I’m a Wannabe Polyglot

There’s value in my patients’ words.

I want to get the most direct access to them. When I was in high school I read “Cien Años de Soledad” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. To this day, it is one of my favorite novels. I read it in Spanish and couldn’t imagine reading the translated version. I can’t get away from the feeling that something is lost. Though the words may be the same, but the nuance of the language as they author is meant it, is lost. Later that summer, I also read Crime and Punishment. I read it in English, the whole time wishing I could read it in Russian. This week alone I wished I could speak Haitian Creole, Somali and Lebanese. Yes, I used the interpreters, but much like my experience with literature I couldn’t help but felt like I was missing something. Yet that is what makes patients with limited English proficiency intriguing. The sense that there is something subtle lost in translation both makes these patients challenging and in a way more fulfilling.