Second language

I am from a country where the main language is Spanish (Venezuela) but even so at the same time they teach Italian and English as pillars of society since Venezuela, being a country colonized by Spaniards, took Spanish as the main language, Venezuela had also been a country With the doors open to many countries in the past, this led to Italian taking part in our society.

 Even so, changing to other subjects, literature for me had always been a very important subject in my life, since I was in high school in Venezuela, literature in both English and Spanish has been important and a meaningful moment in my literacy experience could I say it was in my first year of high school here in new york my english teacher used to teach us the pillars of an essay, like the 5 W something that I did not know at all, and when I arrived new from a totally different country with a different language this made me think that I wanted to learn everything possible about English literature and understand how all these components would help me to pass my subjects. But from another angle it is easy for me to speak and write in Spanish. I enjoy literacy in Spanish and I think it is more meaningful for me to do it that way. Even now when I’m writing in english some words are very difficult for me, normally the pronunciation of many words are diffcult for example the words that end with “lly” like normally, difficulty, especially, characteristically sounds for me like a tongue-twister. In my mind I’m always trying to say the words correctly or maybe in a good way but sometimes they are really hard for me. But also this used to happen for me in Spanish, even if Spanish is my first language the literacy is something that we have to learn since we are not born knowing these things. 

Therefore high school was a little be different and hard for me, when I came to this country I started high school in the 191th where the main language is spanish and most of the students are hispanic, I didn’t like the environment in that place so I decide to change of high school to a new one where all the teachers speak only english and all the students were obligate to speak in english. It was hard for me to fit in that kind of environment since everyone looked at me weird. 

Through the years I tried to fit in with society even though the people from my classroom were from different countries and were having different difficulties than me, and part of that made me feel insecure and unsure of my accent. Seeing everyone reading and speaking English perfectly was an experience that I will never forget. Coming to this country and realizing that everyone moves on with their lives meanwhile I am still stuck in high school was one of the worst that can happen to someone in their adolescence, and I said this from my perspective. I was the oldest in my class and everyone always asked why I did not know English if I was the oldest, which makes me seem like I was leaving behind and  that I couldn’t  learn as fast as them. But me coming from a different country with different education I pass everyone in my math class, I start doing all my projects in a week, because I wanted to be the smarted and the quickest to fit in my class, in that time I did not realize that I was doing it for others and not for myself, I was losing myself for people that maybe did not want to be my real friends. I learn so much in high school from language as other things from life. One of the things that I remember the most was the first time in Freshman year my english teacher always used to say that we shouldn’t use the translator for a whole paragraph because since we didn’t know anything we wouldn’t learn or the translation could be wrong and I did not listen, I felt so vulnerable, I did not want to put any effort in it, and when he read my essay just realize that I write the whole paragraph with translator and instead of “she” or “her” to refer myself I wrote “he” and he just scream in front of all the class that he thought I refer as myself as a women and not as a men, I never told that story in public but know I feel more secure about myself and my writing and I share it.