Eber Orellana

 

Facing a language barrier and through New experiences 

 

    4 years ago, I didn’t think about coming to the United States or about having to learn a new language. My first language is Spanish and I come from Honduras. I came with my sister and mother. I am an immigrant and I might not have the same opportunities as the others. I didn’t know anything about English, just something basic like Hello or bye, it was kinda difficult at first because I couldn’t communicate with English speakers and my experience coming here wasn’t that great. My brother was already here, he had 2 years or more before I came, he went to high school but he isn’t the kind of person that likes to study or something like that. I thought that my brother knew English because he had more time than me in the United States but it was the opposite, he didn’t know anything about English and I was shocked because he was doing great those 2 years before I came. I thought that English was needed in your daily life because it is a country where the first language is English, but when I came here I realized that people speak Spanish too and that it is normal to hear someone speak Spanish on the street.

    Coming at the same time with my sister not knowing anything about English was like measuring two person in their learning of something, even though my sister is only 7 years old, her process of learning English was faster because as a kid their brain are more open about new things and other advantage for her was that she went to a kindergarten where they just speak only English, and for me, I went to a high school where they didn’t teach anything about English so my process was more slowly than her. For me a way to learn English and pronunciation and with new words was through the internet, YouTube videos, Netflix etc. Even though it wasn’t the best one to learn, it helped me a lot with my English. I didn’t improve my English until my second year of high school, when I was in the 10 grade. That’s when I decided to learn by myself no matter what. One disadvantage that I had was that I didn’t have communication with white people or English speakers, even though my teachers were white, they mostly spoke in Spanish because nobody from our class understanded what they were saying. 

 

    Now in college it is really difficult for me to be able to make conversation with full english speakers because they are from a different world. I didn’t know how to say hello or talk with them properly because I was afraid of saying something bad or pronouncing a word in a wrong way and that they might have gotten offended even though I wouldn’t have an idea of what I said wrong. I was not used to speaking English all day because I was around Spanish speakers and I thought that my English was really bad because I never put my English to practice, but I realized that my English has improved a lot during these years. My english is not perfect or in a good shape, I am from the Bronx so the way that people speak might be disrespectful or like “english of the street” and i have noticed because of my psychology class, they english are in a high level and really polite and educated english, I have hear words that I never heard before. I am positive and I want to improve my English even more now that I am in college, but writing and speaking are two different things. Writing for me is really easy, but at the moment of speaking the words don’t come out of my mouth because I might say it wrong. The first thing that i did to be able to learn english was writing it and remembering the words and then put those words on practice and look for the right pronunciation. Going through learning something is so difficult but never imposible and people should always start or find a way to make their learning easier. As for punctuation, I am not the best at separating sentences and my writing can be confusing because nobody helps me or teaches me about the right way to write or if my writing is good or not. All of this that I have written has come from my mind. I used to use google translator but I knew that it wouldn’t help me in a positive way, so I am trying to improve my writing. Writing by myself is sometimes difficult because I don’t know how my writing is going so far or if it is good. 

 

This is my story and how i learn english by myself. My way of learning was not the best option but I hope other people that are going through the same receive a good education when it comes to learning a new language.