Finding Your Way in the Land of Babel: Writing in a Second Language

As a writer, we want nothing more than for our work to be seen, read, appreciated. Right? Right. A lot of us write in English, even if it is not our native language.

When you’re like me and your native language is only spoken by a small population, that severely limits your reach. That is one reason to branch out into English. However, even if nobody were to read what I wrote, I would still write it. So that’s not my most important motivation. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to write in Dutch--at least not fiction. It never stops feeling stilted and artificial. That's why I write in English.

That being said, there are some real challenges to writing in a language not your own. I was fortunate enough to learn English at a very young age, but I still feel the differences somehow.

_{Image courtesy of Tama66 via Pixabay}

Whatsitcalledagain?

Vocabulary is not that big of a problem, I think. There are plenty of online dictionaries and thesauruses to be found. Use them to make sure you get your facts straight.

If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, and smells like a duck...

A word may sound the same as it does in your native language, but have a completely different meaning.

I’ll use my own native language, Dutch, as an example here. Dutch and English are both Germanic languages, and thus, closely related to one another. Some words look and sound very similar. In English, a man would refer to his spouse as his wife. In Dutch, if a man were to call his spouse his wife, he’d end up getting smacked. Hard. A word that is perfectly acceptable in English, has a very derogatory meaning in Dutch.

To make a long story short, I’d choose my words carefully if I were you.

Tomato, tomahto.

Words may have similar meanings, but with a slightly different nuance. Take, for example, transparent and translucent. A transparent object is so clear that it’s almost invisible. A translucent object allows light to pass through it, but it creates distortion and/or diffusion of the light.

Be smart, you must.

You can only get away with sentences like these if you’re small, pointy-eared, green and wrinkled. The rest of us have to work at improving our grammar.

Grammar structures can vary greatly from one language to the next. How to conjugate your verbs, how to treat adjectives…

The best thing to do is practice. Use the language on a daily basis. Preferably in a place that will allow you to get feedback from other English speakers.

There are grammar check services you can use but they are a placeholder. Relying on them will hold you back from learning to do this yourself. Do yourself a favour and figure out the rules.

Classic pitfalls

Do I lay down? Do I lie down?
I lay a blanket on the ground and lie down on it.
In past tense, this becomes: I laid a blanket on the ground and lay down on it.
So, you use lay for objects you lay down. A person can actively lie down. Past tense is where it gets confusing.

There is the place where they’re meeting their maker.
Now, I know this sentence is not the prime example of beautifully flowing prose. But honestly. You try concocting a sentence with there, they’re and their in it. It’s really hard.
There: Points to a place. Where? There.
They’re: They are.
Their: Points to ownership. Whose? Theirs.
You can read more about it in this article, written for the SFT by kick-ass writer and editor @bex-dk.

Punctuation is important. Period.

It helps define the rhythm of your prose--the flow. That being said, you have to remember that punctuation varies depending on the chosen language.

Again, speaking from my own experience here, but Dutch speakers love their commas. We add them wherever we want to insert a breathing pause. I used to drive @bex-dk crazy with my overabundant comma placement.

Another example is the apostrophe. In Dutch, phonetics define the placement of the apostrophe. If the word ends with an open vowel, and pronunciation will change by adding a plural or possessive “s”, an apostrophe will be added. In English, the placement of apostrophes is reserved for a possessive "s."

I imagine other languages might have even bigger differences.

Go with the flow

How do you make your prose feel natural? A phrase that flows in French or German might feel stilted and forced in English or Dutch. That’s why it’s important to write your prose from scratch, in the language you want to end up with.

Writing in your own language and translating to English often doesn’t work very well. The syntax and rhythm of each language is different. We often fall prey to our familiarity with one language and end up forcing the second language into the patterns and rhythms of the original language. The more familiar you are with the piece, the sooner this tends to happen.

When you want to write in English, write in English. Allow your thoughts to flow in English. It helps you form the right patterns and choose the right colloquialisms.

If thinking is hard in English, find people to talk to. Join an online community where English is the language of choice. Talk to people. Practice. It makes perfect, you know?

If you can find an online writers’ community that’s a double win.

Wax on, wax off

This is what it comes down to. Writing is the easy part. Anyone can be a writer. But take that writing and clean it up to your best ability. Polish it until it shines. Perfect it. Find like-minded souls willing to review and critique it for you. Take their feedback and make your work better. This is what we do over at @TheWritersBlock. We help each other improve our drafts until they’re nice and shiny.

It can be intimidating for us, ESL writers, to show the work we’ve agonised over, to native speakers. They’ll find flaws and hiccups, no matter how hard we try. But every comment you receive is a learning experience. Take it with you, and never make that mistake again.

Then, resubmit your draft and do it all over again. Learning to write well has nothing to do with writing ‘til your fingers bleed. Make a choice. Either you write a new piece every day, but you’ll lack the time to learn from them, or you write a draft and you edit, improve and polish.

To everyone who tells me this is impossible: I can assure you it’s not.

I wrote and published my first story here on Steem in early September. Thanks to it, I found my way over to the Fiction workshop at PALnet, which later branched out onto its own Discord server, @TheWritersBlock. I workshopped that story, and edited while I still could. Since starting, I’ve written, workshopped and published all of nine short stories.. Nine. In three months. But each of those stories was workshopped, polished, workshopped again and perfected. Rather than churning out story after story, I approached each story as a lesson. I took my time learning them--sharpening my quill.

And my approach has worked well. If you’re a Steem based Fiction fan, you may have heard of Steemhouse Fiction trail. It’s a curation trail that looks for pieces that are publishing quality. The best Steem has to offer. All curated works are featured on their website, The SFT Library. More than one of my stories have been featured.

If I can do it, so can you.

Now go. Write. Workshop. Make me proud.

Hugs

Tiny

If you would like to read more of my stories, feel free to have a look around on my SteemShelf. Every story I have written so far has found a home there.

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The Writer’s Block is a home to writers from every corner of the world, and from every discipline that involves the written word. I consider myself lucky to have found this amazing community. Not only have I found help, support and encouragement there, but I’ve found people who feel the same way I do about writing. I’ve found a second family there. Do you write? Would you love to be a part of a community that can help you learn and improve your writing skill? Our door is always open for kindred spirits. Come and pay us a visit by pointing your pointy thingie right here and clicking.