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Being a good writer in multiple languages | ||
Tags: Language Level Satisfaction | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5051 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 17 of 27 24 November 2012 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
As far as I know, he only wrote two texts in French: "Mademoiselle O" and "Pouchkine, ou le vrai et le vraisemblable." Has anyone here read him in all three languages, or at least in English/Russian + French? Was his French as amazing as his English and/or Russian? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Asal Bilingual Heptaglot Newbie YugoslaviaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4416 days ago 25 posts - 35 votes Speaks: Croatian*, Serbian*, SpanishC2, Latin, English, Persian, Macedonian Studies: Norwegian | Message 18 of 27 03 December 2012 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's good to practice your writing skills in this way, as long as there is somebody out there to revise it. I personally like to write poems in English, Spanish, and Persian, although neither of them is my mother tongue.. I do this because I listen to a lot of music in these languages, so I try to catch the phrases I haven't learned before and then use them in my poems..its a good way to memorize them
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| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5728 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 19 of 27 03 December 2012 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Beckett wrote in French despite being Irish.
Atiq Rahimi writes in French but was born in Kabul. He was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 2008 so his writing was officially recognised as quality literature. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 27 03 December 2012 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Even if you can't get anyone to correct your writings you should still be writing just to keep going. Corrections may or may not be useful, but first and foremost you should write to keep your target languages active. Edited by Iversen on 04 December 2012 at 3:24am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6447 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 21 of 27 03 December 2012 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am assuming Iversen meant "can't get" and while I agree with him, I also have to mention that overcoming initial inertia can be a daunting task.
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| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7036 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 22 of 27 03 December 2012 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find it a very good exercise to write in my different languages. Especially in situations when I didn't or don't have the chance to speak the language a lot. It's also a good practice before I get into situations where I'll have to speak. When writing I have to make up sentences but don't have to be so fast, as when I have to speak. I can play arround with the words and look things up, if I need to. I have always found that very useful.
I just need something to motivate me to write, which is not equally easy for all of my languages. It's easiest for English I guess. I have taken part in written Role-playing-games during the last ten years or something (where I play/write one character that I came up with and interact with other people's characters). That is something very motivating: if I want to know how the story will go on I'll have to write something for my characters, and this is highly addicting, I find. Those kinds of games are easy to find in English but unfortunately I have not found many intersting ones in other languages so far. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Veel Tetraglot Newbie Norway Joined 4693 days ago 23 posts - 41 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, Latvian, English, NorwegianC1 Studies: Greek, Estonian | Message 23 of 27 03 December 2012 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can’t help but notice that a mere fact “despite being x/being born in y, but writing in language z” usually doesn’t tell much by itself. For example, previously mentioned Atiq Rahimi, being born in Kabul in 1962, attended Lycée Esteqlal (French-only instruction) and after receiving political asylum in France in 1984 he graduated from Sorbonne University and has been living in the country ever since. Thus, in such circumstances he is more a French writer of the Afghan descent rather than an Afghan writer writing in French.
Another earlier example of the Lebanese-born Amin Maalouf closely reminds of Rahimi’s case. Being born in Beirut, he attended the French-only Jesuit school and graduated from the Francophone university and has been living in France since 1976. Yet, it is so tempting to add Romain Gary who is the only author who came to win the Prix Goncourt twice (in 1956 and 1975). Born in Vilnius, he left for France in 1928 with great expectations to become a great man and famous author. His autobiographical novel “La Promesse de l'aube” (1960) brilliantly depicts subtle irony of struggling to become French. Another Goncourt winner (1995) Russian-born Andreï Makine is a great example of persistence. Fascinated by the French literature from the young age he graduated from Moscow University with a degree in French literature and came to seek political asylum in France in 1987. Here, to get published he had even to present his first manuscripts as translations from Russian to overcome skepticism that a non-native could write so fluently in French. To continue the list, I would like to mention a Greek-born Swedish author Theodor Kallifatides. He came to Sweden as a 26-year-old refugee in 1964 and started to work as a dishwasher, while learning Swedish on his own by reading Strindberg. Three years later he received a degree in philosophy from Stockholm University, and soon after that became a chief editor of Bonniers Litterära Magasin and since then published more than 30 works of fiction and poetry. What a success, talent and persistence! Now I can’t help going back to Nabokov. Although being so much fond of him and also being pleased to dwell in the town where he happened to have written his Lolita, I usually frown at every attempt to crown him along with Joseph Conrad as the most celebrated non-native writers. He might be genius or not, but such facts as his being born into the anglophile family descended from Russian nobility and being brought up by private tutors and nannies to speak three languages (English, French and Russian), graduation from Cambridge, teaching literature at various American universities, having a devoted wife as his driver, typist and translator, also not less contribute to the overall success. Well, by bringing up these points I just wanted to remind myself and you that a road to any success tends to be long-winding, there is much more behind the great pieces of writing that's left untold, nothing comes into being as effortlessly as it may seem. Speaking one or more languages doesn’t grant that one can become a good writer in it/them. It’s a craft and it takes time, dedication, persistence and obviously some talent and favourable circumstances. And above all, what matters most is your story and whom you’re telling it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 24 of 27 04 December 2012 at 1:16am | IP Logged | ||
(Welcome to the forum:)) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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