There are a lot of benefits to being born an English speaker. First of all its a fact that English is a very widely used language all around the world. You can go pretty much to any country and find someone you can communicate with. This is quite conveniently when traveling to places in which I have no grasp of the language.
Secondly because its such a widely used language it has become an important one and thus people from all over the world want to learn it. The best thing about this is and especially in Asia a native English speaker can go to a large variety of countries and find work as an English teacher like I did in Japan. This is a great way to live in various countries while making money. I can even see my self in at least 2 other countries teaching in my life time.
So then you may wonder how could being a Native English speaker possible be hindering in any way? I'm glad I asked for you.
The only real problem comes to those of us who are really interested in learning another language ourselves. For a lot of people like myself a big reason for going to another country is because we want to be immersed in the culture and language so that we may be able to more efficiently learn that countries language. In my case I am currently studying both Japanese and Korean and living in Japan in hopes my speaking level becomes quite good. The problem I and others may run into is our ability to speak English well.
It seems everyone in Asia in particular wants to learn English. What this means is that while I want to immerse myself in Japanese and use it as often as possible, the Japanese want to learn English from me and use as much time with me as possible to get some practice in. This leads to way too much English speaking on my side. Obviously English is easier for me as well so it becomes too easy to go along with it when someone starts speaking English to me but the fact is in most circumstances I would like to be forced to use Japanese so that I can improve it. It's a big reason for me being here, and while its nice to have the option for English when I desperately need it, it honestly becomes annoying. When I was in the states I always tried to use English as much as possible for the International students at my school so that they could improve theirs even though there were Japanese students as well that I would have loved to practice Japanese with given the few chances to do so in my city. Now that I am in their country it would be nice for someone to think the same way towards me. This isn't to say that I haven't met any people who aren't considerate of my struggle. There are a few that despite being quite well at English still use a lot of Japanese when speaking with me and I really really appreciate that. I only hope to meet more.
I know some native English speakers have decided to only make friends with the natives of the country they are living in and not to associate with so many other English speaking people. I'm not to the type to turn down a possible friend despite what language they speak so that doesn't work so much for me but I can understand why others may decided to live this way. It can often be seen as an elitist idea, but perhaps it has legitimate reasons. I don't suggest rejecting people because they speak English, but I'm not intently seeking them out either. Perhaps I need to be a little more strict. I love to meet new people and make all kinds of friends but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I quite enjoy making friends with people who's English isn't very good. The fact is I want to learn Japanese and it's a big factor in why I'm here. Now somehow managing to learn Korean as well, that's gonna be a challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment