A tale of language

Do you remember this newsletter? After a brief period of rest and relaxation, then a longer one of stress and absolute mayhem, I feel back on track again.

The past month I completed 2 years living abroad, meaning 2 years that I switched to working full time using a second language instead of my native tongue. And I figured, during this period I might have accumulated more learnings than I accounted for. So here's is a somewhat short list of Things I Learned Communicating Daily In Another Language:

A second language is a superpower

I understand insecurity. I understand feeling you don't know enough to communicate, let alone to hold it to high standards - I felt that anxiety, trust me. But more benefits come from it than you might imagine. Different languages sprout from different logical roots, wiring our brains to think in distinct patterns. Which also translates to how you formulate ideas - you think different, in quite a literal way. You lived a different culture, you understand another demographic. I have grown the utmost respect for anyone who communicates in a language that is not their native, no matter the level, as it takes courage and it offers so many fresh perspectives. Languages are live things, they reflect culture, values, ways of thinking and being.

Necessity is the mother of invention

A curious pattern I noticed in my job practice is I tend to a much more visual storytelling style now than I used to when I worked with Portuguese speakers, that of course affected by an active pursuit of this style but also because visual communication is much more universal, it stands on its own no matter what language you speak. A character animation can convey emotions just as well-written dialogue would, with the upside (for me, the writer) of not getting tangled in language barriers. Sometimes writing a good punchline proves to be harder because no matter how fluent I am, I am not a native speaker. Natives bend the language at their own will; they know it so well from a lifetime of constant use that they are able to distort the rules, explore the dimension of phonetics, move past grammar and formal speech. They have their superpowers too - we second-languagers just get resourceful in other ways.

Cultural contrasts are never an afterthought

This is quite specific to using English as your second language, which is the case for most people, I suppose. The English-speaking world is the center of Western culture. Most pop references come from it, holidays and traditions that come from the US and UK are widely known, even though they are not actively celebrated around the world. So there is a tendency in entertainment in general to take English-speaking culture as the baseline; everybody knows what it is, there is no need for explaining. This is a problematic assumption in many levels (including the colonizing one, but we are not digging there today), and even though for most native English speakers this doesn't come from a bad place, culturalization is not always an active concern for them. That means adapting and adjusting your content to fit other cultural standards, from flagging potential sensitive subjects to making sure a joke is still funny in any language. For English second-languagers, this "cultural radar" is always on, the discrepancies constantly evident. And that, once more, is a superpower. If you as an entertainment creator* fear using the gift that was given to you of being able to say "hey everyone, I don't think this is going to sound good in some places", my heart goes out to you. Stay strong, multi-lingual hero.

Good communication is not just good grammar

Knowing how to write well is, of freaking course, a must for a writing gig. That is a job requirement for this profession. While we can argue writing well doesn't mean writing pretty, clear communication is also not a synonym of perfect writing or speech. Daily work communication is much more about reaching out to people, being open and being honest. That is regardless of what languages you speak, how fast you type, how strong is your accent. A LOT of my second-languager colleagues are extremely self-aware of their accents, when I find it the most interesting and incredible thing to seat at a table surrounded by people that all sound different from each other. That is a strength, the ability for all this people to understand each other no matter what is a strength, and an accent should never stop you from sharing and communicating. As the poet says, be brave, be kind, be loud because you're latino and it's impossible not to.

*This is my absolute refusal to adopt the term "content creators" that the internet made into a thing. Everything is content; not everything is entertainment.

This week's recommendations:

• Go outside and see the sun

• (Play) Atuel, a wonderful half-hour playable documentary about a river in Argentina

• (Listen) Tony Hawk's Moving Castle. No further comments:

Tony Hawk's Moving Castle — www.youtube.com thank you so much for the twitter user who posted this inspirationOH AND TACHANKA ELECTRIC BOOGALOO IS COMING FOR SURE THIS TIME :DDDso stay tune fellas.get ...