Learning to Speak, Part Two

II.

     The effect for me, as I read or reread Xiaolu Guo's novel dictionary, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers, is to unlearn English and think about its latent opportunities, the opportunities I've probably missed--and will miss again. The charm and the discoveries of my reading experience could not be overstated. In fact, I have come to prefer Guo's English to my English.

     Why?

     I prefer her English to my own because Guo's English understands better than mine the imaginative freedom available to any speaker, whether chosen or by chance revived. Her English uses the opportunity that mine may not to improvise a verb, or to command a new metaphor (without explaining it). Her English is also more adamantly visceral than mine tends...