My family usually travels to India every year to year and a half. Every time we go, it is amazing to see how much the country changes in terms of development. There are new malls, an ever expanding metro line, and of course, the most traffic you’ll see anywhere (for those of you who think driving in NYC is bad). The biggest reason for us going so often is to see our family. My grandparents from my mother’s side and my dad’s brother’s family live there. Seeing my cousins and how they are growing up compared to my sister and I have been very interesting to me over the last couple of visits. Every time I think about our differences in growing up, the concept of language always comes up.
When I was 12, we went for one of our annual summer visits. Before heading to a family dinner out one night, my dad asked my cousin to call the restaurant in advance to make sure that they would have space for a large party of ten people. My cousin called while I was in the same room watching TV. The conversation was only a few seconds in length.
Cousin: “Hello, yes, I have a party of 10, will there be room for us tonight?”
Waiter: (I assume this is what he said) When will you be arriving?
Cousin: We will probably RETCH in 20-25 minutes.
I remember I just started laughing at this. For me, English had become second nature, and I could catch minor mistakes quite easily.
“Don’t you mean “reaching”? I remember saying.
“Yes, I made a mistake, so what’s the problem? I’m sure you had difficulty learning the language as well.”
I never thought hat my cousin would, at this point in MY life, be learning English. I had been under the foolish assumption that because I knew English it was obvious that the rest of the world would know it as well.
Now when I think back to that conversation, I relate it back to my current situation. I live in the most diverse city in the world. Surely not everyone can speak English perfectly. We have to realize that even though we may have understood a certain culture, culture is something that is constantly being adapted by people everywhere.
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Credit: Martorell
I understand that feeling that you had of always automatically assuming everyone else should know English because I am so used to speaking and hearing it everywhere. Sometimes my parents, who are immigrants from China, say something grammatically wrong in English, I also always find that urge to correct them, but when I am speaking Mandarin and I mess up the grammar, my parents are not constantly picking at me for my mistakes.
Your story left off on a very positive note: you learned to be accepting of all the English speakers- even if their English isn’t as polished as it could be. Your lesson is a reflection of New York City itself, as everybody (for the most part) has an understanding attitude towards non-native English speakers. I think that as long one tries to learn, that’s all that is necessary. I mean, you have to give the immigrants credit; it isn’t easy to master a foreign language. Once you travel outside of New York City and go even 50 miles north to other parts of the state, you will notice that people who have accents are treated differently. Its quite sad, to see the emerging attitude of sales people when they encounter a customer with an accent. Though they work behind the register, they try to establish a sense of superiority over their customer. Certainly quite comical to watch if you know that the immigrant in the scenario earns a much better salary than the salesperson.
The way you wrote this so vividly really conveyed the humor. I actually laughed too at “RETCH.” Haha. There is a lot of truth in this post. Sometimes we don’t even notice the little accent mistakes in others, and sometimes it just can’t be ignored. My grandpa speaks very little English. He picked up on the language only because my brother and I speak English to him (because sometimes we get lazy and don’t feel like speaking Italian). One day, when we were little, he meant to say “go play with the boys and girls” but instead he said “go play with the poison eels.” That’s still our favorite thing to tease him about.