To this day, almost two decades after the fact, I still remember my first English class. Perhaps, I should say fragments of it. My kindergarten teacher was demonstrating to us, a group of four-year-old Russian children, how to correctly say the “th” sound in English. “You put the tip of your tongue between your teeth and try to make a sound,” she said. We were not old enough to fear learning a second language, fretting a behemoth of the unknown, or worrying over the unfamiliar grammar and syntax. The English class in that private kindergarten in Saint-Petersburg was not anything out of the ordinary. Now, twenty-one years later, with a BA in Literature and an ability to speak English as well as my first language, I believe that my life took a turn as early as in my fourth year on Earth.
I was born in Saint-Petersburg, where I lived until the age of nine, which was when my family moved to Moscow, the capital. It was there, in the suburban seclusion of grey apartment buildings and half-built parks of early 2000-s Russia, that I was able – nay, forced, by my loving but ever so slightly overbearing mother – to attend English classes three times a week, for four years. it was expected of me to excel at a language that did not mean anything to me. Still young, I did not understand what the point of learning English was; however, it all changed at the age of twelve, when by sheer luck and circumstance I was sent to London for a week on a school trip.
Years later, after already having had moved to the US, in my college admissions essay for Pace University, I spoke extensively about that trip to the capital of the UK. That short March week completely changed the way I viewed English and its utility. After years of pointlessly studying phrase verbs and the needlessly complicated tenses (Russian only has three, whence English – twelve), I could finally use my knowledge. Something as basic as being able to order coffee (unlike my classmates), or chatting with locals about the weather, or even understanding the tour guide, made me thrilled beyond measure. I saw a whole another world, where people spoke a different language, the one that was not my own, yet I understood it, imperfectly, but better than my peers. Upon my return to Moscow, I have announced to my parents that I plan to leave Russia for good as soon as I can.
At the age of seventeen, I graduated high school and set out to do as I planned – leave for an English-speaking country. At that point, I already spoke English on a level far superior to my peers; so, I thought I was fluent. Yet, nobody really tells you how difficult it really is to make a foreign tongue your own. I barely passed my TOEFL examinations and was not able to attend a four-year university. Desperate for any kind of higher education, I enrolled in a community college. There I was, in a suburban landscape of Westchester, NY, not even old enough to drink, entirely by myself, trying to master a language I already thought I was fluent in.
Miraculously, I never felt discouraged. I spent three long years getting to the point of being able to attend college; then a couple more finishing my English degree. Each semester was a struggle – loaded up with literature courses, I demanded excellence out of myself. Today, I claim that I am bilingual, and I know that I am. I write in English just as well as I do in Russian, I dream in it, I even talk to myself in it. There were many obstacles to overcome, but I am proud to say that I have succeeded.
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