Greetings!
Growing up, one of the things I admired so much about the lives of kids who lived far and close to me was their English-speaking habit. I mean, those ones from up in the city—they always appeared different anytime they visited the not-so-rural area where I was brought up. Back then, my colleagues and I would do our best to keep up with these English-speaking children, joining in with our funny attempts to imitate their accents. We were used to Pidgin English, but it never quite matched or flowed with the way they spoke. As a result, our communication with these kids was never truly enjoyable; it felt more like an inconvenience for us. Yet, we still wanted to experience that inconvenience because we didn't want to feel like we couldn't converse with an English-speaking child.
It wasn't only the ones raised in the city, though. We also had some classmates from very wealthy homes who somehow spoke English just as well as those city kids. I don’t know how they managed it, considering they’d never left our community. Yet, they spoke English at the level of city kids. These children were always the teacher's favorites, and the teachers seemed to side with them constantly. In fact, they were never seen in trouble. Lol.
Another interesting thing about these children was that they appeared very intelligent too. I just couldn’t understand how they did it. To us, it seemed that once a child knew how to speak good English, intelligence was automatically infused into that child's brain. These were the experiences that made me wish I were among the English-speaking kids, just to enjoy whatever favor and sweet lifestyle they seemed to have.
I know a lot of people reading this, especially those raised in the city, might not understand the kind of life in a rural area where fluency in English is a struggle. That’s how it was for us back then. We spoke mostly in vernacular, and the teachers in school tried to curb this habit by placing restrictions on using vernacular in class. Whenever someone was caught speaking vernacular, they either had to pay a fine or receive some flogging. And guess what? The English-speaking kids were always the ones in charge of writing down the names of offenders. Do you see the favor and easy life these kids enjoyed? I wish I had lived that life then.
Well, thank God I continued with school, extra study, and mingling with people. These were the things that improved my speaking ability, and now I can converse with everyone in English without feeling awkward. The thing is, I’m still not perfect. In fact, no one can be completely perfect in this English-speaking journey—especially when considering most African countries.
I enjoyed studying Oral English in secondary school, and I noticed that many people who flaunt their English fluency often have areas where they slip up, particularly in pronunciation. Yes, I may not speak exactly like someone from England, but my ears can certainly catch when someone mispronounces a word.... even till today, I make researches on word pronunciations.
Thanks for reading.
This is my entry to Hivenaija prompt of the week.
Photos were generated via MetaAI