Not just a story of immigration To begin, ‘What language Do I dream In’ is surprisingly interesting book. The author makes us travel with her through her exiles but most of all with the languages. When she was fifteen, Elena, her brother and her parents...
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Not just a story of immigration To begin, ‘What language Do I dream In’ is surprisingly interesting book. The author makes us travel with her through her exiles but most of all with the languages. When she was fifteen, Elena, her brother and her parents moved in Hamburg because her father found a job. This city was absolutely not made for her, nevertheless, she had to make her mark. Learning a new language can turn out to be difficult, particularly when we don’t like the country. When she arrived, Elena spoke Czech but she had to learn German. We can see how she tries to pronounce the “r” sound right, for instance, that shows us how she had experienced a linguistic migration time and time again. This part of the book reminds me of my mother’s story when she left Algeria. She was fifteen as Elena. She didn’t speak one word of French and understood nothing on her arrival in Lyon. Her brothers and she went to school, but they were placed in “welcome class” (classe d’accueil in French) whi
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