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ENGL 161. Project 2: Memoir...

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English 161 11/23/ 2016 Revised memoir Literacy Memoir When we learn a new language, we will also learn about the identity and the structure of the language. Since a different language is an entirely different world, it is not easy to adapt to the new world in just a day or two. There are lots of challenges when it come to learning English, but we have to face and experience it for ourselves in order to learn the language. As a first immigrant generation myself, learning a new language is a big challenge. Six years ago, when I first learned English, I always wondered why we had to use different languages to communicate with each other. Why can’t everybody in the world just speak the same language? Well, I now know that if we speak the same language, it will be boring, because we use language to identify ourselves from the rest of the world. Different languages represent different cultures. Every language has a different way to speak and write but somehow there are similarities between every language, for example, Vietnamese and English. In both languages, If you want to speak to someone older than you, there is a particular word that you have to use to show your respect whether you know them or not. However, the difference between the two languages is the way it was written, and Vietnamese has more word to speak to an adult with respect than English. Also, we don’t have verb tenses in Vietnamese. We just use the actual word to describe something in the past or future. For me, learning English is just like stepping into a new world that I don’t know and I’m trying to explore it. Before I came to the USA, I have no idea how to communicate with other people using English because I don’t exactly know what English is. That’s why when I first came

to the USA, I was so scared to talk to anyone. The reason is that I could not express my thoughts in a sentence due to my limited English such as vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. My vocabulary are very limited when I first came to the US, but it is getting better as I keep reading books and articles. However, when I learned a new word from a book or an article and I do not use it often, and I will eventually forget. I remembered there was a time when I have to read “Coming to Awareness of Language” by Malcolm X as an assignment in my English class. It surprised me when Malcolm said he read the whole dictionary and became self-educated while in prison. So I also tried to read the dictionary to improve my limited vocabulary, but it didn’t work out for me because I never used any of those words, so I end up forgetting them. It becomes harder to learn a new language when you are speaking another language at home. I find it very difficult to learn English when I only grow up speaking Vietnamese. I always speak Vietnamese when I am at home because there are rules in my family that I can’t help but follow like, I have to speak Vietnamese at home so that my niece will not forget our mother language. I think the family language somehow effect the way I use and speak English. For instance, in a group of my friends, I have two Vietnamese friends, and the rest are non-Vietnamese. Every time I talk to the two Vietnamese friends; I realized that I used both English and Vietnamese in the same sentence. I also started to code-switching between the two languages when I talk to a group of my friends, and I did it so naturally that my friend doesn't even realize it, or maybe they notice but it, not a big problem to point it out because I’m not the only one that is code-switching. Additionally, I think that it is better to learn a new language when you are living in the environment where everyone speaks English fluently because they will correct you when you says something that incorrect. However, when you are living in the environment where no one in your family speaks English, chances are you will keep making the same mistake over and over

again. For example, when I was in elementary school, my teacher never pay attention when I say something wrong. She also never corrects my grammar mistakes when we have a writing assignment because she thinks that I just came to the US. So there is no point in correcting me since I will learn all of the materials later. That’s why I kept making the same mistake over and over again until my freshman year in high school. My English teacher told me that my grammar was terrible, and I need to work on my grammar more often. I finally can learn and correct all of my mistakes because of her correction. Even though my English is still limited, I will keep learning until one day I can write an essay with no grammar error....