Member-only story
Sometimes I Wish Chinese Was My First Language
Cultural insights I gleaned from the Chinese language that makes sense
In 8th grade, my languages teacher asked us which language would we want to study for the rest of our natural lives. This was in ILA (Integrated Language Arts) class. That year, I took an intro to languages course that featured Latin, Spanish, German, and French. No Chinese language was offered.
The language that seemed to roll smoothly off my tongue and make me sound like a natural speaker of that language, was Spanish. It was musical to my ears and just so sultry. Every sentence like a poem. I chose that as my forever language, like a linguistic BFF.
Things got a bit tougher when I applied for governor’s school in my junior year. I had to respond in Spanish to questions… in Spanish, and I thought I did well, but I was competing with a student from India who spoke at least six languages, and could swear in every one of them.
Needless to say, I did not get into Governor’s school.
Still, I do not recall Chinese being offered. It was almost like Asian languages were secret, coded spells. Also, I guess I was not too interested in the language at the time.
Until now.
