Growing up Bilingual you develop super powers. Growing up a bilingual child in an first generation immigrant household you are a super human. Bilingual kids have had years of experience translating. They have mastered the art of merging two cultures. They can explain anything using limited vocabulary. They more than likely would understand a foreign language faster that most people. The only bad thing is none of this can go on their resumes.
I am bilingual. I speak English as well as Somali. My family came to the U.S. when I was about 2 years old so the only things I know about the Somali culture I learned from my family.
So as you can imagine I’ve always had this desire to learn more about the Somali culture and
Somalis history. This desire …show more content…
This gave me more than just the kids at my preschool and my cousins to learn English from. My mom began taking me to the Library with her and there was a nice old lady who like reading to me. As I got older I got better and better at speaking English and I understood the
American culture more. But, out of fear that we would forget our naïve language my mother began make rules like “Speak only Somali in my house” and she still till this very day gives my siblings and I millions of lectures about not losing our “mother Tung”. The funny thing she still sometimes replaces English words with Somali words she cannot remember.
As I entered 11th or 12th grade I started became more aware of how limited my Somali was. It bothered me a lot. Maybe a year ago I was in downtown Saint Paul and a man came up to me asking for directions. As I began to give him directions I noticed I was speaking English to him and quickly, ashamed of myself I switched to Somali. I had a hard time with some Somali words so as if I was a foreigner to my own language I began to give lengthy descriptions to make up for my lack of vocabulary. In the end the man understood my directions kindly thanked me and got on his train. I walked back to my side of the platform and thought to myself “You
I am bilingual. I speak English as well as Somali. My family came to the U.S. when I was about 2 years old so the only things I know about the Somali culture I learned from my family.
So as you can imagine I’ve always had this desire to learn more about the Somali culture and
Somalis history. This desire …show more content…
This gave me more than just the kids at my preschool and my cousins to learn English from. My mom began taking me to the Library with her and there was a nice old lady who like reading to me. As I got older I got better and better at speaking English and I understood the
American culture more. But, out of fear that we would forget our naïve language my mother began make rules like “Speak only Somali in my house” and she still till this very day gives my siblings and I millions of lectures about not losing our “mother Tung”. The funny thing she still sometimes replaces English words with Somali words she cannot remember.
As I entered 11th or 12th grade I started became more aware of how limited my Somali was. It bothered me a lot. Maybe a year ago I was in downtown Saint Paul and a man came up to me asking for directions. As I began to give him directions I noticed I was speaking English to him and quickly, ashamed of myself I switched to Somali. I had a hard time with some Somali words so as if I was a foreigner to my own language I began to give lengthy descriptions to make up for my lack of vocabulary. In the end the man understood my directions kindly thanked me and got on his train. I walked back to my side of the platform and thought to myself “You