My Different Languages

When I was growing up, English was not my primary language. It came as my secondary language. I remember my mom telling me that all I spoke was Tagalog which is one of the many dialects of the Filipino language. So before entering kindergarten I had to attend preschool. In pre-school I learned how to speak English. As I got older I didn’t really speak much of Tagalog, but I still understood it when my relatives would speak it. Even though Tagalog was my primary language growing up, I now consider English to be my primary because I speak more of it than I do Tagalog.

The English language has been a part of me for as long as I can remember.
Many people including myself speak different kinds of English. For example, during school hours I would speak proper English, and with my friends, or when it came to talking on AIM I would speak improper English. For example instead of spelling words correctly I would say “Wut’s happenin?” or “wut’s crackin?” This is what we would call “slang.” This goes the same for Tagalog. When I speak to my elders I say “opo” meaning yes but in the formal sense. When I say “opo” it’s a sign of respect for my elders, but when I talk to my cousins I say “oh-oh which is an informal yes.” For me speaking English varies with where I am. If I go to a store with my mom and my sister, and we see a Filipino salesperson who speaks both English and Tagalog, we usually approach him or her in English and then my mom asks are you Filipino? or in Tagalog it would be Filipino ka ba? Then she talks to him or her in Tagalog.

In today’s culture most Filipinos I see don’t really know how to speak Tagalog because they were never taught it or they didn’t want to learn it. I think to myself “Wow that kind of sucks because it’s the language that your parents were brought up with and I think it would make them proud to hear you speaking it.” As for me, I’m glad that I learned to speak both Tagalog and English. The way I see it is that if I see someone who is of the same nationality as I am, and they are having trouble speaking English I could help them out by just telling them to speak Tagalog because I understand. In some situations it’s better to be bilingual than to just speak one language. For example, it’s better if you know both Tagalog and English because then you help out those people you only speak Tagalog and translate for them in English.

Learning to speak English has helped me in more ways than one because it is the official language in this country. I think that English is an interesting language to learn because there are many rules that you have to apply to it in order to speak it properly. For example if you want to speak in past tense you have to add an –ed ending. Or another example would be if you want to talk about time that is in progress you would say “is working” using the present progressive tense. Learning to speak both English and Tagalog in the formal and informal way has helped me because I know the difference of how I speak to adults and my friends.