English is my first, and only language. I learned from my parents and growing up in a country that predominately speaks English. I use a variety of English’s throughout my day. I will not speak until I am spoken to and I stay to myself. When I am speaking with someone who is a total stranger, I find it quite hard to say anything at all; but if it is a friend, I try my best to communicate. I used to work at a theme park where I had to watch my language. The guests that visited came from all different kinds of backgrounds. In order to try and avoid offending them, I would have to speak as politely as I could. In addition to the guests, the company hired people from different countries to come and work for a month or two. The “internationals” as we called them, were not really good at …show more content…
I usually answer with a yes, no, or “I don’t know/care.” I use the latter a lot as I do not really feel comfortable with talking to my parents. The words I use with my parents are actually the same that I use with strangers. I find it quite hard to talk to people, and for some reason that includes my parents. If I am asked a question, I will answer it to the best of my abilities, but if it is something simple, I will typically just answer with the aforementioned answers. Unless a person explicitly asks for some form of explanation, it is just how I talk to people. I am trying to work on that though, and I will continue to try until I feel as though I can hold a normal conversation. I also noticed that I never really talk about my feelings to anyone, regardless of how close we are. The way I speak English varies from person to person. If I do not know you at all, I will be quiet, only answering with yeses and no’s. If we are acquaintances, I will talk a bit more, but stay formal and try not to reveal too much about myself. If we are close friends, I will be a bit more open and less formal, but I still do not reveal
Then there is the language debate/barrier. I’ve heard many times, someone say "If you don’t want to learn the language, then go home" or "They just pretend like they don’t know English so that they can do whatever they want." I’ve even heard phrases like these coming out of the mouths of some of my own family members. Of course there are people who pretend not to understand, or who don’t really try to learn English.
Usage of English language has its purpose, to convey meaning and understanding to a certain audience. But how does that affect one who does not speak or understand the language? People still communicate in their own Native tongues and have so for many years. With the globalization of many companies today, communication is very critical. Without effective communication, markets of today would be limited as there would be no exports or imports, etc.
Families at home will have their own style of how they want to communicate, they are not being judged in the comfort of their own home, it is a relaxed environment where everyone will probably speak as they want. It is also comfortable to speak in one way with someone you know for a long period of time because they can adapt to you and they know how you speak even if no one else understand you, your partner can acknowledge everything you’re saying. Of course in the outdoor setting you would know not to act the way you do at home, you will try to fit in unless your accent is thick and it cannot be helped. This world is harsh and hard for them to fit in. Everyone is competing among others for everything, “survival of the fittest.” Everyone has to make them stand out amongst others. Therefore, it is harder on people who don’t speak perfect English. Most people will look down upon others, they get rejected for job offers, they get less help and less appreciated etc. They have to settle for what they want. It is hard to converse with others without feeling unappreciated. I feel like if everyone of us takes a second to stop judging and criticizing others ,they can understand what one another is trying to say, people just need to be heard, they just need the chance and not be pushed
The first and second year after moving from China to the United States, I was afraid to talk to strangers because my English was not very well. I had to depend on my husband for dealing with my personal business, such as making a doctor’s appointment, calling to the bank, or questioning to DMV officers. Douglass says, “being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart” (62). For myself, being a dependent and helpless adult is a shame. Moreover, I lacked of extra money to go to school to improve my English. Thus, I stayed home all the time to avoid embarrassment of talking to strangers. After a while, I realized that improving English speaking skills are the essential to gain my self-confidence. So, I spent time to read various articles on the internet and watched English dialogues’ videos on YouTube. As a non-English speaking immigrant living in the U.S., I inevitably encountered a series of difficulties to integrate myself into a new
In conclusion, learning English was a challenge when it was first introduced to me, but now I have overcome that challenge. I am able to defend myself in the outside public world of English with no shame at all. I now understand how fortunate I am to know another language different from my own. For me, it is important to still have my first language because it is a way to retain the Mexican culture. It is just the way I was raised to believe.
Living in Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda for most of my academic life presented me with a great challenge when I first arrived in the United States. As an immigrant my spoken English was not well developed. Being a Caribbean native, English is not our primary language and I had little to no practice in speaking it. When talking with professors and other students I was conscious of the fact I sounded different, may have been speaking the incorrect words, or that might not be understood. Furthermore, in Jamaica we use slang in both conversation and in writing. It was an adjustment for me to speak one way and write another. Anot...
Day by day, there are foreigners whose first language may not be English. There can be difficulty in learning a new language in a new land, and it can be hard to adjust to
It was challenging for me to adapt the language as well as the culture. When I started high school. It was entirely different from the school back home. There was only one Ethiopian out of the school. It took me sometimes to know and be more familiar with the school like Jessica Hernandez, who published her story on Huffington Post magazine company.The title of her story was called “Jessica is An Immigrant.” She talked about her experience when she came to the United States. She started elementary school in the U.S. On the first day of school; she asked the teacher “shoe”. Everyone was laughing at her because she was trying to say “Tissue”(1). That was a turning point for Jessica. She started to study English to improve her English. After a couple of years, she became fluent in English. Like Jessica, I was struggling to improve my English after I came to the U.S, despite the fact that most of my teachers in Ethiopia were from England. It was completely new to me, especially the accent. Hence, to communicate with others, I watched a lot of American Movies and made companions in my neighborhood whose first language are English. Over time, I have been showing improvement. These helped me a lot to cross language border.
A good portion of Americans today speak English as their first language. However, what makes us different is that it is rare to find two people that speak the exact same English. This is the argument Amy Tan makes in her story “Mother Tongue”. A first-generation Asian American, Tan emigrated from China to Oakland, California, where she became a famous writer. She shares her personal story of the English she speaks, and how much the people you are around can change the way you converse. While at home, she speaks to her mother in a “broken” sort of choppy English that she can understand. When she is talking to people she works with or deals with on a more business-oriented basis, she uses clearly spoken, grammatically correct, standard English. It was not until giving a speech in a room that her mother was a part of that she finally realized how different her two forms of English really are.
I came to join my parents four years after they migrated. I knew starting school would be a challenge, so my parents got me a personal tutor to help me boost up my English speaking and writing. I was able to speak fluent English, even though I did not understand most of the things that were said to me. By the time I reached secondary school I had already adapted the British accent.
When I was at work I would only speak English. Most Spanish people adapt to a new norm and (thrown out their old norm) not know if a person can speak to them by their native language. Since I knew some Spanish I woul...
We speak Arabic or Urdu but in America everything is in English. My parents knew English and taught us right from the birth. It was an advantage for us to know how to speak but when we were in Pakistan many Pakistani couldn’t speak English. English is an international language but I have recently been to turkey and it was very hard to get around and communicate with anyone because the languages we spoke were completely different. It was very painful because I would ask how to get to the hotel and they would not understand, make something up and I ended up somewhere else, far from the
In this essay I will compare person-Centred counselling with cognitive-Behavioural counselling and their different approaches and why the counselling relationship is so important. There will be a brief outline of what Person Centred and Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy.
A person's language mastery does not reflect complete personality. A person’s accent, tone and style do not really tell a great deal about him/her. We can’t learn much about a person just by talking to him/her for a few minutes. Despite it is Standard English or not, it’s time to be a bit more open-minded. Hopefully, there will be the day that people would not think something negatively when they hear someone’s “Broken” or “Limited” English. Instead, would give them a kind hand
After I went to Bangalore, which is different state with different language. About 65% of people who reside in Bangalore are from other states with other language spoken (Hindi, Guajarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi & Urdu). I leant that my mother tongue alone cannot support me to communicate with multi-cultural people in Bangalore.