Englishes

In class today, we read an essay titled "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan. She talked about how her mom speaks her own style of English and how people often mistreat her because of it. Amy goes into depth about the difficulties her mom faced and that sometimes she even has to step in to translate when people don't understand. Her mom is Chinese so English is her second language which is why it's hard for her to use it properly. However, this does not signify that her mom lacks intelligence, for instance, she read books that are probably difficult for most people to comprehend. She also follows up with her stockbroker and listens to the news. I know that it has to be frustrating to speak in a way that is natural for you and have people take you as a joke or think that you're mentally ill. I feel that people shouldn't be so simple-minded and realize that English is spoken in many ways. Let us not forget that it is pieces of various languages put together so there is no "boundary." I pronounce words differently or say them too fast where they may sound like rubbish but am I retarded? Not at all. I take Spanish and I don't speak it as beautifully as I should so I would probably sound stupid to someone who was born speaking it. I am interested in all languages and wish to fluently speak a lot of them. To conclude, class was great and not as cold as yesterday. I really enjoyed the discussion.