A few months ago, I published the article Lessons Learned from Translating 30 Stories. It talks about how I wrote the first 30 stories of the Saga of Life in Dutch, then translated them to English. All the different approaches I tried, the upsides, and mostly the downsides that made me stop translating. (All stories are English first now, and a translation back to Dutch is optional if I think the story warrants it.)
When I wrote that article, I still had the final few bits of translation to go. It was so draining to translate that I ended up postponing them for months, which is when I write this article.
In the mean time, I also wrote a few more Dutch stories and novels (for other unrelated projects). I never planned to do that. When I launched the new version of TiamoPastoor.com, and switched to writing English blog articles, I said that “I’d probably never write in Dutch again”. That turned out to be a lie. There are still many valid reasons to do it anyway: Dutch writing contests, a novel about a typical Dutch holiday, an idea I started many years ago that is still Dutch, etcetera.
In practice, this means I’ve been writing in two languages for the past year or two. And I think that gives me some experience to give a few interesting lessons I learned.
Lesson #1: Never 1-to-1
The biggest lesson?
Dutch and English are actually very different languages.
When I started translating, I thought it could mostly be a “1-to-1” translation. That’s what they always say, right? The reason the Dutch can all speak English quite well, is because the languages are quite similar.
And of course, Dutch is closer to English than to, say, Chinese.
But they are really not that similar at all. The times I could quite literally translate anything were far and between.
Time after time, I
- Simply translated a sentence word for word (by default), only to realize everything is in the wrong order. (English is quite particular about order, and doing anything else might be grammatically correct but sounds completely wrong.)
- Ended up with an English sentence that used half the words of the original Dutch sentence. (Dutch is a very wordy language and lacks many verbs to shorten sentences.)
- Had no suitable translation for a phrase. I had to rewrite the entire sentence or even paragraph to get the same meaning across. (This is also true for certain verbs, nouns, adjectives, etcetera. But it’s really those “subphrases”, those subclauses, with weird little sayings or speech patterns that are unique to a language.)
Example: the word “hoor”
For example, this is a regular Dutch sentence: “Ik heb er geen last van hoor.”
If I were to translate that “formally”, I’d say something like: “I don’t mind.”
This is an example of English being more succinct.
But I mostly wanted to illustrate that this doesn’t really mean the same. There’s this extra word at the end: “hoor”. It has no actual meaning or definition here. It simply makes the sentence sound more casual or friendly.
If I were to translate this more precisely, it would be something like “Oh, I don’t mind.” or “Nah, don’t worry about it.”
The Dutch are known for being very direct. When people say this, though, they mean we tend to be honest and get straight to the point.
Because our language is faaaar from direct. We add loads of extra words here and there to weaken the impact of a sentence, to make it sound more casual or informal, to soften the blow when we give criticism. And many of them just can’t be translated well.
English is far more direct and exact, which is what allows it to be more succinct. I prefer it for that reason. In most cases at least.
Example: fewer words, simpler sentences
Some more examples, just to make sure it’s clear.
- English: “I love you.” / Dutch: “Ik hou van you.”
- English: “I enjoyed it.” / Dutch: “Ik heb er van genoten.”
- English: “Don’t wait for me.” / Dutch: “Je hoeft niet op me te wachten (hoor).”
- English: “Did you (ever) check that link I sent you?” / Dutch: “Heb je (ooit nog) die link bekeken die ik je had gestuurd?”
It might seem a small thing, but we need to add an extra preposition or phrase to many verbs.
This is a reason why Dutch sentences grow and grow on words. Especially after writing English for a while, I feel like my Dutch paragraphs are a messy jumble of words. Most stories for the Saga of Life, once translated (without losing meaning), are 1,000 words shorter.
And even when we don’t need to add those extra words (such as the final two examples), we do it anyway. To sound less direct or harsh. Almost as if our language was built to make everything sound as neutral, sober and informal as possible. The things for which the Dutch are generally known.
With those extra words and “cozy phrases”, you could make the end of the world sound casual.
English: “World War 3 has started!” / Dutch: “Och, ’t ziet ernaar uit da unne nieuwe wereldoorlog is aangebroken, ofnie Henk?”
What does this mean?
It means translating is far harder and more time-consuming than I thought initially.
