My First Language

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My First language

Learning language is a stage and a challenge in life. As stated in the book “Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, learning language starts with speaking broken words, learning new words and until someone become proficient. I learnt language through imitating others to get words and repeating words. First, I learnt vowels from simple words to understand how the vowels are written and pronounced stage by stage. Getting through it was not easy since English is not first language. During the process I could not understand anything and nobody could understand me. Every time I speak native speaker, they keep asking me to come again. I definitely guess many of them did not understand me while I was sure I could reading and speak English as well. Reading and pronoun were also a challenged. Besides registering for English language classes, I interacted with children a lot so that I could learn some of words and pronunciation. Amy Tan pointed that interacting with children provide language learners an opportunity to learn new words and become a proficient with language. I realized my weakness in spoken English and therefore, interacting with children helped me to learn new words, and develop proficiency in pronunciation which is critical aspect of understanding each other.

Throughout my learning stage my mother and nanny played a critical role in nurturing me to develop skills and compete in language. I interacted with my nanny more often and in the process she used to teach me some words. Though I have elder brothers and sisters who interacted with me more often, my nanny and my mother were two personalities played a critical role to ensure that I learnt new words and developed competency as well. My mother taught me new words, vowels and pronunciation of words. I first learnt how to say the word “mum and father” and the rest of the words. I remember my nanny saying mum as I imitate to get myself competent and be able to speak frequently. A number of times my mother could speak to me in English consistently as I watch and this made me to developed interest in language. Without the assistance of my mother and nanny, I would have not developed proficient in English language.

It is also important to point that nanny taught me how to writing by showing me step by step how to hold a pen and write the first five vowel words. Again, my mother speaks and writes good English and therefore, this made me to developed interest in language. I admired how she pronounced words proficiently. This made me to work on my writing skills and pronunciation. I always wanted to be like, to have the same accent and be able to read competently. However, some of the events which made build my skills drama festivals and other drama activities. This helped me to developed high skills and competes in English and therefore, it is important to state that English learning is through stages. I therefore, agreed with Amy Tan regarding language learning. Learning other languages is a task which need consistent and patients. As illustrated in the book, Mother Tongue, parents play a critical role in development of language and therefore, I believe I would have not become compete in language without the assistant of my mother and nanny.

Work cited

Amy Tan, Mother Tongue

http://theessayexperiencefall2013.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2013/09/Mother-Tongue-by-Amy-Tan.pdf