Varujan Manukyan

Professor Holly Batty

English 028

5, March 2018

2 languages and 2 lives

Being bilingual is hard for most because usually they have two different lives. As someone

who is also bilingual I know a lot about the struggles, but this essay isn’t about me but everyone

who is also bilingual and may have struggled with it. There are 3 main things I’ve read about that

most bilingual people, mainly students fall into. First being able to adapt to being bilingual,

being in middle and high school is when you get effected by this the most and finally how some

people stuck in between these worlds end up in gangs. Bilingualism has its benefits but that

doesn’t mean that it has things that could hurt bilingual people.

Most people think that bilingualism is just s benefit in life, and it is. The benefits of

bilingualism goes far, speaking two languages can get you different jobs, in school you have

some type of communication with your friends that speak that language and so on. I agree that

bilingualism in the long run has so much benefits. President Barack Obama have even said that

the generations to come should all be at least bilingual. According to The New York Time’s

“Why Bilingual Are Smarter” it states that being bilingual actually makes you fundamentally

smarter, having better cognitive skills that doesn’t only relate to language, and finally protecting

you from dementia in your older ages. But that doesn’t meant that all the benefits don’t have

their downfalls.
 For some people being bilingual is easy, not really worrying about their lives, but some

people don’t and get stuck. A lot of people either visiting or moving to another country it

becomes difficult. Not knowing what to say in what language, sometimes even forgetting some

words or just simply realizing that the people you’re talking to don't get what you're trying to

say. “Relieved to recognize a noun I had known and used for over 20 years…...I forget some

English word or another at least once a day”(Wired, Lizzie Wade). Moving somewhere,

specifically a different country, means that you have to speak the language that's spoken there or

you're going to have a rough time getting around. This quote represents that you could forget

what to say and even words you’ve used for a long time. from Wired,s “Being Bilingual Changes

The Architecture Of Your Brain” a psychologist named Judith Kroll says that “A bilingual's two

languages sometimes converge, but often compete”. Adapting to your bilingualism is hard but

can be shaped from a young age. Speaking about people in their younger days, A lot of

Highschool and Middle School students get stuck in between this as well.

Being able to speak two different languages somehow influences you in a strange way. Of

course being able to speak two languages in school has its benefits, but especially in school it's

hard not to have the languages influence one another. From “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their

Accents” By Julia Alvarez, when the Garcia girls were first started school they didn't really

speak English and were weren't as outgoing as they were when they learned English, the

american english language influence them and the culture they now understood shaped them

differently, but they always had conflicts with being bilingual and not knowing what to say.

Being bilingual also can affect how you study, from Education Week George Thompson said

“There can be no doubt that the child reared in a bilingual environment is handicapped in his
language growth” for most bilinguals learning not only a new language is hard enough, but it's

harder to have an advance in their language composition and etc. Being bilingual in school may

also dictate who your friends are going to be, and some of these kids chose the wrong path and

end up joining a gang or being included in illegal activities.

It's no surprise that some bilingual students may end up doing the wrong things, joining

gangs and what not, but that might be there fault. Growing up as a bilingual student I was torn

between my two cultures and the people I’d hang out with. It was hard for me to chose and I had

days thinking about it, according to Mark Priggs “Two minds: Researchers say people can have

different personalities in each language” that most people who speak two different language may

have two different personality when speaking those languages. I experienced this, when I would

hang out with my Armenian friends, I was completely different when I hung out with my

Hispanic friends. I didn’t know what was going on, and most other students probably felt the

same. Changing and not acting the same when speaking their foreign language. “Go back to

where you came from you dirty spic” (Alvarez 153) this quote speaks to much to have kids can

change to becoming gang members in just one sentence.

In conclusion, there are many benefits to being bilingual but there are also things that put

you down. People are changing day by day and with that many people continue to adapt to it, but

this is why a lot of kids now have trouble adapting to their languages. In America where we’re

mainly a monolingual society it gets harder to live normally if you’re bilingual. I hope one day

this society plans to join in with the rest of us bilingual people to make a change. Bilingualism

has its ups and downs but it doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. It depends on the people who have

the talent to speak two language try to decide where they end up.
 Work Cited Page

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Plume, 2003.

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. “Opinion | The Benefits of Bilingualism.” The New York Times, The

New York Times, 17 Mar. 2012,

mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html.

Bellantoni, Christina. “Que? Obama Says Nation's Kids Should Be Bilingual.” The Washington

Times, The Washington Times, 8 July 2008,

m.washingtontimes.com/blog/bellantoni/2008/jul/8/que-obama-says-nations-kids-should-be-bilin

gual/.

Dailymail.com, Mark Prigg For. “Researchers Say Bilingual People Can Have Different

Personalities in Each Language.” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 20 Mar. 2015,

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3004943/Being-bilingual-really-two-minds-Researcher

s-say-people-different-personalities-language.html.

Crawford, James. “Bilingualism: A Cognitive Advantage or Disadvantage for Children?”

Education Week, 1 Apr. 1987,

mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25919951&bcid=25919951&rssid=25919941&item=http://api.edw

eek.org/v1/ew/?uuid=7FEEB4BE-2FB7-11DB-BD55-CC2980C3ACA9​.

Wade, Lizzie. “Being Bilingual Changes the Architecture of Your Brain.” Google Search,

Google, 15 Feb. 2016,

www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2016/02/being-bilingual-changes-the-architecture-of-y

our-brain/amp.