New Beginning and Language Identity

So it’s been ”a while”. I’ve tried a few other blogs (strictly focusing on a certain project), thinking that this one’s too hard to continue as it was so focused on my months in Idaho.

I also tried writing in Finnish but it doesn’t seem too natural. It’s hard to figure out why. I feel very passionate about my mother tongue – I once said that I’d do anything to make sure that my children or grandchildren wouldn’t become English-speaking. While I love English and the globalizing world (in this context strictly in the sense that I get to speak English), at the same time I’m insanely jealous about Finnish and the fact that it’s inevitably changing.

So how is it that I’m still writing in English? Maybe it’s simply the fact that my Finnish never manages to sound “good” enough. Not witty enough, not sophisticated enough, or whatever it is that I’m looking for. English, on the other hand, is “easier”. Of course I recognize bad English when I see it but maybe it’s just that much harder to spot the nuance between “perfectly adequate” and “brilliant” language use. I know I fall under the category of “perfectly adequate” which is just fine in English, but in Finnish I seem to have the need to be “brilliant”.

I don’t think being a “brilliant” language user comes only from knowing the language. I know I have an extremely versatile vocabulary, I’ve read a lot and I definitely know my grammar. Of course it’s partly about the experience one has as a writer but also, I think, one’s identity. Others are better at expressing themselves in writing? Maybe I’m just better off thinking my thoughts without trying to express them at all? LOL :D (Seriously, sometimes I think my thoughts and my speech don’t match – it happens so often that people seem to understand what I’m saying completely differently from what I think I’m saying. See, there it is again, I’m good at expressing myself in my thoughts.)

Anyway, I thought I’d give my writing another try, both because it’s so fashionable and also because right now I feel so energetic that I’m certain great ideas and visions are awaiting around the corner for me to record them here and lose them in the realms of the World Wide Web forever…