RosannaPatruno Presents: Lost in Translation—An ESL writer journey

'She turned long the handle absent-mindedly and drawled a yellow marble.'

['Sunday, Lovely Sunday', Spring 2001]

This is me. Cringey, isn't it?

'The train jolted onto the next track as it exited Paddington Station, spilling the smoothie over Virginia's jeans and t-shirt.'

['Kindling', draft 2, July 2017]

This is also me. Much better, don't you think?

According to Fanfiction.Net, the first pearl *registered laughs* was published on October the 6th in the year of grace 2001. However, this Rayearth fanfiction was written and translated in May or June. Just thinking about the time when I was younger, more naive and able to have a 9k chapter in two languages in something like 4 day makes me feel old and weepy—I wish I were half as performant as back then. However, I read the first sentence, and I literally want to slap my teen self.

Nevertheless, 'water has passed under the bridges' and in those *gasp* sixteen years, three months and five days (on the day I'm writing this) I had accumulated a certain amount of experience.

This is why, Mesdames et Messieurs, for this party I've decided to share with you my story.

If you are an English Second Language writer, you might find my journey interesting.

1. IN PRINCIPIO ERAT C.A.T.

I discovered fanfictions in English first: at school, I was good enough at it to enjoy it, so it was only natural that my first attempts would be in this language. A language that wasn't my own and that, alas, I just knew academically.

I was good, but was I good enough to express something more creative than a short essay about Joyce use of stream of consciousness in 'Ulysses'? I wasn't that confident, and I knew I needed help. As it was even before the beginning, I had no native speaker friend who could be my beta—and no, I was not going to ask my English teacher. My solution was to enter in the not so fabulous world of Computer Assisted Translation.

It was 2001, Google Translate didn't exist yet (it would come only five years later), so I got a copy of a software (whose installation CD I lost on a moving, by the way). It was great! It allowed me to translate my stories in a short time! The interactive translation feature gave me more than one words to choose from! I got my original text and my little new friend's work side by side!

'Quanti giorni erano trascorsi da allora? Circa 20, e più il tempo passava, più il problema diventava urgente.'

'How much time was past from that day? Around 20, and more the time spent more the problem became pregnant.'

['MDIMAPFADW?!' 06/03/2001]

As you can see, it wasn't as great as I thought.

I have no idea why my younger self though that 'pregnant' could be a better translation than 'compelling'—perhaps I mixed up 'urgente' and 'pregnante'(weighty) for the sake of... of what? The words have two different meaning to boot!

My point here is: yes, CAT could be helpful to start, but it has its limits no matter if you use a masterpiece of software at thousands of bucks or a free online resource like Prompt.

In hindsight, CAT was more demanding, since working with that software obliged me to write in Italian in a certain way to 'help out' the software translating into English and I had to validate most of the words.

Also, not only the end result wasn't as good as I thought, but it was stiff and clunky to boot. By the time I got the Potter-it is, wrote a certain number of fanfictions about my OTP *looks fondly at the S.S. Gin 'n Tonic/Toxic docked in her heart*, I had realised the hard truth: I could not do this alone.

2. Readers to the rescue!
(because they want to be rescued from our horror errors)

The main problem of us ESL writers is that we don't know not only the language but also the references that native speakers/locals use.

I remember asking my brother to bring me a slang dictionary when he went visiting our family in the US. I remember buying myself a copy of Collins' English-Italian vocabulary when I was an au-pair in the UK. But heavens trust me when I say that they didn't beat the hard work of a beta-reader/editor!

My first editors were readers who loved enough my stories to volunteer. They were fans like you and me, perhaps they were good enough at school, maybe they were considering to get into a language-related career. I don't know since I never asked, but the relationship was enriching nonetheless—for me, at least.

It gave me some confidence in my abilities, to the point that, one day, I switched from CAT to Human Translation. I think it took me a couple of years for that. I remember sitting in my parents' new flat's kitchen, translating: since we moved there in December 2003, I think this switch happened in Spring 2004 at the earliest. But it happened and, despite it 'slowed down' my wpd rate, the end result was slightly better.

With a loud BANG, the Knight Bus appeared on the pavement and a boy wearing a violet uniform opened the door, claiming pompously,

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand--"

['China Doll' V2.0, February 2nd, 2005]

Now, this is more bearable, and it's starting to look a bit more like me. Of course, nowadays I would instead use 'recite' instead of 'claim'. I ascribe this unhappy word choice to being still inexperienced.

