Link to original post: [drupal=1259]second language[/drupal]
"One day, Andy's gonna get his *ss kicked, and I hope I'm there to see it."
"Maybe you'll get lucky," I said. My hand began to cramp. I was on the fortieth repetition of the seventh vocab word. This was not a good sign. I tried to tune out Jackie's chatter and focus. It didn't work if you just mindlessly copied words. You had to think while you did it: pronounciation, meaning, form. How to say it, what it meant, how to write it. Over and over and over again.
"I have a question for you," he said.
"Yeah?" I finished the last of the vocab and went on to sentence construction.
"Would you ever marry someone for money?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"So you'd consider it?"
"I guess."
"Would you care if it was a woman or a man?"
I shrugged. "If it's for money, I guess it wouldn't matter."
"Yeah, but you'd have to do stuff with them."
"I guess I could learn. We're talking money, right?"
He was silent for a moment. I looked up. He blinked at me and pushed up his glasses.
"I'm just telling you right now that I could go either way with that. That's all."
I paused. "Oh." Somehow, that was not surprising. I nodded. I was supposed to be saying something, wasn't I? "Okay," I said.
I went back to my work, erased half of the sentence, and rewrote it. "Can you help me with this?"
He snatched the paper from my hand. "You've got it all wrong. Put the second part of the sentence in the front. And you don't need this character at all."
"Oh."
"You're trying to write it like an English sentence, and that makes it sound all weird."
"Okay." I erased it and tried again. "So this word means...?"
"Market."
"I thought it was office."
"You can't read pinyin, can you?"
"No. I learned the traditional alphabet when I was a kid. I didn't learn it well, but it makes more sense to me than this stuff."
He watched me struggle on for a while longer. Conversations from the hallways crept in, as did the sounds of a basketball dribbling across the courtyard just outside the window. Allen had ditched us so he could get in a quick game during the break. Even our teacher had gone for coffee at the staff office, leaving her lesson plans spread out on the desk. A group of girls at the opposite corner of the room laughed loudly.
Ours was a history room, by the look of it. A map of the world covered one wall.
"Here." Jackie yanked the papers away from me. He clicked his mechanical pencil and took over where I had left off.
"You know your handwriting is totally different from mine, right?"
"You take forever to think of anything to write. Just write something simple. Don't overthink it. It's not supposed to be a political essay or something."
I didn't say anything. The truth was, even in homework, I didn't want to sound stupid. I couldn't handle it. It was one of things that held me back. I never spoke up in class because I knew exactly how I sounded, and I always sounded horrible. I kept quiet to maintain my dignity. My verbal skills suffered for it, and this further kept me mute. It was a familiar pattern. I had been mute when I first entered the school system; I would be mute when I left it. The dominance of the two languages was reversed; that was the only difference.
My writing didn't improve much either. I could never, for whatever reason, put into words thoughts that were not genuine. Language as practice...sentences that didn't mean anything...I didn't understand it.
Janice bounded into the room, bearing our smuggled goods. "Hey, guys!" She set down a cup of coffee in front of me.
"Thanks."
She tried to pass three nickels into my hand.
"Uh, keep it."
Jackie tossed my homework sheets back at me. "There! Done." He reached for the take-out bag Janice had dropped in front of him.
The neat lines made from his mechanical pencil clashed against my dull-pointed chicken scratches. It looked like a cracked road, partially paved. I carefully erased one of his characters, wrote it again in my own hand, and then repeated this process until the end. It felt as wrong as kicking over an elaborate sand castle.
"You got the boysenberry shake?" Jackie was saying.
"Try some?" Janice uncapped the container so he could take a sip with his own straw.
"It's okay," he said, before replacing the straw back into his own drink. "Strawberry's still better."
The coffee tasted watered down. But I didn't complain. I still had one other section to complete.
Janice helped herself to some of Jackie's chicken strips.
"When I used to hear about animals getting killed," Jackie was saying, "it used to make me sad. Now it just makes me hungry." He looked over at me. "Are you done yet?"
"No. The essay section. Then I'll be done."
"Don't kill yourself."
"I need to hand in every homework assignment from now on if I want to pass with a C."
