*Yes, I am NOT from here, I have an accent*
I moved from South America to Canada at the end of 2006. All the English I knew was from taking English courses back home.
I had taken English courses in elementary and high school. By the time I finished university, I had completed all the English levels available to students, from basic to upper, and everything in between.
Once in Canada, I realized that all the English I had learned was far from sufficient to understand what people were saying to me, I was completely lost every time someone said something to me. I could simply not comprehend or process their words, in my mind, they were talking extremely fast and using new words that made the entire process of understanding impossible to me.
My mind was flying with thoughts but my mouth could not move, my ability to articulate an English sentence was very poor, and I felt really frustrated. I remember I was going to start English school in January, but my mom fell down and broke her wrist, so I had to help her around the house and with her part-time babysitting job she had at the time. I finally started full time English school in February, seven hours of just English, pretty intense I would say, but I felt good about it; I felt I was learning and more importantly I felt I was understanding English. Every month I took a different course (Grammar, Listening, Speaking, Conversation, TOEFL, Business Intership, etc) I donāt remember exactly how many courses I ended up taking but I was lucky enough (for a newcomer) to get a full time job in June so I stopped going to English school. After that, all the English I have learned (even now) is from my everyday interaction with coworkers, family and friends.
Passing forward many years, I can definitely understand English now, and I can communicate with others and I feel very lucky and proud I was able to get where I am today. However, I still feel very limited with it comes to my English skills. Particularly, my spanish-sounding accent, Iām very conscious about my accent and even though I have an outgoing personality and I feel very secure about myself in general, I do not feel secure about my accent, I wish I donāt have it, I wish I can talk perfect English without an accent. I wish everytime I talk to somebody new they wouldnāt ask me where I am from, because it is obvious that Iām from somewhere else when I talk with my thick Spanish accent. For reference, I sound like the Colombian actress Sofia Vergara from Modern Family (a TV sitcom), I think a lot people that speak English with a Spanish accent probably have a similar accent than her.
The worst part for me is that I never going to loose this accent, Iām going to die with it. There are courses to help you to improve your English pronunciation, but I canāt image getting rid of my accent completely.
Many people have told me that my accent is cute or sexy, and Iām thankful for that because at least they did not take it as a nuisance. For me, my accent is annoying, because I feel it truncates my ability to be 100% myself; because if English was my first language, I could communicate without pre-processing the words to make sure people understand and avoid a lot of question marks; because I would probably sound smarter with having the English vocabulary of a native; because I would talk without over-thinking and with more confidence; because I just want to know what it feels to talk English without an accent.
If you are a native English speaker and come across people like me that talk with an accent (regardless of the country of origin) please have mercy on them, give them time to communicate, to process, to think; correct them kindly without condescending looks or laughs. We are trying our best, and it is not easy; we (of all people) know how we sound, we do not need a reminder, we need encouragement to continue to learn; please do not destroy the confidence we are building so hard to speak English.
If you ever try to speak Spanish to me, I will never laugh, make fun of you or make you feel uncomfortable, I will encourage you and celebrate your effort. Trust me, I have experienced (and continue to do so) the other side and it is not fun.
Athough having an accent may sometimes feel like a storm, speaking two languages is definitely a rainbow. I always try to have the rainbow perspective instead of the storm, but sometimes the rainstorm wins over the sunshine. Thatās when I need you to see the rainbow again!
