Entry tags:
yay!
今天（在中国; 在北美我们还是二十一号：D）是中秋节！
（我希望你们多吃一点月饼。 对我的哥哥和弟弟和奶奶和外婆和所有我的家庭 —— 我希望你们的那儿看的到月亮。今天又下了雪。）
Edited to add: 然后对我的表弟：别把自己累死。
（我希望你们多吃一点月饼。 对我的哥哥和弟弟和奶奶和外婆和所有我的家庭 —— 我希望你们的那儿看的到月亮。今天又下了雪。）
Edited to add: 然后对我的表弟：别把自己累死。
Entry tags:
Analogy: Languages and Jewelry. Also, Octavio Paz.
Usually when I write in either French or Chinese--wait, scratch that, when I attempt--I open up another Word document, because compared to writing in those other two languages, English is a breeze. Analogy: because I'm far better in English than any other language (which, to be honest, I feel kind of bad about), it always feels like I'm trying to make really fine jewelery with thick gloves on. I know exactly what I want to say, exactly how it should come out--in English. In the other two languages, I'm stretching frantically for the words I know--and they all seem awkward, already-used, repetitive. In English, I have the luxury of fretting about the wording; sometimes in French, I'm utterly at a loss to find the word I'm looking for.
Oh, and also this. I have a book of poetry that I keep in my bathroom to read when I'm brushing my teeth. It's actually really nice, because it's a textbook of sorts, and has all sorts of wry commentary in the back of the book, but also this quote from Octavio Paz, who is, unsurprisingly, both a poet and a prose writer:
First: that is an elegant, beautiful metaphor for this. For me, personally, though, this is interesting. My parents learned English in school, sure, like Canadian children learn Spanish and French as secondary languages in school (Quebec, of course, excepted). But it wasn't until they moved to Canada, in their twenties, before they really used it. The language they had lived with all their lives was not English; the idioms and classics they studied were not English, American, or Canadian. I was born in Canada, raised in North America, and consequently speak English better than I do my parents' language, though I am fluent enough. Like Paz: "I consider myself to be a descendant of [well known writers of Spain]...and yet I am not a Spaniard". I am, I suppose, a strange conglomerate of languages, halfway in English, and halfway in another.
Sorry about the vagueness. I'd rather not put too much personal info on my LJ; I'm kind of paranoid.
Oh, and also this. I have a book of poetry that I keep in my bathroom to read when I'm brushing my teeth. It's actually really nice, because it's a textbook of sorts, and has all sorts of wry commentary in the back of the book, but also this quote from Octavio Paz, who is, unsurprisingly, both a poet and a prose writer:
"Languages are vast realities that transcend those political and historical entities we call nations. The European languages we speak in the Americas illustrate this. The special position of our literatures, when compared to those of England, Spain, Portugal, and France, derives precisely from this fundamental fact: they are literatures written in transplanted tongues. Languages are born and grow in the native soil, nourished by a common history. The European languages were uprooted and taken to an unknown and unnamed world: in the soil of the societies of America, they grew and were transformed. The same plant, yet a different plant. Our literatures did not passively accept the changing fortunes of their transplanted languages: they participated in the process and even accelerated it. Soon they ceased to be mere transatlantic reflections. At times they have been the negation of the literatures of Europe; more often, they have been a reply.
"In spite of these oscillations, the link has never been broken. My classics are those of my language, and I consider myself to be a descendant of Lope and Quevedo, as any Spanish writer would...yet I am not a Spaniard. I think that most writers of Spanish America as well as those from the United States, Brazil, and Canada would say the same as regards the English, Portuguese, and French traditions. To understand more clearly the special position of writers in the Americas, we should compare it to the dialogue maintained by the Japanese, Chinese, or Arabic writers with the different literatures of Europe: a dialogue that cuts across multiple languages and civilizations. Our dialogue, on the other hand, takes place within the same language. We are Europeans, yet we are not Europeans. What are we, then? It is difficult to define what we are, but our works speak for us."
-Octavio Paz, 1990 Nobel Prize Lecture. Taken from An Introduction to Poetry, Eighth Edition (1994) Kennedy, XJ; Gioia, Dana
"In spite of these oscillations, the link has never been broken. My classics are those of my language, and I consider myself to be a descendant of Lope and Quevedo, as any Spanish writer would...yet I am not a Spaniard. I think that most writers of Spanish America as well as those from the United States, Brazil, and Canada would say the same as regards the English, Portuguese, and French traditions. To understand more clearly the special position of writers in the Americas, we should compare it to the dialogue maintained by the Japanese, Chinese, or Arabic writers with the different literatures of Europe: a dialogue that cuts across multiple languages and civilizations. Our dialogue, on the other hand, takes place within the same language. We are Europeans, yet we are not Europeans. What are we, then? It is difficult to define what we are, but our works speak for us."
