It’s never always easy to find a topic to blog about, and most often I end up talking about nonsensical stuff. But even when I have something to blog about, I am limited to the vocabularies that are available to me. Because of that limitation, it is hard for to be able to express my thoughts the way I want them to be. One way of measuring one’s fluency in a language is the frequency of the use of idioms and figures of speech in conversations and in writing. I certainly am very weak when it comes to using English idioms. I rarely use any sophisticated English words. It’s hardly surprising if I say that learning English was not something that was encouraged by my parents when I was a kid. The language never had a major place within my family. And why should it be? It was (and still is) not our native language. Despite having their tertiary education in the West, both of my parents did not seem to be keen in promoting the use of English language in our family.
I don’t know how the West see this, but 40 years ago in this part of the world, the ability to speak, let alone converse, in English was a measure of achievement. Anyone who can speak the language was considered to be of the elite class. Which was true because back then, only the rich could afford to send their kids to English-medium schools while the rest of the population tried to scrape off what little education they could get.
Things are different nowadays, of course, information is readily available anywhere and it is only a matter of the individual’s effort to harness them. It is also easy to learn English now because there are a lot of resources available. The sad thing about it is, because everything has been made easy, many tend to take things for granted and instead of making full use of the available technologies and resources to equip themselves with the appropriate knowledge and skills.
*Je ne parle pas bien l’anglais = I do not speak English well
