Ok, here’s a fact. I don’t speak English fluently. To be honest with you, I still have a hard time to pronounce ‘r’ and ‘th’. Of course my English is much better now compared to five years ago. But I still feel like it is not enough especially when I cannot make friends easily because of a language barrier. It is so sad because I used to make friends very easily and I was very sociable in Korea. Now, I am losing confident. I wonder how other Native Americans perceive me as a foreigner.
When I was in Korea, I saw some foreigners on the streets. Of course, I hadn’t tried to speak with them because I didn’t have a chance to get to know them. And also I didn’t want to talk to someone who couldn’t communicate with me. I also laughed at them when TV show host interviewed foreigners in Korean. It was funny to hear strange Korean pronunciations. I didn’t really care about how they felt when people laughed at them. Now, I know their feelings.
But, do we have to speak fluently to make friends or communicate with others? I believe the answer is “no”. We don’t judge our friends based on their communication skills. We judge them based on their characteristics. Maybe it is not my English, but lack of social skill makes me hard to make friends.
When I was in Korea, I saw some foreigners on the streets. Of course, I hadn’t tried to speak with them because I didn’t have a chance to get to know them. And also I didn’t want to talk to someone who couldn’t communicate with me. I also laughed at them when TV show host interviewed foreigners in Korean. It was funny to hear strange Korean pronunciations. I didn’t really care about how they felt when people laughed at them. Now, I know their feelings.
But, do we have to speak fluently to make friends or communicate with others? I believe the answer is “no”. We don’t judge our friends based on their communication skills. We judge them based on their characteristics. Maybe it is not my English, but lack of social skill makes me hard to make friends.
jin i think that you are right about the fact that you can still make friends even though you are not fluent in the native language. at baruch especially i have encountered a lot of people with accents, some harder to understand then others, but that never stopped me from becoming friends with those people. once you see what kind of person they are then you realize if you want to become friends or not.
ReplyDeleteps as far as im concerned your english is pretty damn good for only being here 5 years.
totally agree with james, your english is very good for 5 years. I always wonder what i would do if i was in a foreign country and couldnt speak the language or write it. i'd probably be very slow at learning it. and i definitely think you can still make friends without knowing the language well, but i do think that sometimes it might make it a littler harder to communicate, but not impossible. i think people at baruch get used to meeting people who don't speak english fluently with our diversity. i always wanted a foreign friend and learn about their culture etc. some honor society had some program for that but they never got back to me about it lol. bad communication on their part.
ReplyDeleteJinJin..I don't think that language barrier should be an obsticle in making friends or girlfriends/boyfriends...I used to go out with this chick (from spain). She didn't speak a word of english...
ReplyDeleteIt was kinda fun, I used to teach her some words in english & russian she used to teach me some spanish...We practically communicated with hands and gestures lol...As long as that connection is there nothing else matters...
Stay positive, your outlook usually determines your end result. The same thing happened to my mom when she came to the US. It wasn't a language barrier as much as it was an accent barrier. The old banana boat jokes flew off he hinges. It was bad. And my mom being the social butterfly that she was found it hard that she had to keep to herself though she tried making friends. Sometimes it has nothing to do with your effort but rather the effort of others. It wasn't until she was on college that others actually tried to understand her through her accent and thus became life long friends. Keep yuh head up my dude! LOL
ReplyDeleteI honestly find Baruch to be a pretty unfriendly environment. Everyone is always on the go. I've been in Baruch for 4 years and I can't say that I've met anyone in the school that I would consider an actual friend. I'd suggest joining clubs and stuff in the school to warm up to people or something. I really don't think it's your fault.
ReplyDeleteI think you speak English very well and baruch is so diverse that I don’t think a language barrier should effect meeting new people and making new friends I always talk to random people in all my classes and many of the times most of them don’t speak English too well but we communicate well .
ReplyDeleteKG is right on point. I think it's because we attend a commuter school, and to top it off, everyone else is either rushing off to internships or slacking.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with everyone else. I think communication skills is very important in making friends/impressions/relationships. While no one is going to shit on you for your accent (nobody's perfect), I am upset that I cannot make friends with international Chinese students because they refuse to speak in English... and I cannot speak Chinese. It's sad because some of these girls are beautiful.
I agree with KG, Baruch is really hard to make real friends. But it may be that you are stopping yourself because of your own fear of how you may sound. I know that my cousins that came from Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic do this alot. They are extremely self conscious about their english so they prefer to befriend other hispanics.
ReplyDeleteThank you all you guys. I really wondered how other my classmates think about me or other international students. If all these comments are true, I will definately try again. I really appreciate all your comments.
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