I'd like to think that I'm good, if not, decent in English. Yeah sometimes I struggled speaking but who doesn't? I think it's more of a public speaking issues rather than the language itself. People always pointed out how 'utagha' I sound when I speak Malay, and yet how that utara slang totally goes off when I speak in english. I take pride in my english language. So if I were to speak the language, I want to speak properly. No slang, no '-lah' in my sentences and no manglish. Just english.
People also have the impression that I'm a bright student, but in truth I'm like everyone else. It's just that since I don't have problem with the language, I can absorb things faster. Takyah check dictionary. Takyah reread the whole sentences. Budak usm ni semua cekang-cekang. When I taught some of my friends I realized that the problem is not the learning, the problem's the language. People also always give me that 'Oh patutla' gesture when they knew that both my parents are english teacher, which annoys me a bit.
It's not like they taught me much and it's not like we speak english at home. We speak malay with essence and flavor of utagha all over. But, if anything, they taught me to love the language. Instead of teaching me the language, they taught me to love the language and culture. So from there I just picked things up. My parents were ELLS student. Yes they are not any average teachers. They studied B.A instead of B.Ed. So at the age of 10, I was exposed with many english literatures. Rudyard Kipling, William Golding, Ernest Hemmingway to name a few. And even the classics. At a very young age I knew Shakespeare's plays like Mid Summer Night Dream, MacBeth and Hamlet.
Abah's also a movie buff. He's into all the action and mobster stuff. So growing up, I watched a lot of The Godfather, Gangs of New York, Scarface and Die Hard. So I picked things up from movies, songs and literatures instead from the classroom. But taking pride in the language also sometimes bite me in the ass. Sometimes I got too englishy and forgot all about our culture and social context. For example I was dumped by a girl once when I used the word 'dying' to describe her mother's health. To me I never thought of 'dying' as being dead per se. I mean, if you watched medical drama they always said the patient is dying but most of the time they saved the patients. So yeah, I totally ignored our social context.
I also got into a fight with a friend when I used the word 'bitch' when talking to her. To her the word is taboo. So yeah, once again I failed to recognised the social context. I thought that we're on the same perception of social context. To me it was perfectly fine. In the US the word bastard, bitch and shit are allowed in national television. I also have problems when I tried to use these words in different connotation. For example when you said "stop bitchin" it means simply 'stop whining' but people especially the one with weaker english command tend to be insulted by that.
And don't let me get started on the pronunciation. When you take so much pride in it, you became easily irritated when you heard people mispronounced something. Apa orang sebut pun salah. Apa orang sebut pun tak kena. I once lose interest on a girl when she pronounced Wednesday without the silent 'd'. Man, I was bloody mean to lead her on only to ditch her over some small things. If you think that 'wednesday' thingy tu is already small now let me try to make it even smaller. You know how certain verb and adjective are pronounced differently, for example the word approximate. The adjective is pronounced aproksemet and the verb is pronounced aproksemeit and sometimes people get confused between the two. Even these small things get on my nerves!
Tapi itu dulu! Sekarang tak dah. Lani macam cool ja. Haha. Dan2 cover. Haih. Kadang-kadang kita pun tak tara mana. Tapi kita dok rasa kita ja sempoi orang lain suma tak. Mau dok relax sait. One day you'll meet someone who will put you to the ground and you'll be getting a taste of your own medicine. But seriously I'm not that bad. Betulllll. Tak caya sudah.
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