Liming with some friends last night and someone asked me about my background because she detected a slight accent. When I mentioned growing up in Venezuela she asked excitedly if I spoke fluent Spanish to which I replied yes. Her face lit up and she was in awe.

I grew up in an environment where everybody was at least bilingual. Only knowing two languages was lame. A lot of my friends spoke four and five. But here just speaking something other than English is a big deal.

And then again I used to be a teacher of English as a Second Language. That’s when you realize how easy you have it as a native English speaker. We take it for granted, but I saw how hard my students had to work to learn this language that had all kinds of messed up rules and confusing structure and strange pronunciation. I never appreciated how hard English was to learn until I had to teach it. It’s a mess.