Earlier this year, we had the first multilingual book club, where everyone was encouraged to read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, in whichever language they were learning.

I was excited to join in, and decided to read with the group, but in Romanian (Umbra Vântului). However, even though I was able to read a fair amount of the book, there were a few problems that prevented me from finishing the book, or learning even more language from it. I would like to discuss those today in this post.

1. Language Clash

For some background, I had chosen to read the book in Romanian, but Romanian was not the language I was currently learning at the time. At the time of the commencement of this bookclub, I had been studying and learning Brazilian Portuguese for about a solid year. Now, both Portuguese and Romanian are quite similar in structure and share quite a number of cognates, but they are still some of the most separate Romance languages that you can find. One being from the polar west (and even further still in Brazil's case) and the other being from the polar east of Europe. While having a common root, they are really not at all mutually intelligible. I know a few Romanians who can understand more Portuguese without having studied it, but I don't know any Brazilians who immediately can understand Romanian without some study. It's kind of an assymmetrical relationship in terms of intelligibility.

Given the linguistical differences, and the fact that I had not touched Romanian in over a year, I was not set up to go back to a language that I once had been quite good at. On top of this, my exposure problem would be further exacerbated by the second problem.

2. Going in without a Gameplan

Initially, when I decided to read the book in Romanian, it was for the sole purpose of maintaining my Romanian while continuing to focus on my Portuguese. The book would provide an escape to something I already knew and only had to maintain ... or so I thought.

My "gameplan" therefore (if you could even call it that) was to keep the ebook beside my bed and read along with the audiobook whenever I had free time, and whenever I wanted to relax.

This would have been a perfectly fine way to keep my language alive, if I had only picked up the book after a two month hiatus from Romanian. Trying to "maintain" after a year of almost no exposure was simply out of the question. Granted, I actually was still able to read most of the story, and understand most of they key plot elements. Where I really struggled was with specialized verbs, descriptive details, and words having to do with large displays of emotion.

Therefore, trying to "relax" while reading this book proved to be a whole lot more difficult, especially in the chapters where it was more internal monologue and heavy descriptions. Couple this difficulty, with my own annoyance that I had known a good chunk of those words before I had gone on my hiatus, didn't make for the best learning or reading experience. Even with efforts to just embrace it and let it go, it would still be in the back of my mind that I had been better in this language, and that I could be better in this language, should I actually give it the proper attention it deserves.

3. The Book Itself

The book itself is wonderful, the story is really well written, given the fact that sometimes you feel like you're falling off the rails before being caught and set back on the story's path. I have no complaints about the story.

However, for a foreign langauge learner who has not as much vocabularly as they thought (cough cough ... me lol), the complexities of the language used, combined with the complexity of the plot, PLUS the length of the book (circa 500 pages), and you have quite the challenge. Definitely not something to be "tackled in your free time" and to be a "relaxing read" if you're not at an extremely high level in your language. I was not at a high level, and didn't have the proper time to attend to it.

According to my kindle, I got about 46% of the way through the book, which doesn't seem too bad. But I felt that I was missing a lot of the book. I got the core story details, but I was missing the larger historical references and setting, as well as the interplay between the characters, as I was having a lot harder time keeping track of all the side characters. And this seems like a huge disservice to the author and his work, because he wrote it for that reason.

The point being, this is a great and complex book, and should not be approached lightly, even in one's native language XD. The added stress of reading it in a foreign language, sans a solid gameplan, an over perfectionistic mind, and bloated expectations, combined to create a perfect storm of "you aren't going to finish this book, and if you do, you won't feel fulfilled."

Final Thoughts

I do have plans to return to this book, in Romanian in the future. But given what I have learned now, I will definitely approach it in a different manner, after a period of re-exposing myself to this language that I used to know.

I will also be sure to couple it with a solid gameplan and realistic expectations. I feel that that will allow me a much more pleasant reading experience and learning opportunity. :))

Pentru viața și pentru învăța

Tom