酷我-北美枫

[ericcoliu]

Lost in Translation

Every time when I hear myself speak in English, I just hate it. It is not my human voice but rather a mechanically translated one. It is not simply that my ears hate my mouth, or that my mouth tries to irritate my ears. It is because, in the strain of translating a Chinese word into its English equivalent, or vice versa, the spontaneity and natural quality of my speech are lost. In the toiling process of translation, I try hard to impose my learning, will, and intellect on my spoken English in an effort to turn my speech into an oral facade of my hidden self. I know that I am failing, for I feel that I'm falling out of the tightly-knit fabric of emotional vocabulary into the weightless net of the linguistic signifiers of a foreign language. Stuck in this dark and chaotic situation, I have become a stranger to myself, a person who lives on the edge between the world of his own and that of the foreigners he has just joined.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Lost in Translation

Every time when I hear myself speak in English, I just hate it. It is not my human voice but rather a mechanically translated one. It is not simply that my ears hate my mouth, or that my mouth tries to irritate my ears. It is because, in the strain of translating a Chinese word into its English equivalent, or vice versa, the spontaneity and natural quality of my speech are lost. In the toiling process of translation, I try hard to impose my learning, will, and intellect on my spoken English in an effort to turn my speech into an oral facade of my hidden self. I know that I am failing, for I feel that I'm falling out of the tightly-knit fabric of emotional vocabulary into the weightless net of the linguistic signifiers of a foreign language. Stuck in this dark and chaotic situation, I have become a stranger to myself, a person who lives on the edge between the world of his own and that of the foreigners he has just joined.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[星子]

Interesting...
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Interesting...
_________________

[Lake]

Eric,

I don't know your spoken English, but I think your written English is very good.

Sometimes, expressing oneself is not easy even in one's native tongue, let alone in a foreign language. Besides, spoken language is different than written language; when you write well, it does not necessarily mean you can speak well. It makes the case even worse when there is no such expression or concept in a given language.

Anyway, your points are well taken.

Lake

[[Lake]]

Eric,

I don't know your spoken English, but I think your written English is very good.

Sometimes, expressing oneself is not easy even in one's native tongue, let alone in a foreign language. Besides, spoken language is different than written language; when you write well, it does not necessarily mean you can speak well. It makes the case even worse when there is no such expression or concept in a given language.

Anyway, your points are well taken.

Lake

[星子]

Eric,

I do feel the pain of this. I am sure a lot of us the same.

Yet I always say not be harsh to ourselves. This is reality, even time cannot change too much.

So I go for speech club for improvment. Though it takes time, it will get somewhere.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Eric,

I do feel the pain of this. I am sure a lot of us the same.

Yet I always say not be harsh to ourselves. This is reality, even time cannot change too much.

So I go for speech club for improvment. Though it takes time, it will get somewhere.
_________________

[ericcoliu]

Hi! 星子:

Thank you for your sharing with me your English learning experience.

I did seek for native English speakers' help to improve my spoken English. However, I don't think my effort invested on speaking “Canadian-standard English” has been appreciated by the majority of "Canadians" I’ve encountered since my emigration to Canada. In a society with its ages-old history against non-whites, mutual respect and understanding are rare cultural and political commodities which are unevenly distributed among law-abiding and tax-paying residents.

I once was a volunteer in a long term care centre for almost two years. As a Friendly Visitor to one of its residents, Paul, whose disease made him speaking with great difficulty, I visited him once a week to help him to use the Internet and to learn Chinese language and culture, in which he was very interested. One day, after our weekly meeting, he said to me with great affection, “Eric, don’t worry about your English. Maybe both of us have speaking problems; but a lot of people around us have listening problems. Listening not only involves ears and the mind but also the heart. Throughout my life, with my mind and heart, I’ve never met a person from whom I couldn’t learn anything.”

His words encouraged me to write down this poem:

You don't take my words
Merely as words uttered by a talking mouth
Far from it
You listen to what an anguished heart cries for
Not out of courtesy
And YOU LISTEN

My dear friend Paul, who made the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms meaningful to me, passed away on Oct. 30, 2005. Below is a poem entitled Two Simple Happenings dedicated to him.


Empty-handed he entered the world sixty-two years ago
Barefoot he leaves it today
His coming, his going --
Two simple happenings
That are entwined with lives here and abroad
And enrich them.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Hi! 星子:

Thank you for your sharing with me your English learning experience.

