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Wen Jin's avatar

I have to share your beautiful essay with my sons, who are in this exact linguistic situation (like many other children of immigrants). Their Romanian is mine and my husband's, not the Romanian people speak back in the country. Stuck somehwere in the 2000s, full of words that other people might not use (but we do - "trebuie sa printez ceva" says my oldest son, instead of "sa imprim", but we don't even question the made up word, as we also use it), adn strangely adapting itself to an English syntax that sounds strange in translation ("Pot sa am un pupic?"). Thank you for this well-crafted reflection on linguistic alienation.

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Randy McDonald's avatar

What a remarkable experiment in writing!

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