As an Indian who was sent to an English-speaking school but otherwise uses Hindi, I can say this: most of us stand in a no-man’s land when it comes to writing or, more specifically, expressing ourselves.
The problem is that we are taught to write in English from such an early stage in our lives that it’s the only language we feel comfortable writing in. Also, most of the writing we do is online or on computers/smartphones, where the preferred language is English.
The issue I find is that, even though we use English every day, on a deeper level it is still not our first language. You might talk to your friends in English daily, but you still don’t have the kind of expertise you’d want when trying to express yourself.
This becomes apparent when we use it to express ourselves in long-form writing, like I’m trying to do now. There are probably better ways to explain the same thing I’m saying here—with better sentences, etc.—but I’m stuck at a mediocre level.
And don’t get me wrong: it’s not as if you’d be given free rein to express yourself in your mother tongue and it would make a huge difference. You’d still use the same mediocre level of language. Even though you might feel the sentences better and more deeply, it might still not be the best way to express the idea. Why?
Because from an early age you were split in two—unknowingly. They say that your first language comes from a part of the brain that works differently compared to any other language you might learn later. The problem is that we learned half of both. We wrote in English and spoke in Hindi (insert your first language here). Although, as time went on, we learned to speak English and write Hindi as well, it was not the same. You had somehow learned a set behaviour on a deeper level that is oh-so-hard to change now.
So what can be done? The best anyone can do is learn more about both languages—or more, if there are others, like for most of us. Try to get better at them to the point that it becomes easier to express yourself in all the languages you know. Will it require effort and time? Yes! Will it be worth it? Of course.
But if, let’s say, you don’t have that much time to put in the effort, you can still focus on one and get better at it. It would require half the effort and probably half the time.
This is one of the reasons I write. I understand how bad this no-man’s land is, or can be! Learning to write is never a bad option to have.
