Eva Hoffman: Lost in Translation

Word Count: 568

From Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman

“‘River’ in Polish was a vital sound, energized with the essence of riverhood, of my rivers, of my being immersed in rivers. ‘River’ in English is cold – a word without an aura. It has no accumulated associations for me… No, this radical disjoining between word and thing is a desiccating alchemy, draining the world not only of significance but of its colors, striations, nuances – its very existence. It is the loss of a living connection” (387-388).

“I love language too much to maul its beats, and my pride is too quick to risk the incomprehension that greets such forays. I become a very serious person, missing the registers of wit and irony in my speech, though my mind sees ironies everywhere” (397).

“If I am indeed to write something entirely for myself, in what language do I write? Several times, I open the diary and close it again. I can't decide. Writing in Polish at this point would be a little like resorting to Latin or ancient Greek … But writing for nobody’s eyes in English? That's like doing a school exercise, or performing in front of yourself, a slightly perverse act of self-voyeurism” (398-399).

When Eva moved from Poland to Canada she found her assimilation into life there to be much more difficult than anticipated. The change in language that Eva found changed her entire being, including her actions and her relationships with people and herself. She struggled with communicating with others of course but the focus of her narrative is rather on how this change affected how she saw herself and the world. She first mentions that since she had no connections to English like she did Polish therefore English words had meaning but no connotations. She had a very surface level relationship with the English language. Polish words truly meant something to her and English was simply words that meant nothing or did not have any associated feelings. Since she was now living surrounded by English for which she did not have any associated feelings, the world became colorless and insignificant. She says “it was the loss of a living connection” (388). This reality was even more difficult for Eva because of the way she loved language and communicating. She found her true emotions were never able to be portrayed in English. Without this, she became a rather serious person because she could not portray humor the way that Canadians could understand it, no matter how hard she tried. She felt alienated from her peers because of this as well. 

This change caused her to question who she was. Eventually, she was presented with the opportunity to write in a diary, which because it was locked, was something that she found she could be herself without any judgment. However, she was faced with the fact that she no longer was certain who she was and what her relationship was like with language. It had been long enough that it was strange to write in Polish because it felt to her like using a dead language like Latin or ancient Greek, but writing in English did not feel right either. She related it to a school exercise and even called it a performance for only herself, like lying to herself about who she is. This change in language was a huge struggle of hers and she did not like the changes that she saw in herself.