My interest in languages began when I lived in the Philippines. I grew up in a province not too far from the capital and despite the majority of the population speaking in Tagalog, I was exposed to a lot of foreign languages at an early age. For example, I grew up watching anime which exposed me to Japanese. Since cable TV wasn’t prominent in the Philippines back then, anime was the only c thing closest to children’s cartoons. 80% of the video games I played were imports from Japan and Korea, and most of them weren’t even been translated so I played through them in a completely different language. Telenovelas which were considered to be a pastime exclusively for adults introduced Chinovelas (Chinese/Taiwanese Dramas) and Koreanovelas (Korean Dramas) to teenagers. They became insanely popular spawning a huge interest in Korean/Chinese/Japanese music, fashion, culture, and especially language. I remember watching MYX (a Filipino music show similar to Mtv) and the top ten charts would play a few Filipino songs,  some Britney Spears or Avril Lavigne, and at the very top were the boy bands from Taiwan and Korean. Basically, because I was exposed to so many different languages as a child, my interest in them only grew. I took Spanish classes in High School for three years and I’m now currently taking Korean.

My very first experience with learning a foreign language, however, was in an English class. English was the very first foreign language I learned because it was a mandatory subject everyone was required to take in school. I remember one of the main school policies was that no one was allowed to speak in Tagalog on campus (except in Wika – filipino literature, and Civics class). Nevertheless, all the students including the teachers never followed this rule. The only time we practiced it was whenever the principal was near. As a student, I was never really fond of English because it meant longer school hours (English was a two hour long class) and more homework. I also did not understand the importance of English back then because everyone, including my family, simply communicated in Tagalog. However, I’m really grateful that my school had put so much emphasis on English because it’s been a very useful skill to have. Though I wouldn’t call it a burden, sometimes my accent makes me very self-conscious whenever I’m speaking with a native English speaker. Since I learned English in the Philippines, the pronunciations are very different. For example, I can’t say words with an [ɪ] sound naturally. I would actually have to consciously process it in my brain if I want to say the word the “right” way. If I do not, I end up saying ‘keel’ instead of ‘kill’ or ‘beet’ instead of ‘bit’. I’m quite confident whenever I’m writing an essay for an English class, for example, but as soon as it becomes an oral assignment, It becomes a difficult task for me. I once took a public speaking class in high school, and although I aced the class, I stuttered a lot during my presentations. When I mispronounce a word, I would stop what I’m saying and correct myself but then I would have lost my train of thought which will then result in gurgling a bunch of random words. Other than that, language is fun!