Sohemi Perez Santiago
INGL 4075-001
Prof. Rosita Rivera
September 26, 2020
My Language Learning Experience
As a French major student many difficulties arose while learning French in Puerto Rico,
the classes weren’t really that helpful for me to speak the language fluently. I am from Naranjito,
a very traditional kind of town who have a lot of people who only spoke Spanish by the time I
was in school. At first, I knew very little English, I can say I could understand it and that I don’t
have clear memories on when I acquired it. Most of my school years I studied in Naranjito also
which I did not need the English except for the English class. Outside of school I played
volleyball and they did not use the English. It was when I watched TV and when I played
videogames that I was mostly exposed to the language, I guess that’s when I acquired it. This
means that I wasn’t that motivated about learning English because it was something natural for
me to have in life. It was not the same about French and Japanese. It is my dream to someday
learn and speak Japanese freely, even live there for a couple of years. This motivation made me
want to change majors, I started in electrical engineering and wanted to learn Japanese, but
there isn’t Japanese major in Puerto Rico, this made me choose the only other international
language who has a bachelor’s degree in Mayaguez. I started my French journey, but it was hard
for me, I couldn’t speak French even after taking 15 credits of it. Socially speaking, there is a very
small amount of people which can practice French with me here in Puerto Rico which limited me
greatly. I made the decision to do an exchange to Canada (which I loved) and it really made me
speak French as I wanted!
My love for languages made me take the decision to change majors once again, I am
changing to English Linguistics. Even when English isn’t the most important language in the
world, we must be realistic and accept that English is used as the universal language. English
made it possible for me to communicate when I did my exchange in Canada, otherwise my
French was not the best and they spoke and practice English with me. My knowledge in English
is opening doors for me to continue my journey in the Japanese language. Even when my family
nor my friends spoke to me in English, I am very grateful that I did learn it and that I am
nowadays trilingual and hopefully polyglot in the years that are to come.
In conclusion, I am in favor of teaching English and foreign languages to students since
an early age. We should teach people to open themselves to the world by learning as many
languages as possible. Learning languages encourages to acquire a better understanding of the
different cultures that exist in the world and it creates empathy which this world is unfortunately
lacking. There is no better way for us to take care of this planet and the world than beginning to
understand one another and that can be possible by acquiring a new language.