On confidence

There was this one particular memory I had with my ex dance partner which defined my stance on the issues of confidence in myself. Ever since then, whenever confronted, I have always been able to keep my belief in myself. As long as I know that I am constantly trying to improve on the issues I am being confronted.

The incident took over a period of years while We were
partnered up. On several occasions, my partner would bring up the fact that she has a hard time understanding me and I’d always feel a bit of shame inside or have my ego shot for that day in general. I try not to let it bother me and generally believed her since she’s a WASP pure bread to the Engrish culture and I had about 2 years of living in an English speaking culture under my belt.

That lack of confidence went on for a while and is pretty detrimental to my language skill. As multilingual speakers know. Courage to speak is a big factor on how well you speak. As is evident by my French being better when I have a flu. Because I already sound like shit so I don’t care how bad I sound to others and just speak.

What completely changed
my view and made me aware of this dynamic is when my French speaking coach ( with English as a 2nd language) told her that he has a hard time understanding what she says because she slurs and asked me how I am able to.

Two things occurred to me immediately. My Engrish is easier to understand than slurred English and that my speech problems only exist in her world. It’s all about the starting reference point that you are born into.

Another revelation came right after. Once pointed out, I started to hear her slur whereas before, I had always thought of it as good English. The powers of our believes and ignorance is truly amazing.