New country, new me

I still remember March 27, 2002. It was late and I was tired from the long flight from Europe to the United States. But I was so excited. This was a new start for me, an experience I had been anticipating. A big adjustment to my new life, to the language and culture was ahead of me.

I grew up in Bulgaria, a small country in southeastern Europe. In my early 20s, during a trip to Poland, I met my husband and moved there. That was my first experience being “the foreigner” and learning a second language. I enjoyed living in Poland, but when my husband signed a contract with an American company, I was happy to move to the United States. After two-and-a-half years in Poland, I was ready for a new adventure.

In my imagination, America was the place I had seen in the movies. Wall Street and Working Girl showed well-dressed people busy with their professional life. Everyone lived in a beautiful house. American life seemed like a dream, and I thought I knew something about this huge country and its people. I didn’t think it would be hard to adjust.

When I arrived in Minnesota, I saw a different side of America. The high heels I’d pictured were actually flip-flops. Elegantly dressed people were few and far between. I rarely saw people walking outside. Actually, I barely saw people walking at all. In Europe, most people walk or use public transportation. In Minnesota, people drive.

While I know it wasn’t as hard for me as it is for some other newcomers, I quickly found myself in a place I knew nothing about. A big adjustment to my new life in the United States was ahead of me. The truth is that I barely spoke English, but I was eager to learn it. I had taken English at school back in Bulgaria, but found it very hard to study some grammar rules from a textbook without being able to practice in a real conversation. So my English was poor, to put it mildly. I felt stupid when I was the only person who didn’t laugh at a joke. I felt dumb when I didn’t know how to respond to everyone asking, “Is it cold enough for ya?” Everything confused me. Everything frustrated me. I felt like a mute and I started to doubt my own intelligence.

“I am sorry, but I don’t speak English.” I was tired of constantly repeating the same sentence. For my first short sentences in English, I credit obnoxious TV ads. It’s easy to understand and remember words when a woman shows a telephone receiver (this was before the birth of the smartphone) and says, “Call now!” or when they show large, unhappy people and the sign next to the recommended diet pills reads, “Lose weight!”

But the loud ads could only get me so far. To learn more, I enrolled in a school for English as a Second Language (ESL) that my husband’s coworker had recommended. One of the best things about the school was meeting many different people from all over the world. All of them had their own stories to tell. Some of them had lost family members to war and had to fight for their lives. Their courage and desire for a better life fascinated me. A Somali classmate once told me that she had learned to never look back because the last time she did, she saw her house burning. That day, she lost all of her possessions. All she had left were her children, and she came to America to offer them a better life.

As we were learning together and adjusting to our new lives, we told each other our stories. Even though none of us could build full, coherent sentences, we somehow understood each other. I understood that the Somali girl missed her mom and that the Columbian woman couldn’t wait to see her boyfriend again. I understood that the elderly Bosnian couple were veterans from the recent war in former Yugoslavia and missed their children. I understood so much with so few words.

As my new friends and I improved our English, we got to know each other more deeply. I found some of my best friends at ESL, and although many of them have gone back home to Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and other countries, we still keep in touch, upholding our vows to never forget one another.

As my English improved, another issue emerged – my accent. Knowing how to put words into grammatically correct sentences is one thing, but pronouncing them correctly is another. In Minnesota, where there are not many foreign people, locals’ faces were very expressive when they couldn’t understand what I was saying. Although my Bulgarian accent was never incomprehensible, it was exotic to the American ear. So a paradox occurred: the more English I knew, the more quiet I stayed, picking comfort over speaking.

When I went to college and chose journalism as a major, I was the only person with a foreign accent in my field. This made me very aware of what I then perceived were my limitations. Every single comment about me not being a native speaker would bother me. I remember once walking with a classmate of mine, discussing future plans. I told her that I planned to pick magazine writing over broadcasting because of my accent. Deep inside, however, I hoped for some encouraging words from her. I waited for her to say, “No, Daniela, you should go for it if that’s what you want to do.” Instead, she just nodded, confirming my concerns.

Now, tell me something about yourself. Share one interesting fact about your journey with English. Have you ever experienced similar adjustment to new life in another country?

Sign up for our Speaking Club and become the confident speaker you know you are meant to be. Here you will make new friends from many other countries and share your ideas on different topics. It’s a lot of fun. 😀

 

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