If you are an ESL writer, you will end up making a lot of unhappy word choices. However, if you have a native speaker by your side, not only s/he would spot them for you, but would also come with happier suggestions—if you take the time to explain precisely what you mean and wish to convey. This relationship will also take you to the next and final step.

3.exophony? exophony!

What do have in common Nabokov, Conrad, Gibran and Little Me?

We write in a language which isn't our native one—or to use the broader term, we are exophonic writers. Do you have an idea of how motivating is this? I'm not alone! We are not alone! And if others have succeeded before us, why shouldn't we? (by the way, I think that 'The Prophet's French translation by de Smedt is better than the original).

But here I'm digressing, although not too much.

In Summer 2015, while working on 'Kindling' first draft, I decided to skip the write-in-Italian-translate-into-English workflow with the WTF-I'm-thinking-more-and-more-paragraphs-in-English-so-why-shouldn't-I-write?

Biagio stretched his hand toward Virginia, but his fingers stopped and clenched the air a couple of inches away from her. Her requests and her brothers' words had given him some suspicions about what had happened between her and her ex-boyfriend; reality, however, had revealed itself to be uglier than what he had thought.

['Kindling', draft 1, Summer 2015]

It's still not perfect now that I reread it. Perhaps you don't see any difference with the previous excerpt, but I know this is a turning point in my writing career.

Fact is, I couldn't have gotten here alone: there are readers out there who love my stories as much as I do, and like me, want it to be in its best shape. Then there are those whose help you seek out, like belladonnafox *waves hand even if she doubts she'll read those lines* who responded to my 'cry for help' on a different website. She has allowed me to hone my pencil even further grammatically—if you know what you did wrong the first time, the next one you'll be extra careful to avoid it.

Do not hesitate to ask for help, and do not get angry at criticism. Being an ESL writer in an explanation, not an excuse for bad writing. I would even go as far as to say that we are much more conscious of grammar and spelling horrors errors. Keep your school books by your side (I still have my high school English Grammar textbook, a trustful companion since 1997), create a special folder in your Favorite list for websites like WordReference (22 couples of languages), Reverso (10 languages, excellent for expressions and slang) or anything similar.

And when, like me, you get to the point where nothing else is left that you can do by yourself and with your friends/readers' help, then invest in a professional editor if you want to query. Now, perhaps you might have reached a level were any editor would do (I'm there, at least according to the pro who test-edited 'Kindling' first chapter), or perhaps you might need an ESL editor. My advice here is to be clear with whoever you contact so that they could tailor their work to your story's specific need (i.e. more natural wording). Being an ESL writer is not an excuse for bad grammar and spelling. What? Did I say it already? Melius abundare quam deficere: being an ESL writer is not an excuse for bad grammar and spelling.

Read as much as you can in English or any language you write into, it will help you broaden your personal vocabulary; and whenever you can watch subtitled movies and TV series, it will help you learn more about speech patterns and get some in-contest word usage. There's nothing more tragi-comedic for me than writing into English and have Ze Perfect Word/Expression in Italian or... in French. This also reduces the wpm rate, so don't be frustrated if you can't milk N-k words per day as a native speaker (I'm around 600 wph on a good day).

Perhaps you already know this, but as my forefathers used to say, repetita juvant (repetition helps).

4. LET'S TALK ABOUT THE UPs

Writing in English is teaching me not to waste too many words, even if it doesn't make me immune to Purple Writing and, according to the Hemmingway App, my current style in more 7th grade-ish. By consequence, even in Italian, I'm becoming less flowery than before—in all honesty, I don't know how good or bad this is, I suppose it depends on the story.

However, the biggest up I have now is a process I've named tradediting.

It may look like a step backwards, but trust me it is not.

Translating my story from English to my native language allows me to dig out some not-so-happy choice. I mean, if you stop and wonder "What the heck did I mean in here?" it means there's an issue that must be dealt with. It also helps me stumble into not-so-useful sentences that add little to nothing to the story—and we all know that every sentence has to move the plot forward. And let's not talk about slips, every time I stumble in a lowercase-that-should-be-uppercase I virtually kneel on dry chickpeas (or garbanzo, if you prefer).

Tradediting, like re-reading your story printed on paper (or after posting it on Wattpad 😉), allows to see the text from a different angle and spot issues you didn't notice before. Really, it's nothing more than an optional step before sending the book out to the world with, as a bonus, to have the possibility to query/self-publish in your own country as well (it's what I plan to do, by the way).

So, this is my journey till now. Of course, I might have gotten here a little sooner, if I didn't have the 2007-2014 hiatus, which obliged me to start all over again when I decided it was high time I picked up back the pen. I hope you enjoyed it and that you've found something useful or inspiring.

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