As a non-native speaker/writer of English, I am, together with all others
like me, daily exposed to little nuisant problems: like a correct spelling
and/or which is a right article: "a" or "the" etc. This does ad another
dimension to everything I do especially professionally where my predominant
communication channel is (English) language.
I know that most of the people who need to use a foreign language often feel
oppressed or just exhausted and frustrated with it.
But I want to give the whole issue another perspective. In spite of the
troubles I sometimes experience, I feel a richer person. I think that
knowing more than one language is actually an advantage in many ways. It
opens up whole worlds to the one who takes a trouble to learn another
language, wonderful worlds which otherwise stay completely shut off from
you. It also gives you a perspective on your native language, a stance one
cannot otherwise even imagine. Sometimes I feel that it became my habit to
look at things from more than one angle - saying them in English and saying
them in Serbo-Croatian means feeling them in different ways, opens different
possibilities, brings different associations to mind. In fact, I am not so
musch frustrated with my own imperfections in English as I get frustrated
when I cannot share an experience with somebody monolingual because that
experience makes sense only in one but not the other language.
And to conclude, I'll try my best to share in English something my
grandfather used to say in Serbo-Croatian: "The numer of languages you speak
is the number of people you are worth". Does it make sense in English? Does
it make sense on xmca in the light of all the discussions on the social
construction of personality?
For me it does.
Ana
_________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane
151 W. Tulpehocken St. Office of Mental Health and
Philadelphia, PA 19144 Mental Retardation
(215) 843-2909 [voice] 1101 Market St. 7th Floor
(215) 843-2288 [fax] Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 685-4767 [v]
(215) 685-5581 [fax]
E-mail: pshane who-is-at andromeda.rutgers.edu
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