Writing If you're non English speaker, do you write your stories in your mother language first?

[hyperkvlt]

English is my 2nd language, probably. Tbh, i only read english web novels back then, translations at first(from East Asia countries), then i continue to something like The Great Gatsby, 100 Years, etc. I barely read any literature in my mother language other than school texts. So it's obvious that writing in mother language then to english version is alien to me. My english was better back then. But at some point I hold my mother language dearer.

The result of course, i nuked out my english novels and i started to write in Bahasa Indonesia exclusively. Though of course, it's shitty. Shittier than my story that i dropped back in 2019 when SH was only just starting. The side effect this is that my English become much worse. That means I can't go back writing in English because even if i wanted to, I need to learn English for the nth time. So yeah. I basically fucked up. But still, writing in Bahasa makes me happy, and that's what matters to me.

Edit: It looks like i strayed out of topic. The thing about you being a multilingual is that, it's not rare that you'll forget words from any language you've learnt, even your mother language. Writing in two versions for different tones or plots is time consuming, two languages? Even worse. I don't think any people would like to do that, other than those who want to hone their languages skill at one go. But I believe multilinguals like to prepare google translate at every second they are connected to internet.

Spoiler: Like This

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On a side note, I usually forget words in my mother language, so I need to translate it from English just so that i can continue my novel written in Bahasa Indonesia

I see, to put it simply a "Balance Breaker", huh?

When you try to focus on one language, you lose the others...

I'm just a reader, since I can't write for sh*t, but if I was writing, seeing as I can put my thoughts straight into English just fine, writing in my native language and then translating it would be doing double the work for little to no profit.

Agreed... double work = double pain.

I want to write in my mother tongue, but at the same time, I know I would then have to translate it to English to post it on ScribbleHub or RoyalRoad, so it's not really worth it.
Also, I'm so used to write novels in English that I have a hard time writing in a novel-like way in French. Kinda sad.

I'm fairly good at English, if asked how I do when it comes to my school academics. I'm used to just go straight writing to English.

Lots just go straight english, huh? Kinda surprised. But still within expectation.

 

[Toomanysorrows]

I never write anything in Dutch unless I absolutely have to, like for university papers. Thing is, I mostly read historical non-fiction (books and papers) and a majority of those are in English, and the remainder is split between French and Dutch. And in terms of fiction, I barely read regular fiction books in Dutch, only online writing in English or books of lesbian smut which just isn't a genre that people write for in Dutch in my experience. So English just feels like the most natural option for writing. Dutch is for speaking, English for writing.

(I can feel centuries of Flemish nationalists who tried to make it a literary language in the face of French cultural dominance being angry at me as I type this xD)

 

[xluferx]

Is a waste of time to write in spanish and the translate to english

 

[strayCat0]

I see, to put it simply a "Balance Breaker", huh?

When you try to focus on one language, you lose the others...

Indeed. Though this is in writing story and alike context. After all, it's almost impossible for you to lose your English skill as long as you're connected to the internet. But too much of thing is of course bad for you. There are replies here saying their mother language skill is deteriorating lol. If I were to continue writing in English, I think I may become one of them

Agreed... double work = double pain.

Lots just go straight english, huh? Kinda surprised. But still within expectation.

One thing about writing skill is that it's not always proportional to your language proficiency. Even if I've learnt my mother language to the bone, that doesn't mean I'll be a literary god in Indonesia or anywhere else. So writing one story in two languages is no more double work, it's more like n^2, and like what other have said, it's usually a waste of time

 

[Kilolo]

english is not my first language, but at this point, i read 5 volume of novels per week on average. and i barely talking to anyone IRL (because i deliberately avoid them)

english become my default language before i know it.

 

[LuoirM]

Writing in English with no plan ahead really help me with writing Character Driven because I can go haywire and be myself more. Literature in my native language is very very complicated and no one really likes the genre I'm writing, so straight to it bois!

 

[HokuouTenrou]

Insta-English, if only because it's much easier with the personal pronouns, compared to my native language or Japanese.

 

[Nymus]

I write my story in German first and then translate it. Frustratingly, of course, some of the linguistic elegance is lost. Especially when it comes to puns, proverbs, and synonyms, it really bugs me. When correcting and revising, I can iron out some of it, but not everything.

The alternative of writing in English doesn't really work for me. A few sentences and paragraphs are possible at the moment, but nothing more. My hope is to become fluent enough in English to be able to write directly in it.

 

[Nanakawaichan]

Cintailah Bahasa Indonesia. Orang Indonesia itu minat bacanya rendah, jadinya gitu dah.

In August 2018 I bought translated version of Red Queen, and last year I bought its sequel the Glass Sword. Reading them helps me a lot in thinking about the concept and the wording of what might be a fantasy novel in the Indonesian language. And tbh, it has a different vibe compared to Bumi and other Tere Liye's fantasy series.

But really, the Indonesian Language is so much fun if you try to learn it deeper. The 'imbuhan' or suffix and infix is really lit and one of the cool aspects in Bahasa.

Indonesian type WebNovel mostly go for romance or horror (Or K-pop fanfic). Writing the other genre of that is kinda hard to get the audiences for amateur writers.

Btw I write my novel half my native language half English

 

[Deleted member 53101]

Indonesian type WebNovel mostly go for romance or horror (Or K-pop fanfic). Writing the other genre of that is kinda hard to get the audiences for amateur writers.

So it's not because our literacy culture is low, but because the genre is not to the readers' interest? Should've guessed it, most of the best-seller novel in Indonesia is either romance or horror.

 

[hyperkvlt]

Is a waste of time to write in spanish and the translate to english

english is not my first language, but at this point, i read 5 volume of novels per week on average. and i barely talking to anyone IRL (because i deliberately avoid them)

english become my default language before i know it.

Writing in English with no plan ahead really help me with writing Character Driven because I can go haywire and be myself more. Literature in my native language is very very complicated and no one really likes the genre I'm writing, so straight to it bois!

Insta-English, if only because it's much easier with the personal pronouns, compared to my native language or Japanese.

The most really are fully on go-straight-go team, huh? I suppose when you read lots of stories of a certain language, you're bound to be more proficient on it.

I never write anything in Dutch unless I absolutely have to, like for university papers. Thing is, I mostly read historical non-fiction (books and papers) and a majority of those are in English, and the remainder is split between French and Dutch. And in terms of fiction, I barely read regular fiction books in Dutch, only online writing in English or books of lesbian smut which just isn't a genre that people write for in Dutch in my experience. So English just feels like the most natural option for writing. Dutch is for speaking, English for writing.

(I can feel centuries of Flemish nationalists who tried to make it a literary language in the face of French cultural dominance being angry at me as I type this xD)

So long as it doen't bother you in real life it should be fine. On that note, my speaking with English is pretty much rock bottom, duh.

I write my story in German first and then translate it. Frustratingly, of course, some of the linguistic elegance is lost. Especially when it comes to puns, proverbs, and synonyms, it really bugs me. When correcting and revising, I can iron out some of it, but not everything.

The alternative of writing in English doesn't really work for me. A few sentences and paragraphs are possible at the moment, but nothing more. My hope is to become fluent enough in English to be able to write directly in it.

Some puns and jokes are kind of lost in translation too. Simply translating stories into english is usually not enough, stuffs like localization is important, too, to make some stuffs to make more sense....

Lots of Fan-Translation doesn't properly convey the jokes too, and that was pretty common... (tough some are putting effort to change it, but it ended kind of not so JAPANISH) But, well, once you read lot enough, they would make more sense. Guess that because I already saw them several times before.

Indeed. Though this is in writing story and alike context. After all, it's almost impossible for you to lose your English skill as long as you're connected to the internet. But too much of thing is of course bad for you. There are replies here saying their mother language skill is deteriorating lol. If I were to continue writing in English, I think I may become one of them



One thing about writing skill is that it's not always proportional to your language proficiency. Even if I've learnt my mother language to the bone, that doesn't mean I'll be a literary god in Indonesia or anywhere else. So writing one story in two languages is no more double work, it's more like n^2, and like what other have said, it's usually a waste of time

Yeah, making some jokes and terms from other language to be more undertandable is pretty taxing I guess.

Indonesian type WebNovel mostly go for romance or horror (Or K-pop fanfic). Writing the other genre of that is kinda hard to get the audiences for amateur writers.

Btw I write my novel half my native language half English

Bruhh, yeah. KPOP fandom is pretty scary... They hunted down one of my friends down to extiction, never again using his real name online. I wonder if he's still alive somewhere, hiding into a corner?

So it's not because our literacy culture is low, but because the genre is not to the readers' interest? Should've guessed it, most of the best-seller novel in Indonesia is either romance or horror.

Because the book readers on our country are mostly female or adult of some sort. Youngsters these days mostly prefer to play online games instead of reading, the minimum selling for "best selling" book decreased a lot by times. Even those youngster (including me, but I am not young anymore, sad) do read, they mostly prefer it online. Not so interested in physical books.

 

[Nanakawaichan]

So it's not because our literacy culture is low, but because the genre is not to the readers' interest? Should've guessed it, most of the best-seller novel in Indonesia is either romance or horror.

Based on my observation, the novel that get more attention is about romance about motorbike school gang (Bad boy type), School Romance, Teenage Angst or depression (broken heart, family mental abuse or something like that) for female teenager. Or Household drama, Second wife drama, adult ver angst (like divorcement or the husband dump the MC) and R21 monogamy romance for adult women.

Because the book readers on our country are mostly female or adult of some sort. Youngsters these days mostly prefer to play online games instead of reading, the minimum selling for "best selling" book decreased a lot by times. Even those youngster (including me, but I am not young anymore, sad) do read, they mostly prefer it online. Not so interested in physical books.

There's so many book piracy here and sometimes they sell it in online store openly. That's also the real problem. I remember I saw a novel about 55K IDR in a book store and accidentally, found the same book (but different cover) in half price in online app in new condition. And that store has a lot of it.

 

[Deleted member 53101]

Writing in English with no plan ahead really help me with writing Character Driven because I can go haywire and be myself more. Literature in my native language is very very complicated and no one really likes the genre I'm writing, so straight to it bois!

Ahh ... what's your native language? And what's make it so complicated, I wonder. I'm a language geek so I'm kinda curious.

I write my story in German first and then translate it.

I learned a little of Deutsch back in high school, and it's really a hell of a language. It's a complex language with a lot of things going on there. I mean, at a glance, it's like English ... but it's not. Although it only has six tenses(I only learn four though), but there's this verb konjugation based on the subject, which is pretty difficult and foreign.

But really, I love German songs and poems. My fav singer is Andreas Bourani.

Spoiler: And this is just my rambling, it has little connection with the thread.

I remember I saw a novel about 55K IDR in a book store and accidentally, found the same book (but different cover) in half price in online app in new condition. And that store has a lot of it.

Indeed, the regulation regarding the copyright of intellectual property is severely lacking. But most of all, Indonesian customers don't give a damn if the thing they bought is real. As long as it's cheap and affordable, even if it's not original, they'll swarm to it.

I have a friend who 'sell' pirated version of windows and MS Office and said it was with the product key, but it's just a setup with simple KMS activator program. And many people buy from her. It is confusing why they would rather spend that amount of money than download and install it themselves.

Based on my observation, the novel that get more attention is about romance about motorbike school gang (Bad boy type), School Romance, Teenage Angst or depression (broken heart, family mental abuse or something like that) for female teenager. Or Household drama, Second wife drama, adult ver angst (like divorcement or the husband dump the MC) and R21 monogamy romance for adult women.

This ... this is what I mean, the novel readers' community in Indonesia mostly from women. If it's men, then maybe they're just otaku or wuxia lovers. I have this neighbor who is a Chinese kokoh who opened a book rental store, there's so much of old-day wuxia or cerita silat printed back in 80's there. As for the other, the fantasy genre or sci-fi won't sell well in Indonesia. Or at least, I haven't seen nor know any best-selling book of that genre aside from the Bumi series.

 

[namio]

There are two forms of languages, internal and external. Internal is inside the mind while external is the opposite, outside the mind in the form of words, sentences, etc.

I'm a Javanese, and English is my third language. However, I never write it in my mother language, because not only it's harder to do that, it's meaningless, and a waste of time and energy.

Bahasa Indonesia and Basa Jawa (lit. Indonesian Language and Java Language. No, not the programming language) has different syntax, grammar, and other kinds of language rules and morphology. It is harder to write in my native tongue first and then translate it into English. And most of all, there's only a neutral third-person pronoun, so it is bothersome to translate it into English which has a gender-divided third-person pronoun.

So, I never write it into my mother language and translate it. As long as I have a clear concept of the thing I want to convey in the story inside my mind, I could project it into an external language in form of my writing. Even if it's not perfect and there's so much mistake be it in the misspelling of words, wrong in the verb form, and other grammar mistakes.

And thankfully, one of my readers kindly correcting my mistake in the comment section so it'll help me a lot. I can learn more about English because of it.

We are saved from the unfortunate naming of Java coding language by the suffix -nese I think it should work for a lot of Indonesian languages. Javanese, Sundanese... Also, I'd been wondering if you were Javanese when I see you every now and then, so that's a pleasant surprise.

____

English is my... unofficial main tongue, honestly. (I don't know if languages forgotten in childhood count, but if they do, English would be my 4th.) I write most everything in English. I don't read enough in my mother tongue to write in it. My vocabulary is far bigger in English and I'm far better able to elaborate on the scenes and concepts with it. A bit unfortunate, but it's been really hard for me to find novels and books I do like in my mother tongue... The only contemporary author I didn't find obnoxious (too much trash romance) is Andrea Hirata. I blame him for my trash sense of humor though.

I do have to say at some point translating a story I wrote, even if I have the vocabulary to, isn't even an option. Each language has such a different vibe...? It's hard to really explain. Not to mention, translating all the wordplay and jokes? Are we humans only on this earth to suffer... My beloved puns, lost...

 

[Nymus]

Because the book readers on our country are mostly female or adult of some sort. Youngsters these days mostly prefer to play online games instead of reading, the minimum selling for "best selling" book decreased a lot by times. Even those youngster (including me, but I am not young anymore, sad) do read, they mostly prefer it online. Not so interested in physical books.

I love paper books. ... and I can tell you exactly how much.
About - cough - "some" € alone for the new shelf wall that my books need by now. And all because I'm at home more because of Covid and I'm renovating my place the whole last year.
Argh. My wallet hurts so much.
At least looks my lair more presentable now.

But I'm sad to admit, as much as I love books, I rarely buy English literature or technical books in paper anymore.
It's much easier to get those digitally instead of waiting a long time for my bookstore to order them for me.

 

[AncestralIdiot]

Although English is not my mother language, I write my works straight to English. I don't use my mother language that much anymore aside from speaking.

 

[LuoirM]

Ahh ... what's your native language? And what's make it so complicated, I wonder. I'm a language geek so I'm kinda curious.

Just to give you an example, here's how many "a" we use on a daily basis and in our everyday life
a á à ả ã ạ â ấ ầ ẩ ẫ ậ ă ắ ằ ẳ ẵ ặ
And there is a side ancient language that we still use to this day interleaving with modern language (think of it like Traditional and Simplified), like a simple word "fire", I can translate it in 4 different ways "lửa" "hỏa" "viêm" "cháy"
Good news is, this made Vietnamese more unique when it comes to word choice.

 

[Deleted member 53101]

a á à ả ã ạ â ấ ầ ẩ ẫ ậ ă ắ ằ ẳ ẵ ặ

Oh my goodness, and here I thought that my mother language is the messiest one. I can't imagine living and speaking with that much tonal change. My throat probably can't handle it.

 

[CheertheDead]

Oh my goodness, and here I thought that my mother language is the messiest one. I can't imagine living and speaking with that much tonal change. My throat probably can't handle it.

Google translate didn’t pronounce that much different. I think at least 2 of them sound the same.

 

[LuoirM]

Google translate didn’t pronounce that much different. I think at least 2 of them sound the same.

reading the letter itself? pretty impossible to read. At most of em ain't even audible
But there's a reason why there're different types for them, when put in words they are pronounced more clearly.
Not differently in each word though, they have a rule to pronounce unlike engrisk.