Lost in Translation / Eva Hoffman
Word Count: 255
Parker Greene
From Lost in Translations by Eva Hoffman
" The verbal blur covers these people's faces, their gestures with a sort of fog. I can't translate them into my mind's eye. The small event instead of being added to the mosaic of consciousness and memory, falls through some black hole, and I fall with it. What has happened to me in this new world? I don't know. I don't see what I've seen, don't comprehend what's in front of me. … " (pg. 389)
I really wonder what it must have been like to be an emigrant from Poland going to Canada, and having to deal with the language barrier that exists. The only "language barrier" I have ever had to deal with is whenever I had to take foreign language classes in high school and college. So I really wonder what it must have been like for Eva trying to navigate her life while still learning another language. While Eva is learning to navigate this newfound world, she is starting to feel as if she is lost since her Polish roots and lifestyle have had to change. What Eva had to go through must have been pretty hard for her especially since it was during her teenage years, but she was able to find ways to bring her Polish roots into her life. Eva Hoffman is truly inspirational with her story of emigrating from Poland to Canada and then going on to write many books, after having to overcome a huge language barrier.
I think that language barriers are definitely hard to get around considering that is how people communicate. I also talked about a similar experience that I had relating to this. When I lived in Australia, even though the primary language was English, the majority of the people there had thick accents and used saying or words that were new for me. The longer I was there the easier it was to pick up on things and that is what happened to Eva in her excerpt.
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