"Teacher likes you, so she'll pass you, don't worry."
"I don't know. I need it on my transcript or else I won't qualify for a university."
"Maybe you should have taken French or Spanish. Then you would only need two years, rather than three. And you wouldn't have had to give up all your Saturdays."
I glanced at Janice. "Why don't you ask her the marriage question?" I prompted Jackie.
"Oh I already did. She said no."
Janice shook her head, straw in her mouth.
"Not even for a lot of money?" Jackie asked. "Pretend the other woman is a millionaire."
"No, I'd never marry a woman."
"You need to get out more."
The bell rang five minutes later. We had a discussion period next. I hunched over and tried to churn out a couple decent sentences onto the page while our teacher had everyone play a telephone game. The idea was that you could "call" anyone else in the room and have a short conversation. After the call ended, the person who received the call would have to call someone else. The only rule was: No English.
Eventually, someone called Andy. And Andy, in turn, called Jackie.
"Wei?"
"Wei, Jackie. Wo yo yi ge si wen ni."
"Mm hm?"
"ARE YOU GAY?"
The class laughed. Jackie shot back in plain English:
"Oh you KNOW it, honey!"
At this point, Allen, from the next table over, cupped his mouth with both hands and called out, "Jaaaackieeeee! Come back to bed, sweetheart!"
"Oh I'm getting called back! Talk to you later!"
Everyone laughed, and our teacher let it slide.
I graduated that June. Teacher did like me and let me hand in some makeup assignments. My end of the year research project allowed me to roll through with a shaky B-.
Some of us exchanged emails, but I didn't really ever see any of them again.
I don't know why I remember what I remember. The delinquent class-clown graduated, against all expectations. The tall basketball player went to college. The flute-girl/band geek, Honor Roll student, who didn't care about labels, probably got into a decent school too.
And the scrawny kid with glasses, with the obvious lisp and hand gestures, the one who got me saying things like, "disgustingly cute," and who got me listening to Bjork? I may have bombed my way through university the same way I bombed my way through senior year, but I'd like to think he made it.
At sixteen, he'd been braver than me, after all.
"One day, Andy's gonna get his *ss kicked, and I hope I'm there to see it."
"Maybe you'll get lucky," I said. My hand began to cramp. I was on the fortieth repetition of the seventh vocab word. This was not a good sign. I tried to tune out Jackie's chatter and focus. It didn't work if you just mindlessly copied words. You had to think while you did it: pronounciation, meaning, form. How to say it, what it meant, how to write it. Over and over and over again.
"I have a question for you," he said.
"Yeah?" I finished the last of the vocab and went on to sentence construction.
"Would you ever marry someone for money?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"So you'd consider it?"
"I guess."
"Would you care if it was a woman or a man?"
I shrugged. "If it's for money, I guess it wouldn't matter."
"Yeah, but you'd have to do stuff with them."
"I guess I could learn. We're talking money, right?"
He was silent for a moment. I looked up. He blinked at me and pushed up his glasses.
"I'm just telling you right now that I could go either way with that. That's all."
I paused. "Oh." Somehow, that was not surprising. I nodded. I was supposed to be saying something, wasn't I? "Okay," I said.
I went back to my work, erased half of the sentence, and rewrote it. "Can you help me with this?"
He snatched the paper from my hand. "You've got it all wrong. Put the second part of the sentence in the front. And you don't need this character at all."
"Oh."
"You're trying to write it like an English sentence, and that makes it sound all weird."
"Okay." I erased it and tried again. "So this word means...?"
"Market."
"I thought it was office."
"You can't read pinyin, can you?"
"No. I learned the traditional alphabet when I was a kid. I didn't learn it well, but it makes more sense to me than this stuff."
He watched me struggle on for a while longer. Conversations from the hallways crept in, as did the sounds of a basketball dribbling across the courtyard just outside the window. Allen had ditched us so he could get in a quick game during the break. Even our teacher had gone for coffee at the staff office, leaving her lesson plans spread out on the desk. A group of girls at the opposite corner of the room laughed loudly.
Ours was a history room, by the look of it. A map of the world covered one wall.