It also means it’s more instructive than I thought. I learned many different ways to phrase something, as well as new vocabulary in both languages as I translated back and forth.
Because I’m a big proponent of simplicity and mimalism, I like the English language more. It’s just shorter and more direct. My Dutch stories can often feel a bit childish or too cozy for me. After translating to English, I actually feel the text is more solid, mature or professional.
Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that translating is like doing another “edit”, and that I have read and written English (non-)fiction for almost my entire life. I might simply remember Dutch more as “the language of the books I read as a child”, and English as the language I read more seriously.
It revealed to me just how different Dutch and English are, and also the exact ways in which they differ. And that matters for the points I will make below.
Though, in recent years, English vocabulary and phrasing has slipped into the Dutch language. Many English words are commonplace now, to the point lots of my siblings just completely blank on the Dutch alternative. I often hear a phrase that just makes absolutely no sense in Dutch … but people still understand it, because we realize they used the English phrasing for something. They simply took the English words, in the right order and form, and then literally translated them to Dutch.
I’m not sure where that is going. I don’t want languages to disappear. As this article shows, we need the variety, the diversity, the different associations with it. At the same time, I also admit liking English for being a more efficient and useful language, so I’m guilty of this crime too.
Lesson #2: Switching languages feels worth it; translating doesn’t
I’ve experienced great benefits from writing in different languages. And allowing myself to move around quite freely, instead of forcing myself to stick to English (for example).
My entire set of associations, ideas, experiences, memories, etcetera is completely DIFFERENT per language. And that’s not surprising.
For example, my Dutch stories tend to be more emotional and based on past memories or feelings. Because those memories are filed away under “Dutch”: they were in the Netherlands, with Dutch people speaking, with Dutch names or events associated, etcetera.
My English stories tend to be more movie-like. A large part of my “English brain” contains all sorts of movies/shows I watched, books I read, YouTube videos I consumed about a wide range of different topics. When I write an English book, I mostly subconsciously draw from those things.
On the one hand, I can use this to purposely get my brain in the right state. If I want a more plot-heavy, filmic story, it should be English. (As I said before: writing that story in Dutch will make it feel more wishy-washy and childish to me.)
On the other hand, by staying active in both languages, they can influence each other. By writing some stories in one language, and some in the other, I can get practice telling stories in different ways. I can draw from fresh experiences or associations each time. By having half my notes be in Dutch, I will surely reach more unique and inspiring places than if all my notes had been English.
And over time, these two languages will obviously blend into one big chunk of associations. They already did, largely. I’ve been doing this for long enough now that I find my memories, emotions, typical Dutch things entering the English stories. And vice versa. I’ve purposely read some book series half in English and half in Dutch, just to experience the difference in naming and writing style.
I am happy I wrote a lot in Dutch before switching to English. I’m happy I translated many of those stories, which taught me a lot and expanded my storytelling brian.
I am also glad that it’s done, though. A real weight off my shoulders when I decided that the first 3 cycles of Saga would be translated, and that’s that. A much-needed boost to motivation when you know your story can be enjoyed by half the world instead of only people in your tiny country.
Though, so far, the number of sales of my Dutch books still vastly outnumbers the sales of my English books. Partially because I have a much longer history in Dutch, with the majority of my published books being Dutch until this year. Partially because a wider market also means more competition/harder to stand out, of course.
In a way, when I started to write in English, I had to enter a new market again and make some name for myself again. Slowly, but surely, we’re getting there. After the release of the 5th Wildebyte book, they are actually being bought now. Once in a while.
Translation is obviously a skill and one that will teach you a lot. But I think you quickly start to plateau, especially if you were already more than fluent in both languages. It becomes a mountainous pile of routine work, for very little gain or benefit. Whatever creativity or problem solving is there in translation … is 100x more present and engaging when simply writing something new.
Whenever I’d translated that day, I would be EXHAUSTED. Like, by the time I’d had dinner, I just couldn’t move a muscle anymore the remainder of the evening, and slept like a brick. Do this too many times, and you need days to recover, which set back my schedule and made me feel bad.
I’ll just keep writing most stories in English, and some in Dutch. And probably never publishing any of them in both languages.
