Learning English as a Second Language Essay Example

understand that learning a new language is difficult.

Amy Tan, writer of "Mother Tongue," is from a Chinese background, but grew up in California.Tan, of course, speaks English very well, but she also speaks in another language, her "Mother Tongue. " Tan has reluctantly described it as "broken," "fractured" or "limited. " But that is how an outsider’s ear hears it. To Tan, her mother’s English is "perfectly clear, perfectly natural" (121). This dialect, Tan says, became their "language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language [she] grew up with" (120).

This type of language creates an identity for Tan, one which she was ashamed of growing up.This feeling of shame later backfired as an adult in her fiction writing. She began to write stories using "all the English" she grew up with. As she found out, this change of her own conception of language enriched her writing and added to her ethos, "That was the language that had helped shape the way [she] saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world" (121). Her "mother tongue" is her identity as a writer, and she learned that someone’s English does not reflect the quality of what he/she has to say. When I just arrived in the U.

S. I was shy and always avoided talking. I felt jealous about my cousins because they could speak English perfectly and Cambodian fluently. Even though I had been learning English in my country for 5 years and I could use it in general conversation, when I got in the U.

S. A. I realized that the English I used to learn

in my country was totally different. For example, when I was in my cousin’s house and I asked them in English for some “water”, they didn’t understand my pronunciation of “water”. Finally, I told them I needed something to drink in my native language.Then they knew what I needed and they corrected my pronunciation how to say “water” in Americans’ accent.

After that I totally understood how hard it was to learn a new language, especially since I had to start my college in the U. S right away. I tried to improve my English. Also, I found some part-time jobs at De Anza Dinning service which I must speak English only. I thought this was a good chance to learn American English.

I need to thank all of my co-workers and everyone who had a lot of patience when talking with me.I think I was in the same situation as Tan’s mom because I could only speak some words and hoped that they could understand what I was trying to talk about. Most of them tried to talk with me and gave me some new words and even corrected my grammatical errors. Just like Tan, I think they have also gotten familiar with my broken English. Chang Rae-Lee, author of "Mute in an English-Only World," moved to America from Korea when he was only six or seven years old. He adopted the English language quickly, as most children do, but his mother continued to struggle.

For her, the English language…usually meant trouble and a good dose of shame and sometimes real hurt" (127). It is obvious, though, that his mother was persistent in her

attempt to learn English and deal with her limited culture experience. Lee accounted of her using English flash cards, phrase books and a pocket workbook illustrated with stick-people figures. I can still remember clearly the first time I was working at Baskin Robbins for my uncle. There were so many different flavors of ice cream that I had never seen in my text book.

I had to start everything at the beginning and ried to remember what the ice cream looked like to match their names. I was like Lee’s mother using flash cards, and putting down all the ice cream flavors on the cards. Because I think it was the most convenient way to memorize things. Sometimes I felt sad if I misunderstood what a customer wanted.

Especially this one time a customer just walked away after he heard my broken English because he probably could not understand. Luckily, my uncle who is the boss of the store didn’t say anything. Additionally, my co-workers were pretty nice to me too, because they tried to talk with me by using some easy phrases and vocabularies.While I was working there, I tried to fulfill customer’s orders with a smile on my face, even though they probably feel frustrated with my broken English. It takes a long time to learn a new language. For the non-native speaker, I have to say that we need to put in more time and patience to learn a new language.

Anyways, having a part-time job is really helpful because we can learn some other words that we seldom use in our daily lives. Making native speaker friends is one of the

best ways to improve English too because they will show us what mistakes are we making and after being told, we remember it and we don’t repeat the mistake.