Languages play an important part in everyday human interactions. It can help and hinder the level of communication we experience. It conveys how we feel, what we are thinking and what we want to say to other people. We can modify our language to meet our situation and it is our responsibility as senders to make sure other people receive our messages. We use other gestures with our hands and other triggers to help others understand us as another form of communication; we want to leave no room for misunderstandings.

I speak two languages, making me bilingual. I can speak both English and Spanish. I grew up with both of my parents who were native speakers of the Spanish language and who had to learn English so I acquired the languages over time just as they did. All of my grandparents were native speakers of Spanish as well, so I would have a hard time understanding them when I was younger, and now that they have passed away I find it harder and harder to find chances to use the language since everyone I know speaks English. I feel like I’m losing my grasp on what was important in the past. It’s true what they say: If you don’t use it, you lose it. Sad, but true, I see it fading away from me everyday.

In school it helped plenty to know a different language, especially in my foreign languages classes. I knew the basics and enough to move up several levels after that. I passed my AP test, and I was really proud of that accomplishment. Although I didn’t experience any burdens in high school, I could see how hard it was for some other people. The non-native speakers of Spanish would come to me for help and all the native speakers still had trouble getting the spelling and rules correctly because they weren’t used to writing it or reading the language. I was never exposed to any reading or writing prior to classes, so I learned as I went along, however it didn’t seem like a challenge to me while I was there.

Outside of school, it usually helped speaking Spanish as well, just because English and Spanish are pretty common languages in California. Most people would assume by looking at me, that I am Mexican and that I do speak Spanish, and they’d be right. I often would find people, (mostly native Spanish speakers) asking me things in Spanish before I even opened my mouth to prove to them that I do indeed, speak English. I do not take that as good or bad, just interesting. However, I do think it is better to have an answer than to tell them I don’t speak their language and having them kind of, sorta, understanding me.

I have found that, so far, learning another language other than English has not hindered my ability to communicate. I find it far more helpful if anything. I feel like it is beneficial and opens up my world to new conversations I wouldn’t have, had I not been exposed to that language early on in life. I have become more culturally diverse and have come to understand that these two languages make up some part of my identity as a whole.