You speak Norwegian with a Polish accent. Your vowels strained like half-smiles you receive from your neighbors; your consonants rough like a Monday morning workout session at SATS. There’s no escaping from stereotypes your accent invokes.
@marta To write this elegantly in any language, let alone a non-mother tongue, is, as they say in this one:👌🔥. 👏
Was reminded of that time I hydroplaned on a tram rail on my scooter and hit my (helmeted) head on the kerb, then had to convince Dutch persons of sufficiently timely answers to questions about the day of the week, who was prime minister etc. That half-step for translation... Ouch. Mars and back.
A lovely piece that will resonate with all exiles, peripatetics & fellow travellers.
@marta what a lovely and powerful article, thanks for sharing.
It echoes a lot of my own feelings about my adoptive språk and the impossibility of being an immigrant. Even for someone whose first language enjoys quite a high status here 🇫🇷
@bmispelon Thank you for the nice words and for sharing your experience. I like that you used the word “impossibility”, because in its essence, one can never be fully integrated. It takes a lifetime of shared experiences, I feel, so integration as a slogan rings a bit hollow for me.
Not to mention that the demand for integration is made very selectively. As a white western european immigrant I can't remember ever being asked (or suggested) to integrate I wonder why that is 🙃
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