Language Synthesis Essay

Growing up in an asian household, you would expect that I would be able to speak in my parents mother language. As most kids, growing up with parents who came as immigrates to the United States it would only be natural if the parents spoke to their children in their native language. In most cases that would be true, but not for me. Throughout my childhood, my parents have spoken to me in only English, they have never once spoken a full sentence to me in Khmer.
To further understand my situation, let's rewind all the way back to early 2010. This one particular day was different from the rest. As I thought that this day would be like any other, it wasn’t. One simple music video changed my whole viewpoint on culture and language, it opened my

How is this something that you accomplished? After discovering the K-pop genre, my obsession and interest of the Korean culture grew and after a year or so, I told myself while listening to some Big Bang, “You know what since I’m always listening to the music and watching k-dramas, how about I just learn the language?” While growing up, people would often come up to me and ask me if I could speak my language (Khmer) to them, and everytime that happened, I could only say no. It was embarrassing because people would expect me to know my own language, but I don’t. At this point, I was determined to learn Korean, not to show off to people that I learned how to read, write, and speak another language entirely by myself, but because I truly believed that for once, I could do something on my own without the help of others. Also while in the process of learning the alphabet, I found out that my dad’s dad was Korean and our last name originated from

When I found out that I’m also Korean and not just Cambodian, my first initial reaction was “Oh cool, I’m learning the language my grandpa spoke.” But as time slowly passed, I became weary because even though I’m also Korean, I’m not full Korean like I am Cambodian. I worried that if my relatives found out that I was learning Korean instead of Khmer, they will be disappointed in me. I was worried that everyone around me would say “Oh you’re learning Korean but not Khmer? You would rather learn a language we don’t speak and not the one our whole family speaks and understands?” I had that thought in my mind for a while, and once I gained the courage to tell my parents and other family, my nervousness was gone. Their reaction was not what I expected. Instead of being disappointed, my family was pleased and impressed. I remember my aunt saying “You know how to read and write in Korean?” Nobody was mad at me, and I felt