Writing in Assamese Took Me Out of My Comfort Zone
But with the support of a friend, I’m making progress.
Confidently expressing your thoughts in writing can be challenging at times.
If we write only about what we know, our creativity doesn’t always surface, and creativity is the foundation of good writing.
With this in mind, I recently wrote about my experience learning the Assamese language.
Learning Assamese is a recent venture made possible by a friend from Assam.
He is passionate about India and Assam, the North Eastern state of India.
After many discussions with him about the Assamese culture, traditions, festivals, everyday lifestyle and its people, I've been inspired to learn the language.
Also, he confidently talks to me in English, so it seems unfair not to reciprocate and learn his language.
Writing confidently
I know that respect is important and expected in Assam, and I approached writing about my language-learning experience with that in mind.
Taking a positive and respectful approach, I included words I’d learned in Assamese in the article, putting English equivalents for clarity.
This was out of my comfort zone as I’d never published anything in Assamese and feared making an embarrassing mistake.
And inevitably, I did make a mistake.
It was soon explained, and I edited and corrected it.
This is the benefit of working with a native speaker when learning a new language.
Knowing that I could ask for my work in Assamese to be checked gave me the confidence to be creative.
I support Assam and the Assamese people and hope to be able to write and speak their language soon.
Read about my Assameses language learning experience below.
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