¿Que?
“PUT YOUR HEADS DOWN!” she yelled.
I put my hands on my head and started looking around the cafeteria. “¿Que hago?” I asked myself. I saw everyone put their heads down as soon as the guard yells again.
“¡Baja la cabeza!” says a girl that’s sitting next to me. I do as she says not because she told me to put my head down, but because I looked around and I saw everyone putting their heads down. If you haven’t yet noticed, English wasn’t my first language.
I came to the United States at the age of seven. “Put your head down” was the second phrase that I learned in English in the school cafeteria. After I learned that phrase, I would go up to people with a smile so big that you could almost see all my teeth. I would tell them the new phrase that I learned like when a baby goes up to an adult and say the new word they’ve learned nonstop.
Two weeks after I learned the phrase, there was a new girl in my class. When it was my class’s turn to go to lunch, I sat next to the new girl. She moved over a little and gave me a timid look. “Hola me llamó Celinet,” I said without knowing if she understood what I said. Her name was Sarah, and we had a little conversation and found out that we have a lot of things in common. She didn’t know English, and she had just came from Nicaragua.
As we were talking, a loud voice interrupted our conversation. “PUT YOUR HEADS DOWN!” Sarah started to look around, and I just looked at her and smile because I remembered that I was her not so long ago. “Baja la cabeza” I whispered. She looked at me as if I didn’t know what I was talking. I guess that since I didn’t speak English like the others I wouldn’t know what the guard was saying. Little did she know that I was a pro! Jajaja just kidding. However, she saw everyone put their heads down, and she did too, but not because I told her, but because she did what everyone else did.
Today I look back at the experience I had in elementary school and how much I’ve grown in the English language since then. Not only do I speak English fluently, but I am also fluent in Spanish. This is so amazing, and let me tell you why. Not everyone is lucky enough to be fluent in two languages. However, some are born in a home where people speak a different language than the country and/or state they live in. This means that those born in homes like that have to be able to speak the language that is spoken at home and the language that is spoken at school, work, or on the street, just to be able to communicate.
For example, in my home the language that is spoken is strictly Spanish. In order for me to communicate with my family members, I have to speak in a way that they would understand me (Español). I am the only one that speaks fluent English in my house. My father speaks just enough English to communicate with the people he works with. He’s not fluent, but he speaks enough for his employees to understand him. I think that’s absurd because what if one day they ask him to do a very important job and they describe it in a way that people usually don’t ask for? He’ll be done for!
Speaking two languages has its advantages and disadvantages. I live in the United States (obviously) and everything—I mean everything—is in English, unless you go to Chinatown. This means that all of the things that are going to be sent to your home are going to be in English. I love that I can literally order anything online or get a ticket or something and my parents wouldn’t know anything about it (not that they check my things or anything, but if they would’ve, this would’ve been a huge benefit). They would just look at who the mail is for, and if it’s for me they’ll just give it to me without even opening it. Not only that, but when I was in high school, I got away with a lot of things because I would just tell my mom to do whatever I needed and she would do it without a problem. Speaking two languages has its advantages when it comes to getting a job. Lots of jobs in the United States prefer people who speak two or more languages (Fun fact about me: Je parle Francais) because the United States is diverse and has a lot of people that migrate to the States.
The disadvantages of speaking two languages is that at your home you’ll be the one who everyone goes to when they don’t understand something because they know you can explain it to them. In my situation, I have to translate everything that comes in the mail for my family. It’s tiring and irritating because a lot the times I have difficulties translating a few things to Spanish. “Y tu no sabes Ingles?!” they yell out. When they say that to me, I look at them with my face as red as a tomato because I don’t know every single word there is to know in English or Spanish and they expect me to. There are words that I know in English that I don’t know how to translate to Spanish and there are words that I know in Spanish that I don’t know how to translate in English. Sometimes there are words that don’t exist in the other language. I know that it’s confusing, but it’s something that those who speak two languages understand.
General
Comments are closed.
2 Likes
1301 Views
Share:
Oh My Gosh this was so relatable!! I moved to the US from India during my junior year of high school and I speak Telugu at home. Although my family and I speak English pretty well, I really understand what you mean when you talked about not being able to translate everything perfectly. Also, fun fact…j’apprend francais à mon école! 🙂
Je parle francais aussi, und Deutch.
My friend “got bored” so he taught himself Japanese and is now practically fluent. What!
I have always admired people who are bi- or even tri-lingual. That is just the coolest thing how you can just pick it up as you go. It can be very difficult for young students, I imagine (here in Texas we call them ELLs or English Language Learners), but being immersed in a friendly, welcoming classroom can make the transition easier. I very much admire the European insistence on learning more than one language, and I wish we did that in America. It would contribute to a truly global community if we’d at least know a little of other languages and customs!