Personal Narrative Essay On Becoming Bilingual

Growing up Mexican-American in the United States can be a challenge itself. Throw in the task, of learning two languages, it made for a very confused little girl. There was often times growing up when I wondered why no one, but my family spoke Spanish. Why everyone at school and all my friends spoke this different language. Sometimes it even seemed like I was two different people.

Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” is written by Richard Rodriguez and “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?” is written by James Baldwin. In their presentations, both authors imply that language is a part of a person’s culture and a key to one’s identity and how people around them were all trying to change in order to make them similar to everyone else. “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” is written by Richard Rodriguez. He was born in San Francisco and raised in Sacramento, California. Rodriguez was a literary scholar and teacher who later became an essayist and journalist.

For bilinguals, education normally starts off as a challenging time when little English is spoken in their home. Rodriguez, a first generation Mexican American, had a limited exposure to English because Spanish was entirely spoken together with his family. Therefore, he considered it to be his private language because he felt most comfortable and confident using it. Due to Richard’s insufficient practice with English, he suffered developing and speaking with others outside of his household. As a result, Rodriguez’s parents took awareness and encouraged him to speak in English at home.

I did eventually teach myself enough sign language to get by. I had some friends when I younger, their parents could speak very little English. I can remember the oldest daughter doing as Amy had to do with her mother. Rosie would make all the ‘adult’ phone calls for her mother and the son spoke for his dad when needed. I grew up in southern California, they have a language all their own.

Adults who attempt to learn a new language can understand the logic of the new language but can’t fully master jargons, diction, and exceptions to grammar rules. Researchers discovered that when adults mastered two languages in childhood, both languages were located in the same areas of the brain with no influence on the cortex. Bilingual adults keep the two languages unconnected, starting one and temporarily stopping the other when speaking to an individual who only speaks one

Spanish was my first language and neither one of my parents knew english. I would go to school and just listen and try to learn every little thing I could get my hands

In the essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez. The author uses his memoir to show how he has fought through his childhood to understand English and how the english language had formed his identity. To him, Spanish was a private language, spoken only at home and in the comforting presence of his family. The Spanish language allowed him to connect with his parents because that was all they knew. However, After he was somewhat forced to speak English by the public, he became an outsider to his own culture, unable to speak Spanish, but still able to understand it as it states “we remained a loving family, but one greatly changed.

I practiced learning and using it from a very young age. As I got older, my parents decided to transfer me to an international school where I started to learn English as my second language. The new school environment transformed and gave me a passion to learn another language, and this was a strong foundation that helped me to make the decision of pursuing a degree in the United States 6 years

Some of the kids I observed only understood or spoke Spanish and some others only knew sign language. Since I only speak English I found it challenging but so rewarding

The history of my literacy has been a long road of a frustration and learned lessons. As a child, I was a bit of a loner so reading and writing were the closest thing to a social life for me. The things that I bottled up inside came out through my writing and it became somewhat of a pass time for me. As long I could remember literacy as has been an important value for me in my life because from very young age I got express my true self without being judged by the outside. Even though in my later years I would deal with some heartaches and set back that lead me to give up on my love for reading.

"Keiry ven a traducir" said my mom. " Pero si yo no entiendo esas palabras ". "Tienes que hablar más Español para que no se te olvide". My mom was telling me that I need to speak more Spanish so I won't forget our culture's language.

Language skills Language skill is one of the milestone achievements of the first two years of life. Children are born with innate schema of communication, such as body language or facial expression to communicate with parents or caregiver. The acquisition of language starts from phonology, which is an important skill for a child to master where he or she is to absorb the sound and identify the sounds form one language to another. This was nurtured both at home and in school where Alexander has to absorb sounds from native (Cantonese) and foreign languages (English).

Literature 1 (Journal article) Bilingualism in the Early Years: What the Science Says Krista Byers-Heinlein & Casey Lew-Williams Learning Landscapes Overview: The journal mainly focus on explaining questions regarding outcomes of bilingualism and appropriate methods to teach bilingual children which helps readers to approach bilingualism from the individual development aspect and compare bilingualism with monolingualism from micro aspect. Summary: In the journal, confusion on different languages shown by children is regarded as code-mixing and is stated that is a normal process of language development which is due to the limited vocabularies bilingual children have.

Surprisingly, I do not exactly recognize how or when I became bilingual. However, I formulated a theory, which states that I became bilingual unconsciously; in other words, I acquired the language. At the age of seven or eight years, I loved to play with some English books my father had. Moreover, I started listening to music in English at a shortage and I frequently repeated everything without realizing its meaning. Consequently, that could have assisted me in acquiring pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar structures without myself noticing it.

First of all, my experience of learning English was a great process which took fifteen years as a Turkish native speaker. When I was seven years old, I started to learn English and I am able to learn languages. When I was five years old, I was watching cartoons in English and in my opinion it was so helpful for me to learning a new language. I have been learning English for fifteen years including my college life. I studied American Culture and Literature in Bilkent University.