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Writing for an English audience when your first language isn't English

datco2014datco2014
edited November 2014 in Writing
I've noticed on here recently that there are a few contributers whose first laungage isn't English. This must make writing for a UK/American audience a challenge. Surely it is better to write in your 'mother tongue' and hope it translates?

One of my wife's friends husbands (sounds a bit remote that so let's call him Simone coz that's his name) is Italian and trying to write a novel in English for an English market. No disrespect to the guy as he's some kind of IT whizz kid but his spoken English is somewhere between Inspector Clouseau & a character from Allo Allo - so I'm not sure he'll pull it off, though he's super-confident, but then he's super confident about everything!

Any thoughts?

Comments

  • Phots MollPhots Moll
    If there's a market for work written in your mother tongue then it makes sense to write in that language. I'm less sure about the hope it translates bit though. No publisher will want to translate it if they've never heard of it and they won't hear of it if sales are very low due to it being written in Icelandic.
  • LizLiz
    But surely you'd go to a publisher in your own country and hope they translate it once published and selling well? The problem with that is of course that the number of translated books sold and bought in this country can practically be counted on the fingers of one hand.
  • LizLiz
    I'd also say that if his written English is Inspector Clouseau standard he stands no chance - BUT the difference between someone's writing standard in a language and their spoken ability can be poles apart.
  • JohnnywriterJohnnywriter
    Would some things not get 'lost in translation'?

    For example my old French teacher told us that a common french pet name for a girlfriend was 'petit choux'

    The story would certainly look wrong if the protagonist kept referring to his significant other as a 'little cabbage'.




  • LizLiz
    I don't think a translator would be worth his/her salt if they couldn't find a similar endearment for something as simple as that.
  • Tiny NellTiny Nell
    I'm not keen on translations. I feel they lack a certain familiarity. However, if the story is great, then the story is great!

    I did notice that one of my proofreaders who is English, and a writer, but has been living abroad for much of his life, questioned a few English subtleties/nuances/phrases in my books which those of us who are embroiled in our language and culture, recognise immediately, unquestioningly and, probably, unconsciously. These are the types of omissions that might interrupt the fluency of the text by a foreign writer.
  • LizLiz
    Actually, thinking about it, if the book was set in France, the keeping in of an endearment such as ma petite choue would be a good way of keeping the veracity of the French characters. Our music teacher at Grammar school used to call us his 'petites choux'.
  • LizyLizy
    I've recently tried to read a book written by a Swedish woman and either her writing was rubbish to start with or her translator is.
  • JohnnywriterJohnnywriter
    I don't think a translator would be worth his/her salt if they couldn't find a similar endearment for something as simple as that.
    You mean they don't just copy/paste it in google translate and voila!?

    I have a lot to learn.
  • Phots MollPhots Moll
    My previous boss did that with some visitor information. We told him it wasn't that simple. He wasn't convinced until we got him to try translating it back into English.
  • LizyLizy
    Quite often I get research stuff in Spanish and the translation to English is so laughable that I do better translating it myself.
  • LizLiz
    Lol! I love the translate thing on FB, where it often offers to translate 'Lol' and similar. But doesn't offer to translate my French, South African or various other nationalities friends' statuses. And when it does, half the words are left in the original language!

    I have two translator friends and it is a very skilled job, and a well-translated book is a joy to read.

  • BalazsBalazs
    Hi guys,
    I'm Hungarian and I live in the UK. I've just started working on my first novel and I had to face the same question. What I'm going to do is I'm going to write the book in Hungarian, then translate it myself. I know an English person, who's a writer and an English teacher herself. I'd like her to proofread it and help me make it sound more English. I'll do this for two reasons:
    1. Although my English is good, my English vocabulary is nowhere near to my Hungarian vocab.
    2. My brain thinks in Hungarian. Therefore if I force it to think in English it will start thinking about the grammar, which will break the flow of thoughts.

    When I say 'make it sound more English' what I mean is that English language is full of phrases that don't have an obvious meaning or don't exist in other languages. E.g. we don't really have a Hungarian word for the English word 'hatch'. Before I learnt this word I would have just called it a 'little door'. There are many other things which don't want to come to my mind right now. Idioms like 'bells and whistles' are also a big obstacle for foreigners.

    Regarding translation, I have been so lucky recently that I got to know that my favourite book, which is a Hungarian one, is available in English translation. I bought it immediately, and because I'd read it in Hungarian before, I had something to compare it to. It was obviously translated by a Hungarian person who learnt English at the Anglistics faculty of a Hungarian university. It was grammatically correct, but some of the forms and phrases they used I've never heard from a British person. The point I'm making is that books must be translated by somebody who speaks the target language as their mother tongue.

    PS.
    I can strongly recommend that book to all of you. It is brilliant!
    The eclipse of the crescent moon
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eclipse-Crescent-Moon-Geza-Gardonyi/dp/9631333728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415867719&sr=8-1&keywords=the+eclipse+of+the+crescent+moon
  • LizLiz
    edited November 2014
    Or who is bilingual... both my translator friends are.

    Good luck, Balazs, it sounds like you are going in the right direction.
  • Tiny NellTiny Nell
    Your grasp of English sounds perfect to me, Balazs.

    I would never have guessed it was your second language!
  • BalazsBalazs
    Thanks :)
  • MutleyMutley
    I regularly get submissions in English where it is a second language. The biggest error is sentence ordering. My advice is to read in English as widely as possible to tray to understand the pattern of the language. You really have to be very proficient to make it work.
  • CarolCarol
    One of the writers at the club- they've lived in the UK at least 5+ years now, and she's finally sorted the sentence ordering issue. It's been wonderful seeing her progress and how that's been reflected in her writing.
  • datco2014datco2014
    I sometimes have problems with the order of my sentences or rather the phrases within sentences and have to read it aloud to see which sounds best eg the door banged and she got a fright or she got a fright as the door banged. ( she'd probably be better just making sure it was shut)!!
  • montholonmontholon
    Even the simplest things can be traps for the unwary. Imagine suggesting to someone that they send out for 'chips and fish' instead of fish and chips. Exactly the same meaning, but no native English speaker would ever say that.
  • CarolCarol
    On the bus coming back from my eye appointment, there was a passenger who was a good example of that sort of aspect, montholon.

    I don't know where she was from originally, but her English was good. The only thing was that in some sentences where we'd add an s on the end to suggest more than one, she pronounced those words as singular.

    Sorry I can't remember an obvious example.
  • BalazsBalazs
    Mutley, if you mean the order of words by sentence ordering, I think that's quite easy to get right if one pays attention. Subject+Verb+Object+Where+When, that's the basic structure I was taught at school.
    There are many other things that are more difficult to learn. I might take some lessons as well from the person who's going to do proofreading for me.
  • montholonmontholon
    I sent an article proposal to Jonathan a while ago on the pitfalls of translation, but he didn't think it would be of sufficient interest to my fellow readers. Although I have a good working knowledge of French and German myself, I wouldn't have the confidence to submit any extended piece of writing in either of those languages.
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