Bisayan, Tagalog, English are the language I woke up with. It’s the one everyone around me spoke with especially when I started school… I am thankful that my parents had relatives and few friends who spoke other Filipino native dialects. That gave me a fair command of those things when hearing them talk.
In the first grade of school, English is the major of instructions. We all took hours each day with it until college.. That really wasn’t enough to learn the language fluently, but it was a good start for little ears that weren’t set totally on the English language.
Of course, being in Catholic school in college here in Davao, I had 4 years of Spanish as one of the major subjects, not that did me any good for conversations, but it did give me a good background on what the language is. Presently, I am on a language training, a foreign language…the language of Finland!…sounds weird??? well, maybe para sa uban kapwa Filipino, mga Bisaya, Ilocano, and Surigaonun nakong mga paryente….. Hehehe…hehehe.
Now, you are probably wondering why I am so thankful for knowing several languages… not that I’m that good at them, but I can carry on a conversation if it doesn’t get too deep and I can read all of those which I’ve mentioned.
But, today I am thankful for having learned those languages at such age 45 years old…hehehe… Maybe, these were much easier to learn when I was young and I never even thought about translating every phrase into English.
I wish every child could be exposed to other languages before they actually seem foreign to them. When kids are young, it’s one of those things that kids just seem to understand. They don’t question what they are hearing. They just start speaking the language they hear. And, no… it was not confusing.
It will be of great fun growing up speaking several languages. Anyway, I have enjoyed the benefits of knowing a few languages. You know, most everyone knows English, at least a few words. But, there have been times when I have been in the company of those who didn’t know the first word of English. On those occasions I have been fortunate to find that most people knew at least of the dialects & languages I did.
Well, today I realized the importance of knowing more than one language. And, no, I didn’t encounter someone who only spoke Finnish.
As I Passed By at
the grocery store along Ilustre Street, Davao City
I ran into a situation today with a deaf person in that grocery store where I used to passed by. She was trying to ask a question and no one could make her understand. I watched as the sales person tried to move her mouth really slowly and distinctly as if that would help. Most people who read lips do it best at a normal pace. I hated to intervene, but it was becoming increasingly humiliating to watch the deaf woman become frustrated and the saleswoman making a fool of herself.
As a nurse, I was thankful for the volunteer work I had in one of the local gov’t hospital here in our place.
Well, I am thankful for the opportunities that I had, to learn other languages. I wish all, at my age had the opportunity. Para nako lang, it is so much easier for MATURE mind to grasp though… And, today I am most thankful for knowing a language that few learn.
Kiitös paljön…nahdaan!J-?
No comments:
Post a Comment