CezaraWrites

My experience as a billingual copywriter

In less developed countries, knowing many languages is considered extremely useful. Every school in Chisinau, the city where I am from, has a second, even a third language they would teach kids.

I grew up in such a school. I started learning Spanish in my first year of elementary school, English in the second, and Russian in the fifth. By the time I was fourteen, I had four languages in my linguistic pocket together with Romanian, my mother tongue.

Now, don’t think that I was the genius kid that spoke everything fluently. I mastered them all with time, after a lot of practice, closer to adulthood. This allowed me to apply to a desired university, to then going further abroad with Erasmus+.

Knowing Spanish enabled me to make friends who were impressed I spoke it at all, while English became my new ‘base’ language, spoken at uni, work, and at home. My Russian is dusty, but as I often go back to Moldova where it is a second language, I still get to use it.

Now, when it comes to writing and copywriting, my love for it was discovered through my first language – Romanian. I still have to find novels with the same descriptive depth and poems with such a well-crafted emotional universe. I loved reading, and at that time writing felt natural.

Because I loved Romanian so much, I enrolled on a communication major with copywriting as part of the program. I didn’t see a future after graduating litere (which roughly translates as “letters” referring to a literature major).

On another side, I like the prospect of working in marketing or PR. I loved studying advertising and how copy can effectively change people’s perception of brands. I don’t necessarily support consumerism, but it was interesting to witness this craft practised over the years.

Besides a few uni projects, I had a chance to work on a few copywriting projects as a freelancer in Romania. It was fun and fulfilling, yet I could tell that the true “copywriting fun” happens in English. The most fun word plays can be done there, the colloquialism is way more accepted and the public seems a bit more open to creative experiments on the go. So I started looking outside of the box. The box being Romania.

After enrolling into my master’s program in Belgium, I stopped my “Romanian career” and started to work on the English one. After graduating and wrapping up all the academic writing I could’ve done at that time, I got a job in marketing.

I knew it would be hard. Sometimes I had my own doubts, other times I received negative feedback from co-workers or clients. Regardless, they triggered an enormous impostor syndrome and worries I didn’t know I could have.

But let’s explore them together.

1. ‘It doesn’t sound like something a native would say‘

This was told to my boss by an ex-employee of our company. They saw my social media post and thought that it sounded weird… not English. When I asked what exactly was wrong, he couldn’t tell me exactly what was wrong.

Even if I had proofread the post myself, got it approved by a manager, got it proofread by an AI writing tool, I didn’t sound good enough.

I will never sound good enough to some people.

Of course, I started to be harsh on myself…

Then I remembered… It is social media.

It’s a post on social media.

If there is a playground for mistakes, typos, wordplay and goofiness, it’s here.

Not everyone will understand that. And that’s fine.

2. ‘Feels like I can’t speak any of the languages anymore‘

In copywriting, you can have as many ideas as you want but if they don’t make it to the paper, they’re gone.

The ideation stage can be very frustrating when you speak multiple languages. It can sound amazing in Romanian, but when you try to write the same thing in English, it paints a completely different picture.

It sucks.

I had to teach myself to “disconnect” my other languages when working on copy for work which requires English only. I can translate little words or draw inspiration from stories, jokes or idioms, but never think in that other language during work.

Use it to your advantage

I had a colleague who always pointed out that the reason why I don’t sound like a native is that I might be speaking multiple languages. They spoke only one.

Yes, I do speak more or less fluently four languages. I am learning my fifth now, and hope to start my sixth next year. It brings me joy to discover a new culture through its language, idioms, and words that make no sense or even too much sense (yes, Dutch, it’s about you).

I see it as my strength, never weakness. It unlocks possibilities even if at first they look like barriers.

Let AI check

There are so many writing tools online that I should definitely write another blog on it.

Grammar errors, style, structure, and readability – all can be checked, corrected and improved with AI tools. They won’t be able to replace my point of view, my ideas or my creativity. They will just help me build skills and increase my productivity.

Thanks to that, I spend more time generating ideas, and less time worrying about how they might look.

I am a copywriter, not a writer.

Words are just a vehicle for the message.

Conclusion

If you want to become a copywriter but though that language is a barrier, it’s time to revisit that dream of yours. Be bold and confident you can do it. Whatever you think is your weakness can be your greatest strength.

And, at the end of the day, writing is a skill, not a talent. Write daily, weekly, monthly and you will improve.

Read a lot, be open to criticism, get inspired and start writing about things you enjoy. The rest will fall into place.


Featured photo by Peter Olexa: https://www.pexels.com/nl-nl/foto/persoon-met-behulp-van-zwarte-en-zilveren-laptopcomputer-4012966/