"Here." Jackie yanked the papers away from me. He clicked his mechanical pencil and took over where I had left off.
"You know your handwriting is totally different from mine, right?"
"You take forever to think of anything to write. Just write something simple. Don't overthink it. It's not supposed to be a political essay or something."
I didn't say anything. The truth was, even in homework, I didn't want to sound stupid. I couldn't handle it. It was one of things that held me back. I never spoke up in class because I knew exactly how I sounded, and I always sounded horrible. I kept quiet to maintain my dignity. My verbal skills suffered for it, and this further kept me mute. It was a familiar pattern. I had been mute when I first entered the school system; I would be mute when I left it. The dominance of the two languages was reversed; that was the only difference.
My writing didn't improve much either. I could never, for whatever reason, put into words thoughts that were not genuine. Language as practice...sentences that didn't mean anything...I didn't understand it.
Janice bounded into the room, bearing our smuggled goods. "Hey, guys!" She set down a cup of coffee in front of me.
"Thanks."
She tried to pass three nickels into my hand.
"Uh, keep it."
Jackie tossed my homework sheets back at me. "There! Done." He reached for the take-out bag Janice had dropped in front of him.
The neat lines made from his mechanical pencil clashed against my dull-pointed chicken scratches. It looked like a cracked road, partially paved. I carefully erased one of his characters, wrote it again in my own hand, and then repeated this process until the end. It felt as wrong as kicking over an elaborate sand castle.
"You got the boysenberry shake?" Jackie was saying.
"Try some?" Janice uncapped the container so he could take a sip with his own straw.
"It's okay," he said, before replacing the straw back into his own drink. "Strawberry's still better."
The coffee tasted watered down. But I didn't complain. I still had one other section to complete.
Janice helped herself to some of Jackie's chicken strips.
"When I used to hear about animals getting killed," Jackie was saying, "it used to make me sad. Now it just makes me hungry." He looked over at me. "Are you done yet?"
"No. The essay section. Then I'll be done."
"Don't kill yourself."
"I need to hand in every homework assignment from now on if I want to pass with a C."
"Teacher likes you, so she'll pass you, don't worry."
"I don't know. I need it on my transcript or else I won't qualify for a university."
"Maybe you should have taken French or Spanish. Then you would only need two years, rather than three. And you wouldn't have had to give up all your Saturdays."
I glanced at Janice. "Why don't you ask her the marriage question?" I prompted Jackie.
"Oh I already did. She said no."
Janice shook her head, straw in her mouth.
"Not even for a lot of money?" Jackie asked. "Pretend the other woman is a millionaire."
"No, I'd never marry a woman."
"You need to get out more."
The bell rang five minutes later. We had a discussion period next. I hunched over and tried to churn out a couple decent sentences onto the page while our teacher had everyone play a telephone game. The idea was that you could "call" anyone else in the room and have a short conversation. After the call ended, the person who received the call would have to call someone else. The only rule was: No English.
Eventually, someone called Andy. And Andy, in turn, called Jackie.
"Wei?"
"Wei, Jackie. Wo yo yi ge si wen ni."
"Mm hm?"
"ARE YOU GAY?"
The class laughed. Jackie shot back in plain English:
"Oh you KNOW it, honey!"
At this point, Allen, from the next table over, cupped his mouth with both hands and called out, "Jaaaackieeeee! Come back to bed, sweetheart!"
"Oh I'm getting called back! Talk to you later!"
Everyone laughed, and our teacher let it slide.
I graduated that June. Teacher did like me and let me hand in some makeup assignments. My end of the year research project allowed me to roll through with a shaky B-.
Some of us exchanged emails, but I didn't really ever see any of them again.
I don't know why I remember what I remember. The delinquent class-clown graduated, against all expectations. The tall basketball player went to college. The flute-girl/band geek, Honor Roll student, who didn't care about labels, probably got into a decent school too.
And the scrawny kid with glasses, with the obvious lisp and hand gestures, the one who got me saying things like, "disgustingly cute," and who got me listening to Bjork? I may have bombed my way through university the same way I bombed my way through senior year, but I'd like to think he made it.
At sixteen, he'd been braver than me, after all.
