On writing in a second language. (In a second language).
I’m a Brazilian writer who works in English. That means that whilst I’m writing this post, I’m constantly double-checking the spelling of every word on Grammarly. When someone proofreads my copy and finds zero grammatical inconsistencies, I stand as tall as if I have just won a Pulitzer prize — it gives me more validation than a thousand likes on Instagram or my dad finally saying that I’ve done well in life.
This is because I worked so hard to get to the stage where I am at right now. It has taken more than 20 years (12 as an advertising copywriter) for me to be able to find my voice and write down 90% of what goes on in my head in another language. I had to expose myself to so many uncomfortable situations — so many shameful public typos (thank you Facebook for introducing the ‘edit’ option), so many misuses of ‘in’ instead of ‘on’, so many embarrassingly misplaced false cognates. I once wrote an empathetic letter of condolence to a colleague telling them how sorry I was to hear about their abortion.
It was a miscarriage.
(Portuguese ‘aborto’ means miscarry).
As a Virgo and a perfectionist, I had to learn how to live with the fact that I was never, ever, going to be perfect at my job. I can’t remember how many times I went home crying after a busy day in an ad agency thinking “I’m a farce. I’m a Sr. Writer and I just sent an all agency email with the wrong preposition.”
Eventually, I became so convinced I was a huge shambles that I decided to change careers.
In London, I studied textile design and opened my own studio to create patterns for decor and fashion brands. That way I could still be creative and express my thoughts without having to use my broken English. The fact that I couldn’t draw didn’t bother me — I quickly learned that perfection is the biggest enemy of textile design. Anything that looks too meticulously drawn, or too detailed, looks tacky. By playing with watercolour, I discover that mistakes and accidents are the things that make a piece beautiful and unique. I started to love the imperfect.
My textile design experience was fun, but it didn’t pay my bills. Also, I’ve always had way too much angst and anxiety inside me to communicate through a piece of clothing or home decor. Writing is my therapy. And perfect, or not, I had to embrace my flaws and focus on what really matters: my ideas.
So I came back to advertising. And I started writing a blog. Every day, I try not to get so hung up on the grammar. Actually, I feel smug about the fact that no one is able to have the same ideas as me because they don’t speak my language. I learned that I have special powers. Take back-translating, for example. If I back-translate something in Portuguese to English, it might not make any sense, or it might be the most brilliant and unique piece of language my creative director has ever heard. I once even translated a tradition from my country and sold it as a Google internal project. In Brazil, every day of the year celebrates a different profession: 26th of October is the builder’s day, 22th of September is the accountant’s day, 15th of October is the teacher’s day. So I thought: why don’t we celebrate the UX designer day, the coder’s day, the app producer day inside the company? Boom. I got all the credit just for having access to a different language. Another advantage of being an ESL writer is that because my vocabulary is less rich than other advertising copywriters who have a Creative Writing degree, I never make the mistake of overwriting. I tend to watch native English speakers describing scenes with thousands of adverbs or writing manifestos that sound so poetic that they make you puke by the second line, and feel a twinge of gratitude for my stunted vocabulary. Keep it simple is a powerful tool, especially in advertising.
Also, aren’t the most catchy slogans ever written grammatically incorrect? ‘Got Milk?’, ‘Think Different.’, ‘Eat Fresh.’ Has any brand stopped using these slogans because it makes them feel less competent? Not really.
Just like watercolour painting, I spit my words onto a piece of paper and wait for the magic to happen. They might not be perfect, but they carry my daft (or stupid) decision of being a writer in a foreign idiom.
Now I just need to ask my annoyingly educated British husband to proofread this before I publish it.
