Not long ago, I was chatting with a friend about planning minors in college, and I said I would probably learn Latin, but I didn’t immediately invite a proper explanation.

Indeed, the endless pursuit of more knowledge in language had claimed me for a long time, with a pride of mine buttressed by some vague and awkward reasons I did not manage to realize, until recently when I have figured out the implication of that long-lasting sentiment and reconsidered it.

I’ve being taking pride in my seemingly exceptional ability to learn English, as a secondary language, ever since I uttered the first few alphabets for the first time in elementary school. Then I sought for satisfaction in virtually every single aspect of English learning at school, like a ravenous prospector in the Gold Rush—I took pride in slightly more accurate pronunciation of a vowel; I took pride in slightly more elegant drawing of a letter; I took pride in finishing slightly earlier when reading an English text together with the whole class—slightly enough not to angry the teacher but earlier enough to demonstrate that superiority each time. Like an experienced craftsman manicuring a piece of leather, I felt in complete control of the English I learned, as if I was turning the steering-wheel merely to adjust direction and adhere to the planned route while the rest of my classmates all struggled in vulnerable sailing boats on an ocean teeming with whirlpools. It was so solid a pride that I believed my sensitivity to language was innate.

I implemented this egotistic feeling quite well especially whenever my deskmate was singled out by the teacher and was detained after school and forced to memorize vocabs. The teacher would often find me packing my backpack, ready to leave, and would politely ask if I was willing to stay for a while and supervise my deskmate, who meanwhile looked at me innocently. I figured that my “ingenuous” teacher couldn’t see through my feigned hurry, so I took an active attempt to frown slightly and put off for a few seconds before uttering the long waited acceptance with a pretended reluctance.

So was my daily life with English for quite a while, and it became quite reasonable that, when later in a summer camp in US with some kids around the same age, I was the “official translator” in our host family. Occasionally, the Taiwanese American father who only spoke English would teach us life philosophy at dinner table, and I would carefully detect the change of his tone and I would slow down my knife and fork whenever a rising tone appeared, which I guess might signal an important point rather than dull details. Then I would nod a few times immediately after his tone lowered back to normal, as if I completely got his idea and couldn’t agree more. The truth is, I didn’t even comprehend enough of what he said in order to decide my stance.

The belief that I could easily regard English as my mother tone started to shake and shatter, since I knew for sure I only managed to understand less than half of those dinner-table lessons, but my vantage of English in general (among my peers) continued to lure me into downplaying the perils of such promising uniqueness. It was until the indelible summer school experience last year did I realize what it means to be truly “unique,” i.e., to be a foreigner.

Initially, I felt totally comfortable be in US, for I’ve managed to chat with my TA and mentors with ease. But such was revealed to be an illusion.

Most difficult was to participate in conversations with American kids. One day, Hannah, one of my classmates, was sharing her other course on creative writings during the break, when she said, “It’s amazing to get to read all those excellent short stories from your classmates. I guess we all have great creativity.”

And the class broke out into rapid exchange as usual.

“So what did you write about?” “I always find it hard to create my own fiction.” “I think it’s great fun talking ‘bout things you actually like.” …

I felt I should demonstrate the spirit with which I chatted with shopkeepers, so I took an attempt to participate, “So have you done some actual writings?”

Suddenly it felt like the enormous room quieted down and shrank, with many gazing at me. I realized I might have asked the question not fluently enough, but my face was so burned that I felt much more stupid than that. And then I vaguely recalled Hannah seemed to have already said she had an assignment on short story. It must have happened in a sentence before and previous one she said, and I must have missed the information when I was still thinking about the sentence before that. Okay I get it, I cannot match with how fast they speak, it’s going to frustrate me the entire summer, I guess, I murmured silently.

But the truth can never be too disappointing. Later that day, I was at the counter ordering a cappuccino, when the hostess asked me, “For here?” “Take-away,” I said. She stared blankly and hesitated a second or so, and laughed. A customer in the queue laughed. What’s wrong this time, I wondered. As if totally understanding my concern, the customer instructed, “We don’t say ‘take-away’ here, we say ‘for here, or to go,’ people say ‘take-away’ in Australia anyway.” So now it worried me more that I might still get it in the wrong way even though I knew the right thing to say.

I since then feel virtually isolated in that world where the English they speak is what matters for everything. And I don’t speak the English they speak, or at least not in the way they speak, which is the very discrepancy that marks me a foreigner. Now I guess people may not like me so much in elementary school, at least during the English classes, when I might have made them feel like foreigners. Or maybe I was the foreigner, as “foreigner” sometimes denotes abnormalcy. For so long I seemed to have enjoyed the abnormalcy. It does serve to build up my intensive pride as an excellent language learner, but ultimately it is a barrier.

So recently when I heard that the school may encourage learning second foreign languages, I resisted the urge to think about Latin or Ancient Greek or something, but rather delightedly considered Spanish—after all, Spanish is commonly used in America, where I will go for college in near future. Hopefully, less uniqueness as a foreigner, I promised to myself.