AdrianVolts Corner on the Net

Posted on February 26, 2009 - by A. A. Volts

Question to writers and editors, Natural Language or Second Language?

Writing Writing Questions

Hello, everyone I have a question for all of you writers and editors out there, I am brazilian and grew up in Brazil speaking Portuguese until I was 19 years old, however since then I came to US and have been living here, speaking, reading/writing English since the age of 19, now I am 35 so it’s been 16 years with English. 

I think and dream in English, however it is still my 2nd language and I feel sometimes that my vocabulary is not as broad as Portuguese for example, I can be more creative with the choice of words in Portuguese, but then again I have been away from Portuguese especially writing for 16 years, so what language should I use to write my books in?

I just feel that either way it will be though, but say Portuguese is the choice then would an editor excuse some more common mistakes because I have been away from the language for so long? Or if it’s even the opposite would English editor take into account that English is my 2nd language and help out, or would it make things harder. I just feel that either way there are con’s I just don’t know what to do.

I am thinking writing a book both in English and in Portuguese however they would not be translations each would be it’s own version of the same story since this is for a non fiction book.

Or should I just write in Portuguese and have it translated into English? Maybe even the other way around it?

Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated it.

 

PS: I just wrote this as I think, I haven’t gone back to revise it, I want to give the reader an idea how I normally write without the hours I put into revising and editing the errors I make, however I fell that this will help gauge expertise or lack thereof in the English language.

Thanks for any help.

 

Adrian

VN:F [1.1.8_518]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post  [Post to Delicious] Delicious This Post  [Post to Digg] Digg This Post  [Post to Ping.fm] Ping This Post  [Post to Reddit] Reddit This Post  [Post to StumbleUpon] Stumble This Post 

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 9:47 am and is filed under Writing, Writing Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Comments

We'd love to hear yours!



  1. Visit My Website

    February 26, 2009

    Permalink

    Brett Fyfield said:

    I thought English was your first language! I’m biased but I would say write in English because there is a wider market in it, and seek advice from speakers of English as a first language when you get stuck.

    More importantly, don’t let any thing get in the way of pursuing your dream to get it down in writing, no matter wat the language is.

    VA:F [1.1.8_518]
    Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

    [Reply]



  2. Visit My Website

    February 26, 2009

    Permalink

    adrianvolts said:

    Brett, I think you are right about the market, Portuguese is my 1st language and English my 2nd but it has been my 1st for the last 15 years.
    To make things worse they have just recently changed the syntax of the Portuguese language, lol.

    I’ll will keep on writing, that’s the easy part the hard part is actually to stop writing, the story flows in my head so quickly that I have a hard time keeping up with the typing, if I hands lag too far behind my thoughts I miss out on important points.

    Thanks for the advice, I really appreciated.
    Regards,
    Adrian

    VA:F [1.1.8_518]
    Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

    [Reply]



  3. Visit My Website

    February 27, 2009

    Permalink

    Jenny Bean said:

    Adrian, while I definitely understand wanting to write in your native language as well as English, Brett is right about the English market being far easier to get published in. On the other hand, if you’re writing memoirs, you might definitely want to consider writing them in English and in Portuguese because people in Brazil will definitely want to read your memories.

    Just reading through this blog, I never would have guessed English was not your first language. You write beautifully.

    VA:F [1.1.8_518]
    Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

    [Reply]



Leave a Comment

Here's your chance to speak.

  1. Name (required)

    Mail (required)

    Website

    Message

Tweet This Post links powered by Tweet This v1.3.9, a WordPress plugin for Twitter.