Are You More Comfortable Writing In Your Native Language?

[Baburra]

I love my native language - Filipino, but I have to admit, it's awfully difficult to use to write. Without going too much into the specifics, let's just say that most English words consisting of one or two syllables would usually translate into 4 or 5 syllables when using the Filipino word counterpart. For example "Farmer" would translate as "Magsasaka".

Growing up, I've also heard a lot of my classmates in school iterate that reading in Filipino is very hard for them too for the same reasons. Granted, if it's a casual conversation then there is more leeway to use simpler words, but even then it's still hard to construct complete sentences without at least incorporating one or two English words in there somewhere. When writing in English, however, I can be as specific as I can be when expressing my thoughts without much compromise. I guess it's because I / we grew up reading in English more even if we always spoke in our native language, or perhaps it's just really a lot more suitable for writing.

How about you guys, do you write in your native language just as easily as you speak it, or are you more comfortable using English when it comes to writing like me?

[fredkawig]

I'm a Filipino, I'm comfortable speaking my native language, writing not so much. I'm not that good at it, I know it's embarrassing but I guess I have to blame the colonial mentality that was fed to us at an early age. Always pertaining to foreign things as better and who can blame us the government is corrupt and only the families of these politicians are benefiting from the money that's supposed to be for the masses.

[Omnispeak]

It depends how easy the script of a foreign language is. Some languages like Chinese have a totally unique script that some people find difficult to learn. At the same time many European languages have the same script and it is easy to write in them.

[Denis Hard]

Attitude. That's all there is to it. I am comfortable writing in English because I like writing. Others who don't like writing may find it difficult. So the difficulty arises simply because of our negative mindsets in regard to something.

[Daimashin]

Nope, I'm not as accustomed to writing in my native language than writing in English. This is because almost every material that I come in contact with is either written or spoken in English. From where I live, I rarely get to write in Chinese which is my native.

[Rosa]

Jamaican Creole is not a language that is written frequently by our natives unless it is something formal for cultural purpose or more recently for informal texting. I am therefore much more comfortable writing in English since it is the language that I was taught to write in at school and all my writing in my native language was self taught.

[marmunmrhundun]

I love my native language as well, and to answer your question I am completely confident and comfortable writing in my native language. To be honest I never really had any problems with writing in my native language, even when growing up I was always pretty good.

[Timeisrelative]

For me at least it have gotten to the point where I'm so comfortable with writing in my second language too. So it does not really matter what language I write in, it comes natural to me now.

[WeDontSleep]

I don't really care much, it seems that English is even a little easier for me since I mostly participate in English forums and barely in any other ones. Sometimes I have trouble with sentence structure when I'm writing in English because I can't directly translate something from my native language to English, but other than that it's all fine I think.

[jfab]

English is my native language and it could go technical when it comes to writing. I'm comfortable doing it so far. But there are definitely rules on it that could just be difficult sometimes.

[jiiensamxx]

I love my native tongue but honestly, I'm more comfortable in writing English. I'm taking up Journalism and we write different stuffs everyday. I find writing in English easier to adjust to if I ever get some things wrong. Some languages are really hard to write because of various points one has to learn.

[LindaKay]

I am surprised by all of the responses on this thread, honestly. I really would have thought that everyone felt more comfortable writing in their own languages. I can't really imagine writing much in other languages, although speaking it is a different thing altogether.

[Trellum]

To be honest i feel a bit more comfortable writing in English, a bit more than writing in Spanish.  As many of you might or might not know... my mother language is Spanish, but I use English on a daily basis.  I guess I'm starting t get used to writing in English more and more, given the fact i really need to do that every single day. 

As for my mother language, I'm sad to say I actually need to practice writing it more, because I'm starting to forget ho to write certain words. I really need to work on that! 

[Nicholls]

It's true that it's really harder to write in our native tongue rather than in English. This is because we study English grammar extensively, therefore we tend to be more critical, and more practiced in using the language. Notice that most Americans do not pay much attention to using the right syntax when they right or speak their own language, while people from other countries do the opposite. I think that's true for most people. I understand that this is because when we use our own, our only goal is for communication, and we're not sensitive to grammatical errors.

But for me, I am more comfortable writing in our own language. Maybe because I learned the language first, and not just that, the way I studied Filipino before is like the way I study English right now.