Be Yourself

When I was at the gym today, I had been approached by the lady instructor. Her name is Vicky n she’s Russian. She asked me the English word for certain part of the bodies. Then our conversation went on about ‘converse in English’. She recently had one month holiday back in her country. In Russian she only speaks her own language.

And now after a long holiday, she felt that she can hardly communicate with people. She felt shy n scared to converse in English. As a ‘concern human being’ I gave her some opinion n advice. It’s normal for everybody to be scared to speak the language which is not our mother tongue language. It will take some time for us to adapt with the surroundings n gain more confidents.

She asked me where I learn to speak English. Well.. I am not that super really good in English, but I guess I will survive if been thrown out in this English group of people. I told her that in our country, English is a compulsory subject in school. Almost everybody in Malaysia can speak good English. (I do feel proud when I told her this..)

It’s just us actually sometimes feel scared to speak especially in front of those white people. I faced that too when the first time I stood in front of them, all the sentences that I’ve memorized n practised goes haywire. All my past tense, present tense, and future present tense n whatever nods goes upside down!

So I told her, read dictionary. Yes.. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid n it worth all the efforts because without u realize u will memorize words. Don’t worry if we can’t speak like their accent. They even don’t care about it because they understand n knows that English is not our mother tongue language.

Even we Malaysian (Malay, Chinese, Indian) speak in our own style of English. I still remember when I send my daughter for registration at Taylors College; we had been briefed by one of the officer in charge. When she started to speak, I was laughing n realized that I’ve not heard this English speaking for so long. Maybe I’ve been away too long n been surrounding by British English. She spoke Chinese English (like Malaysian Chinese.. u know lah… if u lost the key ahh.. u have to pay ahh.. ) I told my daughter.. please don’t be influence by this ‘rojak’ accent. Just speak plain English.

The same thing goes when I first time talking to the Indian in Oman. They speak English like a bullet train. Not to mentioned the intonation in the curling part of their tongue. I couldn’t understand at all. But after awhile everybody here including Omani sometimes speaks like them. They don’t care at all the verbs or vocabs, as long as u understands what they want to say. 'This is too much expensive! After five minutes I come.'

Even though some nation try to deny n not to accept the English n stick to their mother tongue language, the fact is English is the world language. No harm learning other language because it might helps u. Practise makes perfect. Be yourself. That’s what I told the Russian lady. Even me, myself is still learning n practise it everyday.