Ursula Hegi's Blog

When I came to America as an eighteen-year old, my written English was quite good because I had studied English in School since I was nine years old. But it was the English of German nuns—the Ursulines, then the sisters of Sacre  Coeur—and countless words were missing: curses, slang, certain body parts.



Speaking English was much harder than reading it. Often I felt so slow that I stayed silent rather than risk not being understood. "Huh?" people would ask. If I'd repeat what I'd just said, they'd ask again, forcing me to repeat myself until I was whispering with embarrassment.



I loved the lack of formality, but it confused me when Americans told me, "I'll see you." A few times I asked, "When?" But I stopped that question because it startled people. Besides, they didn't visit.



Gradually, I started thinking in English. At first just a few sentences, maybe ten percent, then more, until it got to be forty percent, fifty. One day I realized I'd been thinking entirely in English for some time. Except for counting. Occasionally, I still count in German. Sometimes I dream in German. Many immigrants have similar experiences as they shift from one language to another.



I knew I had a German accent when I spoke English. After all, preschoolers liked to ask me, "How come you talk funny?" But it stunned me when I visited Germany and was told that I spoke German with an American accent. I realized that, wherever I was, language would mark me as a foreigner. It emphasized that sense of not belonging to either place, of living on that ever-shifting border between my country of origin and my adopted country.



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