Milos Forman was asked (having lived in the US for many years, without using Czech much for a very long time) if he thought now of English as his "primary" language; as his "main" language. If he dreamt in English, if he thought in English, etc.
He hesitated - he admitted he often dreamt or thought in English, but he wasn't at all convinced that English had fundamentally replaced Czech, in him.
He decided the ultimate test of what language can be considered your primary language, must be the "poetry" test. He thought primary language must be that in which one can fully appreciate and understand subtle nuances of poetry. And for him that was still Czech.
I was reading some poems, in Romanian. So beautiful! So amazing! I looked for translations! And I found some, but... is not the same thing... Is not the same... The music of the words, the colours... To read a good poem is ... an emotional release. And I love English poetry too; or American. Or for that matter, Spanish. I read a few Spanish poems recently, incredibly moving. I think I understand the images, the metaphors. But what I feel I still don't get truly, in any language as I still do in Romanian, is the music. And the colours of the words. And all the nuances. These days I think in English almost exclusively. In Spain at some point I thought in Spanish, too. But I have to admit, Milos Forman was right. The ultimate test is poetry!
Every time I come to Romania, I make frequent language mistakes, especially at first. Words don't come to mind as easily. I have now a pretty bad pronunciation, sometimes bad grammar... But the poetry, THAT I get! And as much as I am in awe after I struggle, and I did, with for example, Shakespeare sonnets in old English, and as much as I love - and I really do - Edgar Allan Poe (I set one of his poems to music) or Walt Whitman, or Tony Harrison, or amazingly, the impressive English poems of the Hungarian born George Szirtes - despite all of my efforts, I feel there is something I still can't penetrate... Even when I think I understand them - with all of the metaphors and hyperboles and anaphoras, there is an invisible wall that prevents me from going as deep and feeling the same sense of being completely enveloped by a poem, of "tasting"it and "smelling" it, and living it and dreaming of its music, as when I read some Eminescu, or a Nichita Stanescu, or Arghezi, or Iv Cel Naiv.
He hesitated - he admitted he often dreamt or thought in English, but he wasn't at all convinced that English had fundamentally replaced Czech, in him.
He decided the ultimate test of what language can be considered your primary language, must be the "poetry" test. He thought primary language must be that in which one can fully appreciate and understand subtle nuances of poetry. And for him that was still Czech.
I was reading some poems, in Romanian. So beautiful! So amazing! I looked for translations! And I found some, but... is not the same thing... Is not the same... The music of the words, the colours... To read a good poem is ... an emotional release. And I love English poetry too; or American. Or for that matter, Spanish. I read a few Spanish poems recently, incredibly moving. I think I understand the images, the metaphors. But what I feel I still don't get truly, in any language as I still do in Romanian, is the music. And the colours of the words. And all the nuances. These days I think in English almost exclusively. In Spain at some point I thought in Spanish, too. But I have to admit, Milos Forman was right. The ultimate test is poetry!
Every time I come to Romania, I make frequent language mistakes, especially at first. Words don't come to mind as easily. I have now a pretty bad pronunciation, sometimes bad grammar... But the poetry, THAT I get! And as much as I am in awe after I struggle, and I did, with for example, Shakespeare sonnets in old English, and as much as I love - and I really do - Edgar Allan Poe (I set one of his poems to music) or Walt Whitman, or Tony Harrison, or amazingly, the impressive English poems of the Hungarian born George Szirtes - despite all of my efforts, I feel there is something I still can't penetrate... Even when I think I understand them - with all of the metaphors and hyperboles and anaphoras, there is an invisible wall that prevents me from going as deep and feeling the same sense of being completely enveloped by a poem, of "tasting"it and "smelling" it, and living it and dreaming of its music, as when I read some Eminescu, or a Nichita Stanescu, or Arghezi, or Iv Cel Naiv.
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