The Word as a Bridge

I love bridge building: those

from afar and close

find a good foundation

in a good translation.

I belong to that generation of Czech people who experienced, while still sitting at school desks, the shift from the obligatory Russian language to the freedom of choice. During that summer holidays our Russian teachers became teachers of English and for me it became crystal clear at that very time that language was something that had completely conquered me. We didn’t have any Internet or computers and we didn’t have any CD players either. Any foreign language resources were as rare as hen’s teeth and any opportunity to read or hear an authentic spoken language was really precious to us.  Oh, those hours spent by playing and rewinding a cassette tape when you were desperately trying to catch the words of your favourite song and put down its lyrics!

The state borders opened and people opened a lot of language courses. I witnessed the mass enthusiasm that from then on everybody would speak languages and all the world would easily get through, and then again I witnessed the disappointment of most people who had discovered that learning a language is not as much a joke. A kind of fruits of that period today are the so-called “eternal beginners”.

In the meantime, however, languages have carried on living and evolving. The world has become smaller, everything is closer than ever, foreign language literacy is taken for granted and many people think the battle is won by means of robotic translators. Our generation used to take pleasure in mastering a language, but now it seems that something has happened to our enthusiasm. It feels as if we’ve been losing what once was a deep respect for the word. For some reason we’ve stopped wondering over things and the accelerated world of these days is too fond of speaking in shortcuts and abbreviations. Even God could have wanted not to waste time, but he decided to create our history by the word, the beautiful and marvellous Word that can bridge abysses and touch in a man the delightful string of the consciousness that the word is the oldest ever treasure we have because in the very beginning was the Word.

Thirty years or so ago I became fond of the idea that whoever works with languages is like a builder of imaginary bridges through which people find the way to one another. I’ll be glad to help you with these bridges and I’ll do my best to make each bridge not only functional, but also beautiful and delightful for those who walk over it.