Lesson #3: You keep going as you started
Sometimes, I wake up and continue a novel of mine with completely the wrong narrator. For days or weeks, I’ve been consistent in writing a story in the past tense, using a third person narrator. But then suddenly, because I just woke up and my mind is elsewhere, I continue a chapter in present tense first person.
And once started, this is really hard to catch and correct. I basically keep writing the wrong tense, even as I scroll back to check things in the story, until I am done and step back.
Well, the same is true for the language as a whole.
My notes are sometimes a blend of the two languages. Because if my mind was in Dutch mode, I will write down new ideas that way. If my mind happened to be in English mode, I will use that instead!
Even in the same document. My notes for a project could be all English, but if I just happen to have a Dutch conversation before opening it and getting to work … it is now suddenly filled with Dutch notes.
Is this a problem? Not really. I find reading to be a smooth switch. I can easily read a document that’s half English and half Dutch, and not have to “change mind-sets” or lose any time.
It just feels a bit messy, of course. And I’m always afraid that I accidentally left a chapter in the wrong language somewhere deep inside a novel.
This seems like an obvious mistake to find and fix. But no! That’s the danger! Because you “keep going as you started”, it’s very easy to revise your novel and completely miss the change of language.
So I try, I really try, to be consistent. And the large majority of my work is in English, so usually things work out. It’s mostly my older projects (all in Dutch), or real life interfering (I live in the Netherlands, of course, surrounded by people who speak Dutch), that can switch my brain and lead me astray.
As always, I decided to make the best out of this!
There are some projects that started in Dutch, many years ago. The file for it has many great puns in Dutch, or perhaps a few ideas more based on Dutch culture. In such cases, I can’t decide which language to pick when I pull the trigger and execute the idea. Well … I don’t have to decide! When I make it, I’ll start with one of the two languages at random, and I’ll just keep going with that one.
Conclusion
I found that mixing two languages gives you a lot of diverse ideas. How you approach a story in one language is just never going to be how you’d approached it in that other language.
I found translating between Dutch and English to be much harder than I thought. They are really not that similar. And after a translation or two, I found the activity so boring and effortful that I decided never to do it anymore on the future.
Also, we have free AIs now that can translate things adequately on the fly. I, as a writer, might not like them. Of course I don’t! I want beautiful prose and clear storytelling.
But a consumer who just wants to read a story, and it’s not available in their language? It’s absolutely fine for that. So I don’t know how valuable it will be, in the near future, to have manually translated much of my stuff.
I also found that, the longer this goes on, the more the languages blend and mix. This can be a danger: you accidentally continue a story in language B, while it was entirely in language A before. And it can sometimes lead to messy notes, as notes entered at different times might have different languages. But most of all, this is a good thing. You get an even wider set of associations and experiences to draw from, while you’re just as productive in either of them.
So far, the statistics shine in favor of picking a more niche language. My Dutch books have so far seen more sales. But I think that’s simply because the number of such books is far smaller, so anyone who doesn’t know English (or doesn’t want to read it) is more likely to land on a book of mine. I estimate that in a year or two, I might mention that English books are far outselling the Dutch ones in an article.
And perhaps most of all, doing this has given me a lot of insights into language as a whole and the specific differences between Dutch and English. Also a nice thing to have as a writer.
I merely gave some easy examples in this article, but the list is of course far longer. The Dutch word “zeg” that can sometimes be translated with “say”, but not always. The fact that some English books use “said X” while others use “X said”, and I somehow switch them up all the time, even though Dutch always uses the first variant. The fact that English books use double quotes ("), while Dutch publishers are somehow really adamant about using single quotes (').
In the end, my writing style in both languages has borrowed a lot from the other. I use double quotes at all times, because it’s just easier to read and harder to miss. I use “said X” now (unless there’s some reason it has to change for the sentence), because I just think it sounds better and makes more sense. (You give the manner of speaking before giving the name.) I often write really short sentences and paragraphs in English, because I’m used to the long wordy sentences in Dutch and trying to cut them down.
You might agree with some of it, and disagree with other parts. Maybe I’ve driven a few readers insane by mixing conventions. Sorry. In the end, I think it mostly leads to a unique and interesting writing style. One that is more distinct and natural to me than if I’d never tried to diversify. One that draws from such a weird combination of experiences and associations, that the stories that come out are certainly not uninspired or cliché.
Those were my thoughts for today,
Tiamo