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Summary: The most meaningfull/insightfull immigrant biography written
Review: Eva Hoffman is truely a gifted writer. Her command of the English language is at a level that makes me ashamed of my U.S. "home grown" skill set. Reading this novel made me realize for the first time the security that a lack of freedom provides - (ie. youth, political ect.) The insecurity and fear of failure that is the halmark of true freedom
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Summary: the inability to properly communicate through language...
Review: Eva Hoffman states how difficult is to share one`s own identity with whoever does not speak your same language.The total disintagration of the relationship beetwen signifier and signified is achieved and in the same time is denied.On the one hand, the person who is uttering the signifier refers it to a signfied related to his/her own experience, his/her environment, his/her values background and it means to his/her language.The relationship beetwen signifier and signified is disintagrated because for each culture we have specific signifieds.But it even means that in the very moment of uttering a signifier any person relates it to one and only one signnified linked to his/her background.So to speak it seems as if,the signifier refers to more than a signified,because the English word "sun" wil never correspond to the Italian " sole"(the " signified" in this case is really different!!)but it implies that for an English the signifier "sun" has got one and only on signified "the pale sphere in the sky"..The Eva Hoffman`s own words are remarkable: "Do you marry him? No, I answered in English;Yes I answered in "my" language.Two different languages are two different persons, with two different lives...
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Summary: Insight into 2nd Language Acquisition
Review: Eva Hoffman's autobiography provides valuable insight into the process of second-language acquisition. Over the span of her life, she indirectly reveals numerous factors that led to her acquisition of English. These influencing factors are both internal and external, both successful and unsuccessful. Particular internal factors that I feel were most influential in her success were her motivation and high level of intelligence. Externally, the most significant factor was that she had the opportunity to acquire the language in its natural environment rather than solely in the classroom. It is these elements, along with various others, that ultimately lead Eva to a native-like fluency.Personal attributes such as intelligence and motivation may not be the most significant factor in the acquisition of another language; but with some individuals it may contribute to how quickly a language is acquired and possibly the depth of acquisition (especially with the lexicon). In Eva's case, extensive reading in her adolescent years undoubtedly contributed to her heightened intellectual capacity in later years. Her early studies also seem reflect a passion for knowledge and experience that she feeds with the books from her bi-monthly visits to the library, "...I sniff the aged smell; I read a few words; some of them have illustrations at which I look greedily; then I have to choose from the riches of Araby." (27) The combination of intelligence with a strong passion for learning clearly plays a role in Eva's success at acquiring English. It is this strong will to learn that she brings with her to the New World and which is instrumental in the absorption of new vocabulary. She continues the practice of frequenting the library where she tells us, "Every day I learn new words, new expressions. I pick them up from school exercises, from conversations, from the books I take out of Vancouver's well-lit library." (106) It seems pretty clear that lexical acquisition is contingent upon the amount of time one puts into the process. Motivation is likely the most significant factor that contributes to the amount of time one spends trying to learn new words. For Eva, her passion for obtaining new words played a vital role in acquiring her impressive vocabulary. Various factors appear to contribute to her motivation; but particularly it is her search for self-identity as well as pressure from her peers that seem to motivate her most. Part of her problem with self-identity may be related to her age and part may be related to the circumstances of her new environment. She states, "Because I'm not heard, I feel I'm not seen. My words often seem to baffle others." (147) Understandably, isolation from her peers is frustrating enough for her to strive to be 'seen' which she initiates through writing, "I learn English through writing, and, in turn, writing gives me a written self." (121) The pressure involved in 'fitting in' is difficult enough for native teenagers; being a foreigner would only increase that difficulty. She struggles to get rid of her accent because her peers accuse her of faking it in order to appear more interesting. When she tries to tell a joke to her friends, her lack of success reminds her that she is still an outsider. Even her close friends remind her of this, "'Oh God,' Penny says, 'Sometimes I think you're hopeless.'" (148) In regard to external influences, it is the environment in which language acquisition takes place that is likely the most influential factor in successfully acquiring the target language. The shift from classroom study in Poland to total immersion in Vancouver provides a basis for Eva to thoroughly explore English. I've met people in various cities throughout Poland who have studied English for years, some for nearly a decade. The common denominator these people all share is that they hardly speak any English (what they do speak is broken and difficult to understand.) I can empathize with this situation. I studied Polish for 3 years before moving to Krakow and I feel I learned more in five months of study there than I did in the previous three years. Every day social activity is difficult when you are forced to rely upon an inadequate form of communication. It is easy to sympathize with the frustration she feels in daily conversation, "Much of the time, it takes an enormous effort on my part to follow her fast chatter and to keep saying yes and no in the right places, to attempt to respond." (113) Difficulties in vocal participation can restrict social interaction and consequentially lead to isolation and loneliness. Eva seems to conquer this dilemma through persistence and the passing of time. In addition to social isolation, linguistic prejudices also seem to play a role in developing and sustaining her persistence in achieving fluency. Some of these perceived prejudices are probably nothing more than baggage from her homeland, "The class-linked notion that I transfer wholesale from Poland is that belonging to a 'better' class of people is absolutely dependent on speaking a 'better' language." (123) Speech still acts as a class signifier today, but probably not to the same degree as one would find in Poland. Along with the social difficulties that accompany immigration, Eva has to deal with some of the cultural presuppositions that effect pragmatic success in learning a new language. She points to the example of saying, "thank you", implying something to be thanked for, which in Poland would come across as rude. Likewise, in addition to mere grammatical competence, Eva must learn how to apply the language that she is learning. She draws a helpful analogy by equating language acquisition to music. Simply learning the keys and sounds of an instrument is not enough to produce a song; likewise, learning the syntax and lexicon is not enough to produce a sufficient knowledge of language. One must acquire a pragmatic competence that includes absorption of new presuppositions. This is most likely to occur from living in the environment.
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Summary: Gaining a True Understanding of that Ultimate of Journeys
Review: For many years, I have been involved in the preparation of teachers, both graduate and undergraduate, to work in the multicultural, multilingual climate of our nation's schools. Teachers can be successful ONLY if they have a real sense of what is going on in the minds of the children they teach. All too often, they make assumptions about what a child knows and is able to do or what a child is actually feeling and why. Such assumptions can wreak havoc in the lives of the thousands of immigrant children who come to our classrooms from their home cultures each day speaking a language other than English. Eva Hoffman's book, more than any other work I know, allows a teacher to learn and FEEL what it is really like to make that ultimate journey from the culture and language of one's birth, of one's heart, into the English-speaking world. This is one of the most brilliant books that I have ever read, and it is a MUST for every teacher!
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Summary: Gaining a True Understanding of that Ultimate of Journeys
Review: For many years, I have been involved in the preparation of teachers, both graduate and undergraduate, to work in the multicultural, multilingual climate of our nation's schools. Teachers can be successful ONLY if they have a real sense of what is going on in the minds of the children they teach. All too often, they make assumptions about what a child knows and is able to do or what a child is actually feeling and why. Such assumptions can wreak havoc in the lives of the thousands of immigrant children who come to our classrooms from their home cultures each day speaking a language other than English. Eva Hoffman's book, more than any other work I know, allows a teacher to learn and FEEL what it is really like to make that ultimate journey from the culture and language of one's birth, of one's heart, into the English-speaking world. This is one of the most brilliant books that I have ever read, and it is a MUST for every teacher!
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Summary: Very interesting and stimulates reflection on identity
Review: I am a woman born from a multi-cultural marriage (an American mother and a Jewish Hungarian father who met in Florence, Italy) a neutral third ground. I deeply appriaciated Eva Hoffmann's description of her life in two places. For me who has always lived in one, I feel divisions in identity at a different leve. But as a daughter of parents from different cultural backrounds, I recognize the constant sense of loss and tension between and among memories and experiences originating in different places under different sets of values. I am deeply interested in this topic and have found few books that I appreciated more than Ms. Hoffmann's. I would like to suggest to people with similar interest a book that seems to me to take up where "Lost in traslation ends". It is called "Mother Tongue, An American life in Italy". The author, Wallis Wilde- Menozzi, lives in Italy and describes the divisions and syntheses in her experience of bi-culturalism in a complex and lyrical way that touches finally the minute core of being. Alessandra Pauncz
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Summary: Whine
Review: I am also a Soviet immigrant so I definately identified with the first part of the book. However the rest of it seemed like she was whining about her situation. She kept separating herself from her new life which led to all her problems of not feeling like she belonged. SHe never makes an effort to learn this new lifestyle and as someone who had to do that and got used to this new life I think she was just unwilling to change at all and kept harping on her ideas that Polish life was better than American life. This just seems like a book of excuses.
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Summary: I want to buy the book and I cant figure out how to
Review: I cannot figure out how to do some simple like "buy it" and "pay for it." What's happened to Amazon. You no longer want to sell books?
In fact your screens are so confusing that I cant figure out where the send button is right now.
Rating: 
Summary: Unsympathetic
Review: I didn't care for this book all that much. First, her adolescent experience as an immigrant to Canada seems heavily covered over by later-acquired learning in the philosphy of structuralism, semiotics, etc, all very fashionable nowdays. The book has more the feel of a post-mortem analysis than a personal memoir, and in trying to be both it fails on both levels. Second, I didn't find her a sympathetic character, because she herself seemed to have so little sympathy for others: Canadians were boring, dull, undemonstrative; North-American teenage life superficial; the local Jewish community obsessed with status and the notion of 'better' or 'worse' people. etc. I got the feeling of her portraying herself as a true and sensitive (European!) heart among the barbarians and the uncomprehending. Sorry, doesn't wash.
Rating:
Summary: Unsympathetic
Review: I didn't care for this book all that much. First, her adolescent experience as an immigrant to Canada seems heavily covered over by later-acquired learning in the philosphy of structuralism, semiotics, etc, all very fashionable nowdays. The book has more the feel of a post-mortem analysis than a personal memoir, and in trying to be both it fails on both levels. Second, I didn't find her a sympathetic character, because she herself seemed to have so little sympathy for others: Canadians were boring, dull, undemonstrative; North-American teenage life superficial; the local Jewish community obsessed with status and the notion of 'better' or 'worse' people. etc. I got the feeling of her portraying herself as a true and sensitive (European!) heart among the barbarians and the uncomprehending. Sorry, doesn't wash.
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