I did seek for native English speakers' help to improve my spoken English. However, I don't think my effort invested on speaking “Canadian-standard English” has been appreciated by the majority of "Canadians" I’ve encountered since my emigration to Canada. In a society with its ages-old history against non-whites, mutual respect and understanding are rare cultural and political commodities which are unevenly distributed among law-abiding and tax-paying residents.

I once was a volunteer in a long term care centre for almost two years. As a Friendly Visitor to one of its residents, Paul, whose disease made him speaking with great difficulty, I visited him once a week to help him to use the Internet and to learn Chinese language and culture, in which he was very interested. One day, after our weekly meeting, he said to me with great affection, “Eric, don’t worry about your English. Maybe both of us have speaking problems; but a lot of people around us have listening problems. Listening not only involves ears and the mind but also the heart. Throughout my life, with my mind and heart, I’ve never met a person from whom I couldn’t learn anything.”

His words encouraged me to write down this poem:

You don't take my words
Merely as words uttered by a talking mouth
Far from it
You listen to what an anguished heart cries for
Not out of courtesy
And YOU LISTEN

My dear friend Paul, who made the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms meaningful to me, passed away on Oct. 30, 2005. Below is a poem entitled Two Simple Happenings dedicated to him.


Empty-handed he entered the world sixty-two years ago
Barefoot he leaves it today
His coming, his going --
Two simple happenings
That are entwined with lives here and abroad
And enrich them.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[星子]

Yes. I agree with you.

Most misunderstanding is due to the lack of listening skills.

With love and patient, people understand each other.

That is why I love to go poetry workshop. People there are more sensitive and compassionate.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Yes. I agree with you.

Most misunderstanding is due to the lack of listening skills.

With love and patient, people understand each other.

That is why I love to go poetry workshop. People there are more sensitive and compassionate.
_________________

[ericcoliu]

Hi! Lake, 星子:

Thank you for your encouragement.

I think language is not neutral. There are power relations embedded between the speaker and the listener. Just listen to critics persistently poking fun at Canadian Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's English skills; the latest one is from Larry Zolf's recent CBC.ca column, saying that, "Dion's terrible, limited English...means that Dion cannot reach Ontarians, Maritimers, Westerners or any Canadians who are unilingually English."

In a society built with a hierarchy of power relations among its residents, expressing recognition of cultural Other’s command of language, both spoken and written, is a big issue here. How good is good enough? I think, acknowledgement of other’s command of language is not an issue concerning individual effort only but also cultural politics one is engaged with.

This year, I made a Canada Day wish:


As an alien resident, I fear I am already asking too much. Too much acceptance of my accented English which cannot make any discernibly distinct pronunciations between “th” and “s”, "l" and "r", just naming a few; my skin colour and Chinese features. Too much tolerance of my difference: non-white, non-black, non-Jewish, and non-Arab (or more generally meaning, which crosses over the ethnic divide, non-Muslim), these four groups whose needs and words fill up the headlines and columns of the mainstream newspapers. By the way, if the society needs, in the times of crisis like SARS Scare and Dangerous Fake Goods Warning, the scapegoat to blame for or sacrifice, they will draw me in their cartoons and editorials. As a non-Canadian, I can only hope to fill interstices, foreign to all and mutable, a small yet instrumental glue.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Hi! Lake, 星子:

Thank you for your encouragement.

I think language is not neutral. There are power relations embedded between the speaker and the listener. Just listen to critics persistently poking fun at Canadian Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's English skills; the latest one is from Larry Zolf's recent CBC.ca column, saying that, "Dion's terrible, limited English...means that Dion cannot reach Ontarians, Maritimers, Westerners or any Canadians who are unilingually English."

In a society built with a hierarchy of power relations among its residents, expressing recognition of cultural Other’s command of language, both spoken and written, is a big issue here. How good is good enough? I think, acknowledgement of other’s command of language is not an issue concerning individual effort only but also cultural politics one is engaged with.

This year, I made a Canada Day wish:


As an alien resident, I fear I am already asking too much. Too much acceptance of my accented English which cannot make any discernibly distinct pronunciations between “th” and “s”, "l" and "r", just naming a few; my skin colour and Chinese features. Too much tolerance of my difference: non-white, non-black, non-Jewish, and non-Arab (or more generally meaning, which crosses over the ethnic divide, non-Muslim), these four groups whose needs and words fill up the headlines and columns of the mainstream newspapers. By the way, if the society needs, in the times of crisis like SARS Scare and Dangerous Fake Goods Warning, the scapegoat to blame for or sacrifice, they will draw me in their cartoons and editorials. As a non-Canadian, I can only hope to fill interstices, foreign to all and mutable, a small yet instrumental glue.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul