Writing and Language Learning

a comparative "Thought for the Day"

I enjoy reading blogs by some of my favorite authors. Today I was reading a post by Karen Hancock and I enjoyed her comments on quotes from the book, "Writing without Teachers" by Peter Elbow. You can read her post here.

As I had just arrived home from my language classes I found myself relating to parts of the same quotes in a different way. The portion of the quotes that stood out to me are below.

"Many people are constantly thinking about spelling and grammar as they try to write. I am always thinking about awkwardness, wordiness, and the general mushiness of my natural verbal product as I try to write down words.

But it's not just "mistakes" or "bad writing" we edit as we write. We also edit unacceptable thoughts and feelings, as we do in speaking. In writing there is more time to do it so the editing is heavier: when speaking there's someone right there waiting for a reply and he'll get bored or think we're crazy if we don't come out with something. Most of the time in speaking, we settle for the catch-as-catch-can way in which the words tumble out. In writing, however, there's a chance to try to get them right. But the opportunity to get them right is a terrible burden: you can work for two hours trying to get a paragraph "right" and discover it's not right at all. And then give up."

"Editing, in itself, is not the problem. Editing is usually necessary if we want to end up with something satisfactory. The problem is that editing goes on at the same time as producing. The editor is, as it were, constantly looking over the shoulder of the producer and constantly fiddling with what he's doing while he's in the middle of trying to do it. No wonder the producer gets nervous, jumpy, inhibited, and finally can't be coherent. It's an unnecessary burden to try to think of words and also worry at the same time whether they're the right words."

Hmm....it sounds like a very articulate description of my struggle with speaking Hungarian. I'm always trying to edit at the same time that I am trying to produce the sentence and it DOES most often leave people bored or with the impression that I simply have nothing to say. (Most people give me the benefit of the doubt about being crazy, thankfully).