I dream in a different language

On the two realities of being bilingual, native languages, past friendships, Past Lives, and your most authentic self

I recently saw this quote about your first language having too much emotional baggage and your second language being the one most authentic to your true self.

“Bilinguals overwhelmingly report that they feel like different people in different languages. It is often assumed that the native tongue is the language of the true self (...) But, if first languages are reservoirs of emotion, second languages can be rivers undammed, freeing their speakers to ride different currents.”

-Love in Translation by Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, August 8th & 15th, 2016

Basically, your first language has too much regime, it is too familiar with the rules that you grew up with, it is your common default. Really, the most expressive version of yourself is your second tongue. I wondered whether that was the case for me — is English my most expressive self, or is Spanish, though being my first language, now my second language?

People often ask me if I think in Spanish anymore and for obvious reasons, I no longer do–my job is in English, the society I live in is in English, the music I listen to is (mostly) in English, and my closest friends only talk to me in English. But I often entertain them by mentioning that I do remember exactly when I noticed I no longer thought in Spanish. It was the summer of 2016, a pivotal year for many reasons but almost exactly three years after moving to the US. I was in Cape Cod talking with my American family, and I noticed when I answered them, my mind thought of exactly what to say in English. Maybe it was because I was talking to my American family and after years of having my mom helping me in between conversations, I no longer felt like I needed her. I felt like I could talk on my own. In a very ironic way, English became my familiar language.

Another occurrence is people often ask me if I dream in Spanish, which is always so hard for me to answer — it is always so hard to even remember my dreams, let alone remember the language I was speaking. The distinction between English and Spanish is so blurry in my brain, often because my family lets me slip into Spanglish too often.

I recently saw my best friend from El Salvador alongside a friend from Ohio. We exchanged funny inside jokes that could only be told in Spanish. Despite knowing so many people in my life due to my many moves, I told her that I often dream of the two of us hanging out with my friends from El Salvador more often than anyone else in my life. I told her I wasn't exactly sure why that happened, since I don't keep in touch with those friends and they don't cross my mind too often. But I recently had the epiphany that when I am hanging out with them in my dreams, I do in fact dream in a different language.

“Some things could only be written in a foreign language. They are not lost in translation, but conceived by it. Foreign verbs of motion could be the only ways of transporting the askes of familial memory. After all, a foreign language is like an art–an alternative reality, a potential world.”

Love in Translation by Lauren Collins, from the New Yorker, August 8 & 15, 2016

Is the reason I speak and write in English because it's easy, a comfortable default? Would my most creative writing exist in Spanish? Would my writing be more explorative if it was in Spanish? Would my life itself be more explorative and authentic if my world was in Spanish? Or vice versa–is the reason why English is my common default because it became my most authentic self? Could it be now that the reason why I dream of my friends from El Salvador so often is because my most authentic self, my Spanish reality, is associated with them?

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Al tanto pensar en la frase pienso en los días en primaria en la cual canciones en inglés expresaban otra manera— tal vez porque era de los Estados Unidos, tal vez porque era lo popular en el internet–porque las letras de Love Story de Taylor Swift expresaban otra realidad, mejor dicho la misma realidad en otra forma, y una manera más fácil de decir te amo.

Now, when I think of expressing myself in Spanish there are some shortcomings. I occasionally stop myself because I'm not really sure how to say the words I want to say. I find a different way, an alternative form, to say the same thing as the quote previously mentioned. It's not lost in translation, it gets a different reality and when I speak and write in Spanish the words come out more romantic and with more intention.

Será que el español es mi lengua de otra dimensión, en la que puedo capturar la belleza con más fervor y con más intencionalidad? Sera que la razón porque pienso que el español es mas romantico talvez porque tengo que pensar mejor en como decirlo?

Is English the language where I navigate a different reality, one too comfortable to use?

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One of my favorite movies is Past Lives because it perfectly captures the experience of someone that had a different life, an immigrant life, rather than staying in her home country. In the movie, Nora and Hae were best friends (and almost lovers) when they were little. They rekindle decades later, after Hae decides to visit her in New York. You can see Nora's face light up with excitement as the two talk in jokes that can only be understood in Korean. She almost has a child-like nature in how she jokes with him. They beat each other up, they laugh together often.

At the end of the day, Nora retreats into the apartment with her current husband and she is thoughtful, mature, and composed. She speaks to him in English and she tries to joke around with him, but it doesn't really land. She also tries to tell him “He is so Korean,” but he just doesn't get it.

Though there is a lot to the movie, I highly recommend you watch it to see all the different concepts it perfectly manicures in one simple plot line. In the final scene (which is not necessarily a spoiler but skip if you’d like), Nora says goodbye to Hae. She’s composed, finishing off with a joke in Korean. She walks back and breaks down in her husband's arms.

“Some things could only be written experienced in a foreign language. They are not lost in translation, but conceived by it. Foreign verbs of motion could be the only ways of transporting the askes of familial memory. After all, a foreign language is like an art–an alternative reality, a potential world.”

Love in Translation by Lauren Collins, from the New Yorker, August 8 & 15, 2016

I know she isn't sad that she's with her husband. I know she isn't sad because she lives in New York. I know she loves the life she has created for herself as an immigrant. I know that no avenue in her home country would have allowed her to become the person she is now. But she dreams and laughs in a different language, one that is only accessible by one potential world.