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SOME IDEAS ABOUT ENGLISH

 

“Uy, el inglés es importantisisimo, en todas partes piden inglés” This is a common phrase that the people in Colombia say. It refers that any professional or technological career requires a basic level to graduate, and it is also taken by some enterprises as a category to raise the salary, and promote. English is the business language in a globalized world, where the economical interchange is the measure of any human relation.

 

“uy usté sabe inglés ¡vea! ¿Cómo hizo? Yo que no diera por hablar enredado como los gringos” Most of the Colombian people see the English as a privileged knowledge, not just as opportunity to earn more money, it is taken as a distinguished feature to be valued and admired by the society. There are cases where exclusive bars and discos that ban the entrance to natives and black people, change the politics if the watchmen listen the possible client speaking in English. They do this because think that people who speak good English have to be American or British, a better category of human being for them.

 

“el inglés yo medio lo entiendo escrito, pero me hablan y ese enredo no me entra. Unas palabritas si se decir,  pero me cuesta hablarlo con la papa en la jeta, Americano pa que me entienda” Many of the English learners try to learn it with the illusion to get a better future (better salary and social recognize), but part of them don´t have genuine interest in learning and really don´t like it.

 

Those learners would like to drink a magical potion to give them the knowledge and the skills, even some of them just need the certified. Many of the Colombian people think that; “to study is a sacrifice to get a better life” where better life is just to increase the level of consumption and comfort.

 

Learning any language implies a genuine interest and a daily contact with it.  A genuine interest has direct relation with personal interest and pleasure for doing something, it´s close to the passion. To do something, especially to learn a language, it´s not enough external factors like social conventions or job´s requirements. To get daily contact with a language isn´t so difficult in the internet time, although there are advantages in countries like the European.

 

They just have to take a train and in an hour are in real contact with other language and its culture. Colombia is not a European country, according to this the learners have to look for the daily contact in choices like: changing the social networks profile from Spanish to English, getting virtual contact with people using the language, watching English movies without translation, listening music, and reading stories according with the level of the learner. Everything is possible if there is genuine interest.   

 

The English is a language, beyond the prestige and the economical background. A language communicates: feelings, dreams, desires, and the speaker´s point of view about everything. The language is the material of one of the arts; the literature. I have memories about some English words that I have listened or read in my learning experience: the child´s answer to the psychologist in the sixth sense movie “I can see dead people”, the Zeus’ order to Ades in the clash of Titans “release the Kraken”, a Borges´ line about the unique poem in English written by him “I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen a sunset years before you were born”, two Pink Floyds´ lines of the song Mother “Mama´s gonna make all your nightmares come true, mama´s gonna put all her fears into you” I haven´t listened lyrics like this in Spanish. Even the bad words in the movies sound great in the original language; “why don´t you kiss my little and brown ass? Little piece of shit” it is amazing and it loses everything in the translation. The word “fuck” in the first Tarantino´s movies is used a lot for the characters and the translation loses all the power of the dialogues. Those are some words that impacted me for the power, beauty of sonority in my learning process.

 

 

            

 

 

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