Classification: Prose
Theme: Autobiography
Synopsis: Another one of my many life stories told, and this time, I will be telling something rather personal about myself and how I struggle to communicate properly because of a certain inability.
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This will be a short but personal story on my side. I'm aware that I’m a hundred percent Filipino with zero foreign blood in my body but for some reason, mentally and verbally it feels like my nationality has always been American.
I’m incredibly fluent in English, more than my native language. To the point where I don't even know how to count higher than thirty in Filipino and I can't pronounce or even understand basic words. I need to use translators to write the shortest and simplest of essays. If it's an English essay then I have no problems at all, hell I even enjoy it. And truthfully, I prefer English over my first language. It's very silly, I know.
I'm not sure when it happened but one of my close friends has always used English, ever since early elementary. I think it’s in 3rd grade when the two of us bonded and I picked up her habit of speaking English all the time.
But no, at school I still speak my native language and even at home, but I’m born with a mild stutter, so even if I’m speaking English or Filipino I still stutter at some words. I've also always had an interest in English literature which is one of the reasons why I'm very fascinated with Great Britain. I was just more interested in American and English culture than my own, I even only listen to English music.
I frequently speak English to other people without even realizing it. I find it hard to speak in Filipino. I can properly understand the language but speaking it is a challenge for me. I'm rather fortunate to be born into a highly English-speaking country and not anywhere else in the world where natives speak little to no English. I eventually grew mildly arrogant, like how I knew more English than anyone I'm close to (which is not a lot of people by the way), and I committed myself to be absolutely splendid in English, I forced myself to be good in anything English-based.
So if we're going to sugarcoat it, my Tagalog is worse than my English.
Teachers recommended that I immerse myself in Filipino literature and practice but I can never bring myself to do so because, by this time, I convinced myself that I won't even be interested nor will I remember or even be able to speak any of the words.
Because of this, I found it hard to properly communicate with relatives and other people and I have to frequently shift between English and Tagalog which gets hard and awkward over time.
It came to the point that on some days I wish I was just born as an American so I won't have any trouble communicating, or that I lived in another English-speaking country. I found myself comparing American and Filipino literature, movies, series, etc, and thinking that American is far better than my own culture's entertainment. I don't have the same mindset today and eventually understood that every country has a unique culture.
But I still can't help but feel ashamed that I can't properly speak my native language, my inability to properly speak Filipino is one of the things I truly dislike about myself, especially since growing up I was surrounded by a Filipino family who always spoke the language to me, it's like my brain snapped one time and decided that I would no longer be able to properly speak my language.
I write all my stories in English but I never wanted to write in Filipino because I know I would just have a rough time and it will take too long to finish because of my said inability.
I'm still no different to this day, but I'm working on bettering and immersing myself in my culture. And besides, it's not always bad to be better in English than your own language. Thanks to my talent I've been given high grades in English back in elementary, and reciting poetry out loud isn't very hard for me whereas others have a hard time doing so. Thanks to this I've been chosen to participate in a Poetry-reciting competition in grade 6 and won 2nd place, it was one time, but to me, it's probably one of my greatest achievements and I've been given a chance to use my fluency in English.
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Published by: Julianne Andrei Batiao
Date published: December 13, 2021
Time published: 12:41 nn
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