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Chaos? Nope, Just Bilingual

No, Really!?

By Angel RuizPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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I recently moved to Connecticut for about 5 to 6 months now, originally from Puerto Rico and had to leave because of the hurricane Maria's aftermath because I basically had nothing left back home. So, here I am living in this new country and dealing with a language I am an amateur of, and I had encountered moments where I want to scream at people so they could understand what I am saying... Maybe even my writing is terrible, but I give myself a chance to be better. I come from a family where I am basically the only "fluently bilingual" one, because none of my siblings tried to even learn the language, and this has become a gift and a curse, especially when your mother wants to know about what she doesn't know.

Now, I try my best to be as clear as possible, but at the end of the day, I will still sound pretty bad or just wrong, and the reason is that my brain—like many other bilingual people's brains—speak in its original language and when it translates... Well, it uses words that grammatically sounds rather offensive... But hey, we try! The dramatic change of environment where Spanish was the prime to be surrounded by beautiful colors of languages and cultures, and the occasional and ignorant offensive thought of not knowing how to call others may target you in the worst ways possible. As far as it goes, people my understand you and some others will just find a way to make your life difficult. In these short months, I celebrated the end of a hard year and welcomed the adventurous new one, yet I can't still help to sound wrong when having a conversation with a real English speaking and thinking person, which sometimes helps to receive their feedback, but they can be real cruel.

I began working for one of the biggest corporate pig—eh... monster, corporate monster, that this great country has and from them I learned that being bilingual is the biggest key with flaws in this egocentric nation. People can be nice with cruel intentions, and then laugh at you because of your accent, yet they look bad because they can't even learn another language because, according to them, it's hard... but, look at me! I am as smart as I can be by just trying and learning every single day, and nothing can stop me. Well, at least I think I am. And, as for working for that company, I just realized that my name is the hardest name to pronounce unless you say it in English and people just say, like this lady I met, "too hard, just going to call you this way" and they just smile and leave. I mean, how hard is my name really? Even my social media and their new inventions can pronounce my name correctly, and you can't? I had to learn how to pronounce names like Naugatuck and Torontollo, terms for simple things like sweeping instead of brooming, etc. English is the child that you don't appreciate, maybe you did but didn't pay as much attention until you noticed the good things it came when you realized its existence.

I had encountered moments where I had dealt with people that makes you feel so insecure, maybe they don't notice how intimidating they look. If you want to know if you're intimidating, have a conversation with someone who's fluent in two languages, if you can't understand half of the things they're saying then you definitely must be pretty intimidating looking or some voodoo thing like that. Like, for an example, when I have a conversation with my in-laws I can't be coherent, but when I am with my partner I sound fluent; obviously the accent is present, but for some reason I sound broken when I try to have any conversation with my in-laws. People had made me doubt of myself a couple of times, but then I realized that it's not me who's wrong, they are the ones who aren't right. They don't cooperate, they do not help out with the issue and they would rather address your broken-English than just help you out pronouncing words or sentences, or the language in general.

To finally give sense to this rather rhetorical story: yes it is a chaos. I am bilingual, my paragraphs may not make sense, and I have a horrible tendency of over-explaining or not making sense when I am writing, but guess what? I have a brain that functions twice as well as maybe yours, and I am proud about it. So, now go and download some program so you learn an useful language and start practicing, visit that country that language is used and you'll see what I mean. You will be surprised. It will give you tons of experiences in life and will help you grow as a person; take it from me, Angel, a simple Puerto Rican who decided to move to Connecticut, because Florida is overrated, plus I wanted to experience the cold!

humanity
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About the Creator

Angel Ruiz

A little of everything, as long as you get me. A twenty-something Puerto Rican living in Connecticut, getting his life together and spreading some boricua spice to the world... Or die trying.

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