I always wonder what to say when someone asks me whether my first language is English. For some reason I stubbornly reply " No, Its Hindi". To be honest I am very poor in writing in Hindi. I had Hindi classes for more than 10 years in School and yet.......
Why? Maybe because I haven't had the fortune of meeting a good Hindi teacher. I have changed 6-7 schools in my life and I don't have any special memories of Hindi classes. In high school the Hindi teachers I came across were rude and not at all approachable.
I remember putting my hand up to read a section of the story in class but since I was very slow in reading Hindi, I hardly got a chance to improve and gain confidence. I felt like a tourist in the class which taught my mother language.
I could never understand Maatras (vowel signs). I don't even remember the sequence of Hindi alphabets properly and i feel ashamed of that fact. After passing matriculation, I remember most of us being extremely happy about leaving Hindi behind. By then it had become total pain to be able to perform well in it. If someone asks me to write in Hindi today, I trust online translation software more than myself. This is sad.
Now, when it comes to English, I am not perfect in writing in English but any day better in it than Hindi. This is not only my case. Neither are we absolutely brilliant in English nor do we improve our Hindi. Now I am not really talking about people like my Journalism batch mates and friends for they are supposed to be good at communicating.
However, in general, we are a generation lost in translation. Somewhere in the middle - with Hinglish. I don't know whether this is good or bad. Whether its going to become a new language or just destroy the beauty of Hindi and English.
Again I am only questioning the writing part, the textual part, not the spoken part. Its become quite normal to use Hinglish in everyday conversations, film dialogues, lyrics of songs and even new style of poetry. When I facilitate a workshop or do a presentation, I will fail if i don't assess the language that the participants are comfortable with.
Anyway coming back to the main issue of this blog entry, it would be great if you could tell me what is your first language and how?
Why? Maybe because I haven't had the fortune of meeting a good Hindi teacher. I have changed 6-7 schools in my life and I don't have any special memories of Hindi classes. In high school the Hindi teachers I came across were rude and not at all approachable.
I remember putting my hand up to read a section of the story in class but since I was very slow in reading Hindi, I hardly got a chance to improve and gain confidence. I felt like a tourist in the class which taught my mother language.
I could never understand Maatras (vowel signs). I don't even remember the sequence of Hindi alphabets properly and i feel ashamed of that fact. After passing matriculation, I remember most of us being extremely happy about leaving Hindi behind. By then it had become total pain to be able to perform well in it. If someone asks me to write in Hindi today, I trust online translation software more than myself. This is sad.
Now, when it comes to English, I am not perfect in writing in English but any day better in it than Hindi. This is not only my case. Neither are we absolutely brilliant in English nor do we improve our Hindi. Now I am not really talking about people like my Journalism batch mates and friends for they are supposed to be good at communicating.
However, in general, we are a generation lost in translation. Somewhere in the middle - with Hinglish. I don't know whether this is good or bad. Whether its going to become a new language or just destroy the beauty of Hindi and English.
Again I am only questioning the writing part, the textual part, not the spoken part. Its become quite normal to use Hinglish in everyday conversations, film dialogues, lyrics of songs and even new style of poetry. When I facilitate a workshop or do a presentation, I will fail if i don't assess the language that the participants are comfortable with.
Anyway coming back to the main issue of this blog entry, it would be great if you could tell me what is your first language and how?
