A language that connects us all Special edition: Viktor Navorski shares his story of how a man with no country makes a home for himself in a terminal simply by learning English! We are now a world dependent on technology. Interactions between people are mostly, if not solely based on international relations of ideas, culture and money but what I believe is a major factor that impacts our experiences on the world wide web is the language. Otherwise known as a lingua franca, English is spoken on an international scale by native and non-native speakers. It acts as a tool for communicating ideas and thoughts between people, as well as for business, travelling and political purposes. If you are new to learning this language, I hope this article will …show more content…
Some people tend to take English for granted but when you are stuck in a foreign country where no one knows your mother tongue, it can prevent the feelings of isolation due to language barriers. No one likes to be stuck in an airport for nine months and not be able to ask help from anyone, don’t we? It is just as important as breathing. Those of you who are not familiar with Viktor Navorski’s story, he was a Balkan tourist who got declined to enter the United States or to return to his home country. Because of a change in the government, his passport was no longer valid as his country was no longer recognized by the USA. Therefore, he was trapped in the airport for nine months where English was the only way he was able to communicate. I wanted to find out more about Viktor’s ability to self-study English as a common currency to communicate. How can someone learn a language in such a short amount of time without any help from a tutor? I contacted Viktor through the phone, since he lives in Krakozhia, to unravel his story and collect some of his tips. To my delight, he accepted my
Jimmy Baca’s story “Coming into Language” describes his emotional childhood and what he went through while in prison. At seventeen Baca still didn’t know how to read or write. Throughout the story, he shares his struggle with language and how prison eventually brought himself to learn how to read and write. Jimmy Baca then uses examples in his story explaining how he admired language and used it to free himself from the cruel world he grew up in.
Growing up around those who had just emigrated from the former Soviet Union helped me become aware of how important the process of acquiring language can be – both for my parents and for myself. My family, speaking both Russian and Bukharian, barely spoke any English, but they were still determined to learn the language as soon as possible. As my mom sat in front of a television, pausing every few seconds to test her pronunciation, my fascination for the adaptation of speech and language began. I became further fascinated when watching old home videos of myself struggling between the three languages that I grew up surrounded by.
In the essay Public and Private language, Richard Rodriguez conveys how the English language changed his life and his relationships with others especially his family.
Originally born in Moscow, Russia, I came to the United States fourteen years ago with my parents along with my unrelated brother as their newly adopted children. Transitioning to a new country can be hard, but not knowing the language is even harder. For the first few years of my life, I struggled to speak, write and read any English. Since then, I have become acclimated to the American culture and state of mind and learned English proficiently, but, lost touch with my mother tongue because I spoke minimal Russian. I have always been proud to acknowledge and tell others that I am adopted from Mother Russia. However, over the past several years my curiosity and desire to learn about my native homeland have increased significantly. My interest in the Russian language reignited last year when I overheard a Russian and Kazakh having a conversation in Russian. I soon found myself listening to anyone anywhere, who spoke Russian.
This is a story, a story about a man who survived a terrible time in a camp. A concentration camp during the Holocaust. Jacek changed the lives of people around him, including me when I read what happened to him. This happened January 1945 when Jacek Nadolny was on a train going to his home in Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Warsaw Uprising. He was only 7 years old when he got home, and saw that the Nazis have captured his mother and father then soon took Jacek. They were then taken to Auschwitz in Berlin, Germany.
Life can be incredibly hard at times; nearly everyone encounters a period of time when circumstances become unbearably difficult. Imagine being assigned to ten years of unceasing and tremendous hardships, as is the plight of the protagonist in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This book describes in detail only one day of Ivan's ten-year sentence in a Russian work camp in the 1950's. During this day, which is like most others, he is starved, nearly frozen, overworked, and punished unjustly; however, as the day unfolds, it is obvious that Ivan will never give up and never give in. The character of Ivan Denisovich is a symbol of the human spirit and its never-ending will to survive, even through the harshest of conditions.
