English

It’s amazing that I write and think in English today when my formal education about English consists of a few courses of beginner English in a French high school and a English for Engineer class in University first year. Til this day, I still don’t know any grammatical rule of the language, I write the way I’ve heard English being spoken.

My first teachers were Japanese RPG translated into English. Simple and often misinterpreted. Just like the life I had back in New Zealand. I heard that racism was pretty bad in New Zealand, but I had no idea because I couldn’t understand what they were saying to me.

My next teachers were Francophones with thick accents who are probably worst off than me, but I am stuck with a beginner’s class because I failed the test for my English abilities… 60% of the test consists of writing equivalent meanings in French.

For the last two years of high school, I got a real American speaker teacher, but since I was already in the beginner’s class, it continued like that. The teacher can tell, but I know I’d have trouble when it comes time to translate to French.

Then came university and the course “English for Engineers”. Where I formally learned to write in scientific statements and that has since stuck with me forever. I don’t know any other way.

During university, it wasn’t obvious to me that my French skills are actually better than my English skills until I started taking some classes in French and acing the exams. It occurred to me later, that it’s only natural this is true because I learned all my high school sciences in French.

All the jobs I got after graduation are jobs in English environments. Never, have I thought that I am a fraud, but if you look at my credentials, I should be. This goes on to show, how my outlook in my life and what I believed as true (that I have more education in English language than French) is more important than credentials.