.

I don't think I'm explaining myself well. I really don't have the concept down that well myself. It's just something I keep thinking of, and it's bothering me. I know a little Spanish, and even the complexity of that fairly simple language is more than English. I got that Rosetta Stone software, and I'm going to try and learn Russian to expand the way I think about words and language.

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Squishtof

Lets see if I can make sense here, lol..

Would having someone who can speak english and another language really be able to transfer the subtle feelings that say a slight shift in the way you'd pronounce a word in Spanish to English? Because there wouldn't be a corresponding word in English because we're pretty blunt..

If you see wot I mean..?

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I probably should have read that before I posted it :-/

Sam Winchester

That I don't agree with. I don't think there's a more complex language in the world than English. Maybe Chinese or Japanese. Not very many more.

Why learn another language, though? I'm not following you, Malone. Do you think it will help your writing? I don't know how it would.

On another note: When's the last time you felt anger, pain, sorrow, joy, bliss, rage, envy, jealously, sadness, and depression all at once?

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HarryG

I've been trying to think of bi-lingual writers who are better writers because of it, and I can't. Hold on, Peter Ustinov, was a tri-lingual writer, Russian, English and German.


But, I don't think he was better because of it.


Usually, great writer write in their own language, and if their writings are important enough, they are translated, by experts, and it doesn't always work.


I think to write in more than one language, successfully, is impossible.

JosephB

I don't know if it made him a better writer, but it's hard to believe, when you read Conrad, that English wasn't his first language. And he didn't learn it until he was in his 20's.

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Ilasir Maroa

Every language has things that don't translate into other languages. English is no more limiting or freeing(lol), than any other laanguage, really, nor more simple or complex; it is merely different.

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Malone

I was going for something more along the lines of: does knowing another language positively influence your english writing?
Not actually writing in another language.
I just thought it may give you a broader way to look at English words and shape them together.

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lin

Probably not the best example, since English has about twice as many words as Spanish.

Also, the real magic of English is that is a hybrid language with both Latinate and Germanic roots and therefore most concepts can be expresed in either flowery latin terms (urinate, fornicate, domicile) or harsher Teutonic words (piss, fuck, house)

Learning a Romance language will DEFINITELY help you understand English better.

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winkash

Latin terms are used mostly in formal, technical or scientific language.

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lin

Absolutely untrue. They are so much a part of your speech that you aren't even aware of it.

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SacredCircle

Latin has helped me immensely. I only took 2 years but I would love to take more.
Have you already used Rosetta stone Malone? If so, does it really work as well as they say?

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winkash

Could you, please, illustrate?

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"All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one."
Marquis de Sade

SacredCircle

canis-dog
amore-love
hortus-garden
vinum-wine

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Knocking

I believe it does. As I learn Spanish a lot of the grammar in English is re...defined? in a way. I think it is also like learning to write poetry. You see words in a whole new way and different ways to form them (or put them together). There are different rules; and when you know the differences, you know what makes English unique.

Hope that makes at least a thimble full of sense.

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winkash

These are English terms with Latin roots, as well as illustrate.

Curriculum
quantum
solarium

are Latin terms.

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"All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one."
Marquis de Sade