I would have hugged my parents and told them I loved them. But I was ten years old, and I had no idea of the nightmare that was to come. None of us did''(Gratz, 1). “Prisoner B-3087” written by Alan Gratz in 2013 tells of the journey of Yanek through concentration camps showing true hope and determination to survive. Set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, “Prisoner B-3087” follows the journey of Yanek
My mother would occasionally take me to work with her at the nail salon while sitting at her station I would notice how rudely customers would treat her due to her lack of English. At that point, I realized that my mother did not sacrifice everything to be ridiculed all because she could not speak English. A sense of determination washed over me. With the aid of my ESL class, in addition, to listening to other people’s discourse of the language, I gradually became fluent in the glorious English language. While learning English, it sent me on an unforgettable journey each step I took felt like I was paving my own pathway to success. After years of feeling un-American, I was committed to teaching and changing myself with knowledge, soon enough, learning the English language allowed me to adapt to my environment. Growing up as an immigrant kid, I lusted for eloquence and fluency after discovering the significance and strength of communication.
To many people, language was not seen as a form of communication, but as a barrier that cut them off from the world. This was a common problem for people coming from other countries or who grew up under privileged. Amy Tan and Jimmy Santiago Baca each tell a personal story of how they overcame their own language obstacles. Tan struggled with her mother’s “broken” English. Baca had to endure most of his young life facing prison and illiteracy. As they went through their experiences with speech, they defied stereotypes and became successful. Even though each story is told from a different situational point of view, they have a similar message.
Society and the way it works has changed tremendously over the years. Business between countries has grown and connections have grown with it as well.The world is a boundless place full of many different cultures and has “roughly 6,900” languages around the world that are all unique in their own way (source B). Although there is an overwhelming
A language with rather humble roots, one that has been twisted and bent, one that has taken and borrowed from other languages, and one that has been the subject of much debate as to the correctness of certain usages, today English is the language that the world uses to communicate. The world uses English for a variety of reasons from commerce and trade, to political decisions, to technology and science, and beyond. The entire world uses English to get business done. Thus it truly has become the lingua franca for the world.
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart.” ‒ Nelson Mandela. Since the 1960’s learning a second language has decreased by 30 percent in today’s society. People who wish to learn an additional language often do so to communicate with people who reside in different countries. With an increase in today’s globalization, it is forcing companies throughout the world to break the language barrier. However, with the advancement of technology, numerous citizens find it unnecessary to learn another language, as a translation is at the tip of their fingers. The methods of learning a foreign language can differentiate between people. Nevertheless it has been
Now you know our friend’s experiences -Rodrigo, Rubén, Jessica, Nieves, Ms. Rena, and all the rest of them. And you also got to know how they are related to English language; their difficulties, advantages, points of view and ways of thinking. Fortunately, this might mean you are now aware of the relevance English has in our current context. Although some people may still say that learning English is just an option, we are now able to stand our ground and claim that English is now a tool, a means … and an open door to a whole new world of experiences, people and resources which were not so easy to access
In order to visualize the “global” as an adjective in the collocation “global language”, a study has shown the numbers of people speaking the language. According to them, there are about 6000 languages in the world and not surprisingly English is at the top of the list of most dominant. In the world there are 375 million first-language speakers, approximately the same number of second-language speakers and about 750 million foreign-language speakers (David Graddol, The Future of English? A Guide to Forecasting the Popularity of the English Language in the 21st Century. British Council, 1997). According to magazine Economist, more than one billion people speak some form of English. These numbers could make people think that English is really conquering the world which can be both positive and negative.
English spreads widely in each countries, no matter the area of region or information transfer, English becomes an important position in global language. As the specification of a global language, it essentially refers to a language that learned and spoken internationally, so English can be the most out-standing. According to the number of English-speaking calculations, English is the official language used by most countries, English is the most widely used second language in the world, and the percentage of web pages with English content is estimated to be over 50% (Crystal, 2003). Meanwhile, the history and usefulness cause English to be a global language, and they mainly influence to spread English faster in China and to bring convenience