Language Memoir 1/24/2008

My introduction to the English language started rather peculiarly compared to other normal American students. I was born in New York City in the French Quarters. My entire family spoke French as well as all their friends, who would always come over to visit and such. So I basically grew up learning two languages at once. I learned English when I went to school during the day, and then I would learn French when I was home at night.

 After four or five years in New York, my family moved to Memphis, TN, and then another language was rather forced into my life by my father who was from Syria. He was trilingual, so he would always speak French to my mother in the house anyway. Though my primary languages were French and English, I always picked up a little Arabic when my dad was talking with his friends or family from back home. And sometimes he would take me to the mosque, muslim place of worship. As I got older my dad was relatively forceful about me going to the mosque every Sunday and to Sunday school, where they taught Arabic as a course. I never actually learned Arabic to the point where I was able to speak it fluently. However, there are certain verses that are memorized and repeated during the prayer. And I had to learn those rather quickly. So I was able to speak Arabic though I really did not understand what I was saying. After about three years of strictly learning Arabic couple times a week, I gave it up. I could still speak French rather fluently; however, my abilities did decline because I never spoke it again in the house unless I did not want some friends that were over to be able to understand what I am telling my family. 

The next most difficult challenge about language for me growing up was grammar. The grammar in French and English are therefore, still to this day, I would say things English that makes sense in France but not in America. I had always struggled in English class throughout middle and high school. Direct Objects and Indirect objects just were not the same. They did have the same meaning of course but the placement of the words was different and that usually threw me off. However, it was not only English class that I could not strive at, it was also French class. Though I would still get A’s in high school French throughout the four years, I could never fully grasp the grammar aspect of it. Every year, students had to take the French National Exam to see how they ranked in their state and nationally. I would always do better than people in my class and ranked 2^nd in the nation my freshman year; however, as the years went by my ranking went down further and further. By senior year, I was in the top 8 nationally. In high school, I also picked up Latin for four years and surprisingly my grammar skills in Latin were better than they were in English. In English I was struggling to get a B, while in Latin, if I put enough work into it, I could get an A. And that is how it still is for me right now. I am currently in French class right now having no trouble with vocabulary, yet having difficulty in the grammar view of it.

Now I am not able to go as far as great authors like Douglas because well I have not written a novel, and I have not reached their level of education. But I do have my input on how languages affect young kids in a certain way. I believe that children’s minds are like sponges. They do not know much of anything when they were young except to learn how to speak and eat. And I believe, well in my case at least, that if a child were to be around a foreign language continually throughout his childhood, then he would learn that relatively easy. I believe that is why I have trouble with certain aspects of language, because I was around more than one growing up as a child.