I'll never have the words
on being bilingual and loving words.
My mom took her time with the maternity leave. She was the best mom I could’ve asked for. She took us - me and my brother - on walks, to the shop, to the swimming pool, this one with dad as well, and to English classes. I started going to English classes before kindergarten. Today when I called Mom and Dad, they said, with puffy eyes as there’s a 6-hour difference between us now, that I was still breastfed when I started learning English, around 2 years old, sitting in a circle and mumbling to English songs. My parents chose the Helen Doron method, which also involved listening to English songs, and dialogues twice a day. Scratchy CDs and an annoying lector speaking slowly. My parents really did a great job.
In secondary school, I started watching YouTube. In big amounts. Very big amounts. I watched mostly beauty YouTube and vlogs. I think one of the reasons I cared for Christmas for so long was Alisha Marie's vlogs. I would eat my cereal each morning before school with my phone laid horizontally with Alisha decorating the tree. She was the Santa when Santa stopped existing. I learned the words, and a lot of queer vernacular because a lot of beauty vloggers I watched were gay men. Secondary school was the time that English escaped the textbooks and Quizlet. English became the language of things I cared about.
I took every opportunity to exist in English more. If you’re from a non-English-speaking country, you definitely know a person who would say random English words mid-sentence. That was me. Ponglish. Now I realize that’s unnecessary and quite annoying, but a 16-year-old me would say:
I jakby literally nie mogłam przestać się śmiać.
Quite very annoying.
I went on English-speaking trips, and week-long exchanges and kept surrounding myself with English. At 18 I took my IELTS, scored a C2, and went to study abroad, in Amsterdam, in English.
In Amsterdam I have realized two things: 1) I really should have taken a different degree, 2) writing has been the thing all along. And I have written before. I wrote half of a book when I was 12 and I have started so many short stories and finished so few of them, and when I clean my laptop each time I find stories I have already forgotten about. But Amsterdam is when I started writing in English.
If you’re a bilingual writer (it’s still scary to call myself that) you will at some point make a heartbreaking calculation that will go along the lines: people that will read me in my mother tongue vs people that will read me in English. And as long as speak Mandarin or Hindi or Spanish, maybe you can make your mother tongue win. But well, Polish lost.
Today I took two tests. The one from Glite estimates that I have a vocabulary of 23792 words. Not that I am trying to explain myself but “ssri” is definitely not a word, but an acronym, so I’d like to believe I know a few more words.
The second one revealed that I know at least 12.600 English word families.
A native English speaker will know around 20.000 to 30.000 words and around 20.000 families. The research on this seems to be a bit divisive, because there are also studies that say that a native English speaker should know up to 70.000 words, but all in all… I still don’t have enough words.
This year I moved to Melbourne where I studied for the last semester of my Bachelor. I took Irish Literature, Film & Music, Creative Writing, and Journalism and it was the best time of my studies. It was creative, I could share my opinions and for the first time, I was surrounded by people that read my writing and shared their opinion on it. It was the first time I workshopped my work, it was the first time I workshopped others’ work. It was also the first time I was surrounded by that many native speakers.
The thing about speaking English with others this-is-not-my-first-language English speakers vs I-am-a-native-English speakers is that the first one makes you feel good about yourself and then the other sometimes, not always, but sometimes will make you feel like you’re reaching, but you will never reach.
I talked about it with my old roommate who also moved to Melbourne and also took a creative writing class and we both agreed that our lexicon, although big is still not the one of everyone else in our classes.
When I write I still always have multiple tabs open with Google Translate. I sometimes type where to put the comma when using but.
I think in Polish and I think in English and sometimes I can’t remember the word in either of the languages. I sit there with my fingers on the keyboard trying to summon the word that only swings in my mind as a feeling. Like trying to sneeze but forgetting about it mid-way. Horrible feeling.
From ages 16 to 50 a native speaker learns around 1 word a day. A non-native speaker living in English-speaking countries will learn 2.5 words a day, yet even with that breakneck speed, researchers found that adults know on average 10,000-20,000 words less than their native counterparts. (Language Learning: Comparing Native and Non-Native Speaker Vocabulary).
So, quite literally, and scientifically, I’ll never have the words.
Even if I continue writing down the words from books I don’t understand as I do now. Even if I keep dating in English, or keep dreaming in English, and even call myself a writer in English, I’ll never have the words.
And it’s not that I’d rather be a native English speaker. I love Polish. I love my accent, I love that I know how to use letters like ł, ć, ż, ó, ź, ś. I love that my tongue twists and turns in different ways when I speak Polish and when I speak English. I love making the well it’s not my first language joke in every situation. Yet, when I read others’ peoples work the thought often comes back: My writing will never be as good as a native speaker.
It often feels like there’s just no flair (I had to translate this word) in what I write. I catch myself repeating similar words and then I am contrasted with the vivid writing of others who use words like turmoil, opaque, imbued, and haphazardly.
I know these words. I can understand them, I can spell them (most of the time), but they don’t come to me. For each turmoil, I’d say confusion, and for each haphazardly, I’d use random.
And I see the advantages. For one it just feels good to be asked “Wow you’re English is so good“ (still happens), or “Wow, how did you learn English so well?” (as if we don’t study English in Poland) and sometimes I come up with words that surprise my English native speaking friends, like reconvalescence, which is a word and sounds very similar in Polish.
But some other times I get very upset at the disadvantages. My English feels bland and non-innovative. Even while editing this essay I catch myself using the word love way too many times. But I am committed to it. I will keep filling pages of my journal in English and some other days in Polish and sometimes I’ll switch mid-sentence because some things are easier said in one language but not the other. I might not have the words, but I do have a lot to say.
and if there are mistakes in this piece… don’t tell me! xx