I’ve been in London for six months now. Wow, time flies. Actually, it’s going really well. It’s just that I’m still struggling with the language at times. What’s been bothering me most is that I know exactly what I want to say, but it’s just not coming out. Especially when I’m around friends, and we’re chatting away, laughing – and I want to share something funny that happened to me. I’ve got the perfect expression on the tip of my tongue, but it’s not coming out!
Well, at least people find my mistakes entertaining. It was so funny, the other day I thought I was being really smart, but instead of saying curiosity killed the cat, I said the cat killed curiosity. Everyone just cracked up laughing. Well, I suppose that’s one way to be funny.
And then there’s the weird pronunciation of some words. Why on earth is Wednesday spelled WEDNESDAY. And then there’s the difference between the w and v sounds, as in veil versus whale. Awful, I’m still struggling to get my head around it.
Hey, I’ve got a message. Ah, it’s Elena. She’s a good friend. She’s Spanish and she’s been living in London since last year.
“Hi Marie. Everything ok there? You seemed a little down yesterday, so I thought I’ll cheer you up a bit. Check out this article that I just read. It talks about how learning a new language makes you a different person. It says that with every new language we learn we adopt a slightly different personality. And I can tell that it’s true. The English Elena is different from the Spanish one. Hope that doesn’t sound like I’m schizophrenic!!! Keep your chin up, girl, you’ll get to love your English self. Big hug, Elena”
She’s sweet. I guess she noticed that I was a little frustrated yesterday. I’ll give her a call and tell her that I’m back to my positive self today.
