Even though I am from Brazil, speaking english was always something required in my life. During this week in my 11 AP English class, we have been discussing different types of english and how they differ from each other but continue the same big and known english. For example, at home I speak broken english, actually, a mixture of Portuguese and English, at school I speak -or at least I try, a formal English as I was taught in my English school back in Brazil; and when with friends, I speak a mostly “slanged” english, and when I say slanged I mean the terms that American people created to communicate with people whom they have intimacy with, like when you say “wyd?” instead of typing the whole “what are you doing?”, because of course, that would be too much work...I must particularly confess that whenever people use “slanged” english to joke around and I don’t understand, I got to a point where I just laugh along with the group. And also, of course sometimes my brain gets tangled and I end up saying “c’mon bro” to my dad or to my french teacher, but the point is, why is it wrong?
The funny thing is that society consider as politeness to speak formally with a straight tone to those who you should be more respectable with, colloquially and more chill tone with those who you have more intimacy but still respects too much to use slangs, and finally, informally with slangs and terms that you would usually use with your friends because they will understand that you are lazy enough to text “wbu” instead of “what about you”.
I learned a lot of things in my english school, but one thing that they forgot to teach me and that it is crucial are the slangs used by Americans and other english speakers. I went to a British school, so everything was formal and super strict….and then I went to an American school, and it is fair to confess that I was lost whenever people used even the -considered by most,easiest slangs, “hmu”, “w/o”, “wyd” etc… If you are reading this and you plan to move to another country or any other situation where you will be required to speak another language, my advice for you is to do not forget that actual people are pretty different than the people from the language books that are paid to teach you how to speak formally; go for the slangs!!
Ultimately, I will finish this blog post with three pictures; one of them is a picture of my family to represent “standard” english, one picture with my friends at a party to represent the colloquial language where we use slangs, and the last picture is from my prom to represent the school years where I had to speak the most formal english with teachers and staff. Hope you like it :)
I find it intriguing how informal a person can get when they're talking to their friends and why they don't talk to anyone else like that. It's because they're so comfortable with them but it's still very strange to me
ReplyDeletePenélope I really liked reading about your 3 Englishes because I think your perspective is very unique in that you were taught formal English in Brazil, but you were never taught the slang used everyday in American Teenage lives. How do you think knowing a formal version English helped and hurt you in your transition from Brazil to America?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog so much, I find it amazing how your English is so fluent although it is not your first language, but if I had not already known you I probably would not have been able to tell it wasn't. Adding onto Jenna's comment, has it been easy to catch onto the slang that has come about after you already living here?
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