The Language Roller Coaster

I was a stranger to my native language. I come from a Middle Eastern Family and our native language is Arabic.  When I was a kid I could not pronounce the Arabic letters at all and it had its consequences after. I remember this moment vividly because of how it shaped me afterwards and how significant it is in my literary development process. I found the opportunity to improve and I did not miss it. My school and my family have played important roles in helping me through it.

My parents always had this plan to let me and my brothers live in Egypt for a while to learn the language and our religion. When I was about 4 years old I moved from NYC to Egypt with my mother and brothers. I went to an International School there and when I got older I realized that I had an earlier birthday than my friends, so my mom told me the reason why. When my mom applied for me at the school, the principal held me back one year because I couldn’t read the Arabic letters. Years passed by and I still struggled with Arabic specifically writing, meanwhile  my school’s first language was English and the second was German. When I turned 10, I started buying Arabic books and reading every single word in it. I made mistakes of course while reading, but my family was there to help me.  “Malik” was the first Arabic book to guide me and help me learn the language better. It took me a while to finish it and I can’t even imagine how I was such a big mess trying to read the words perfectly, it was hilarious. 

I finally got a little better at reading and writing Arabic and after growing up in Egypt for a little bit, I came back to NYC with my family. I went to New Utrecht Highschool located in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, NY hoping that people could understand where everyone comes from. I thought I wont have any other struggles with any other language since I felt comfortable with my own way, but one of my ex-friends had another opinion. She made fun of my English accent while she couldn’t speak a single word in her language (Arabic). I didn’t really get offended at all, I was proud that I knew more than 2 languages and I was grown enough to understand  that no one is perfect.  It was more of a motivation to me to work on my accent and make it better. I watched many movies and shows with subtitles and whenever I heard a new word, I immediately wrote it down and repeated it to myself. I’ve met Arabs who were impressed by the way I speak Arabic fluently. I worked hard on myself, for my family and to be able to help them whenever they needed. 

 School has  played a big role in improving my reading and writing skills. I took so many classes in High School which required too much reading. When I was in 9th grade, my English teacher came up to me and offered me a place in the English honors class and I could not be happier at that moment because I felt that my effort at improving did not go to waste at all. I met friends that were willing to always help me and not judge me. They all made me feel comfortable making mistakes and learning from them. I’ve attended Advanced Chorus class for 2 1/2 years through my entire High School years. I remember we used to watch American Musicals every once in a while, the teacher once told us that music helps us remember more words. My passion for American Musicals is to learn more about music. One American Musical I could relate to is Shrek The Musical as Shrek was different from others but he still found his own way and worked hard to get what he wanted.