-Octavio Paz, 1990 Nobel Prize Lecture. Taken from An Introduction to Poetry, Eighth Edition (1994) Kennedy, XJ; Gioia, Dana
Sorry about the vagueness. I'd rather not put too much personal info on my LJ; I'm kind of paranoid.
Entry tags:
Speaking a Foreign Language: Alastair Reid
This a poem by Reid, published in 1963 and taken out of An Introduction to Poetry, 8th edition, by Kennedy, X and Gioia, D (1994), HarperCollins.
Speaking a Foreign Language
Alastair Reid
How clumsy on the tongue, these acquired idioms,
after the innuendos of our own. How far
we are from foreigners, what faith
we rest in one sentence, hoping a smile will follow
on the appropriate face, always wallowing 5
between what we long to say and what we can,
trusting the phrase is suitable to the occasion,
the accent passable, the smile real,
always asking the traveller's fearful question--
what is being lost in translation? 10
Something, to be sure. And yet, to hear
the stumbling of foreign friends, how little we care
for the wreckage of word or tense. How endearing they are,
and how our speech reaches out, like a helping hand,
or limps in sympathy. Easy to understand, 15
through the tangle of language, the heart behind
groping towards us, to make the translation of
syntax into love.
I have books all over my home, and I read them at odd times. I read this poem and thought: "This is it. This explains it exactly." It is incredibly frustrating to try to speak and write in French, in Chinese: two languages that I am more or less proficient in, the latter more fluently. In English, having used that language for years and still using it everywhere, the struggle to find words, to describe things adequately is easier. I never think about accents or syntax or grammar; by virtue of living in that tongue, I trust that the people I talk to understand.
In speaking Chinese, sometimes the accent slips from me; my family traditionally speaks another dialect close to Mandarin, but not quite. And so I find myself grasping, trying to form the words exactly right, and always having to think: what do I say next? How does this translate from English to Chinese? In French, because there is nowhere that really requires me to speak in the language, it's even worse. Seeing a word beginning with "r" induces a mild panic in me; I scramble to find the correct word that has already popped up in my mind in English.
Writing is even worse. Working in English is like using tiny tools to craft delicate jewelry; trying to write in French or Chinese is akin to using big thick gloves and trying to manipulate those tools. That exquisite control that makes some writing such a delight to read is lost when I try in other languages.
And yet, like the poem describes in the second stanza, when I talk with people whose native tongue is not English, it hardly matters whether they have an accent or not. The worry that the speaker feels is not translated into frustration for the listener; the mangled syntax is endearing (line 13) and easily pushed away.
Speaking a Foreign Language
Alastair Reid
How clumsy on the tongue, these acquired idioms,
after the innuendos of our own. How far
we are from foreigners, what faith
we rest in one sentence, hoping a smile will follow
on the appropriate face, always wallowing 5
between what we long to say and what we can,
trusting the phrase is suitable to the occasion,
the accent passable, the smile real,
always asking the traveller's fearful question--
what is being lost in translation? 10
Something, to be sure. And yet, to hear
the stumbling of foreign friends, how little we care
for the wreckage of word or tense. How endearing they are,
and how our speech reaches out, like a helping hand,
or limps in sympathy. Easy to understand, 15
through the tangle of language, the heart behind
groping towards us, to make the translation of
syntax into love.
I have books all over my home, and I read them at odd times. I read this poem and thought: "This is it. This explains it exactly." It is incredibly frustrating to try to speak and write in French, in Chinese: two languages that I am more or less proficient in, the latter more fluently. In English, having used that language for years and still using it everywhere, the struggle to find words, to describe things adequately is easier. I never think about accents or syntax or grammar; by virtue of living in that tongue, I trust that the people I talk to understand.
In speaking Chinese, sometimes the accent slips from me; my family traditionally speaks another dialect close to Mandarin, but not quite. And so I find myself grasping, trying to form the words exactly right, and always having to think: what do I say next? How does this translate from English to Chinese? In French, because there is nowhere that really requires me to speak in the language, it's even worse. Seeing a word beginning with "r" induces a mild panic in me; I scramble to find the correct word that has already popped up in my mind in English.
Writing is even worse. Working in English is like using tiny tools to craft delicate jewelry; trying to write in French or Chinese is akin to using big thick gloves and trying to manipulate those tools. That exquisite control that makes some writing such a delight to read is lost when I try in other languages.
And yet, like the poem describes in the second stanza, when I talk with people whose native tongue is not English, it hardly matters whether they have an accent or not. The worry that the speaker feels is not translated into frustration for the listener; the mangled syntax is endearing (line 13) and easily pushed away.