Bilingualism as an editing advantage? Say more
In other posts, I’ve talked about my own bilingual background and the value of hiring an editor when you’re writing in a non-native language. In this post, I’d like to talk specifically about the advantages of working with an editor with a language studies background, no matter what language your work is in.
Putting thoughts into words is an act of translation
As a human being, you have ideas floating around in your head. Being a writer means getting those ideas on the page, and that requires pinning them down with words in order to convey your ideas to others. This is not an easy process, and usually it feels like something gets lost as you carefully pick and choose a collection of words that come as close as possible to replicating your idea on the page.
In this sense, every writer has some experience with translation—specifically, of knowing that there is an array of words available that serve as building blocks to convey meaning, and which words you choose affects the final product of the idea.
Language study makes you hyper-aware of how words fit together to build ideas
Every so often when I am trying to convey something in Spanish, I really labor over my choices. This can happen in academic writing, casual or professional emails, and lesson plans. I know the options and I try them all on for size, considering how this choice fits into the sentence, the paragraph, and the larger whole. Does the word or phrase have connotations that are going to distract from what I’m trying to say? Is it too formal or informal? Do I need to change another word or sentence to make this part easier to understand?
I’ll be the first to admit that these occasional moments can be paralyzing for me personally. Eventually, I make a choice and accept whatever risk I have assessed for that choice. However, the streamlined, stress-free version of this process that I use while editing works to my clients’ advantage.
Putting the best word forward
As I read on and get familiar with the author’s ideas, I am assessing coherence and legibility on multiple levels (which also depends on what the author has hired me to assess in their writing). Word choice, for instance, is of particular importance; as a third-party reader, am I distracted by the word the author chose, or do I quickly come to understand why they chose that specific word? If the word were changed, would anything else related also need to change? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different options? This process sounds granular and painstaking when I write it out this way, but in reality it is a process that language learning (and—let’s be honest—some degree of perfectionism) has made me rehearse over and over until it happens automatically.
Depending on what I’ve been hired to do to the writing, if this happens to a word that is central to the development of the author’s ideas, it might result in a query (“consider using…” and an explanation of why). If it plays a more minor role, I’ll just change it, a change that is visible in tracked changes and which can always be rejected and reversed if necessary. Small tweaks can be transformative for the flow of a written argument.
Keen eye for grammar and consistency
I have very few memories of explicit grammar lessons in English. Like many people I know, I learned way more about grammar when I was learning another language. Subject-verb and noun-adjective agreement and consistency in tenses became the last things I proofread for before submitting papers in college.
In turn, I knew that as a Spanish teacher, when I introduced adverbs, it was definitely not safe to assume that my students already knew what an adverb was. There’s nothing like the pressure of teaching to force you to solidify your own understanding of a concept, and my understanding of various grammar topics benefitted accordingly.
And all that is before even mentioning the training ground that was grading: scanning dozens of student papers for errors, assessing their degree of understanding, and offering praise for victories won. In particular, there is an art to figuring out why a student made a certain choice: putting yourself in their shoes and reasoning through their choices was valuable preparation for future generous, collaborative editing practices.
These skills are valuable no matter what your native language is
My own language study experience is in Spanish, but I’ve also dabbled to varying degrees in Portuguese, Danish, and Scottish Gaelic. The point is that working with multiple languages has made me extremely familiar with the mental gymnastics writers have to go through to translate their ideas to the page, and as an editor, I can offer support for that process. Whether English is your first or second—or third or fourth—language, my background has made me extra attuned to the options you have available to you when doing the difficult work of conveying ideas.
