In 1985, a girl named Macy Ng was born somewhere in the U.S. Three weeks later, her and her family flew to Venezuela, where her parents had their business. She stared to grow up in an environment of learning two different languages, at home Chinese, and outside Spanish. Everything it was a little confusing for her because everybody told differently evens her. At the age of four, her mother and she moved to Hong Kong. At that moment she was clearer, she was learning Cantonese, and some English’s words at school.

After two years, they moved back to Venezuela and she spent thirteen years in another environment, Cantonese at home with her family, Spanish outside with her friends, and some English at school. At the beginning, she was isolated, and afraid to have a conversation because nobody could understand her “Spanish”. Her Cantonese was fine but nobody at school spoke it. But one day, she concluded that she could not be like that for all her life. She was a person who needed to speak up. She started with all her heart to share here thoughts. It was hard for her, but after many years of failing, she completed her goal of communicating.

And her life did not stop there, after she graduated High School, she moved to California until the present time. Her actual environment is Cantonese at home, more English than Spanish at school. She stills in the process of language learning. In her life everything came and went so fast, and we usually finish one work and then start another one, but this girl could not have that choice. She has been exposed to different environment all her life of language learning. It was not easy to learn different language at the same time. She is a strong girl who is fighting for be better in language everyday. As she is doing, I believe language learning should be challenging us to improve on our weaknesses.

According to Rolando Niella in his essay “Barriers,” “tennis is not the main source of my frustrations - this is daily conversation with people,” the author expressed his feeling, that language learning was frustrating for him. However I think we should be challenged because of the importance of personal communication. As Sydney J. Harris once said, “The two words information and communication are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things.” Information is giving out; communication is getting through - his idea is that even we have a lot of knowledge; it is nothing if we do not share it through talking with everybody, listening to others and asking questions about new things.

We ought to understand everything that we are listening to. It is hard for a foreign student to understand a native speaker especially when they are talking with an incredible speed. From Niella’s experience at the cafeteria, the waiter was talking with him with an unbelievable pace. He found himself completely lost, and he did not do anything.

On the contrary, from my experience with my friend Marc Wiesner, the ASFC Vice President of Senate Board when I met him, I could not have a conversation with him. He spoke so fast with me that I did not know what he was talking about. I got so up set about myself. I thought I should not talk with him because I was getting so frustrated. However I could not run away because I am a person who see the problem and face it. I encouraged myself to talk with Marc about my problem. He was so happy that I told him that it was hard for me to understand him. At that point we knew the problem, and we concluded that we should have more conversation even it was so difficult for me. I was working in my listening skills, and he was working in his tempo. We became friends while we were working together with our problems. Right now we can have a conversation. It is not rude to ask to the other person to slow down and say it again. Sometimes is not always our problem may be the problem is the other person.

We have to express ourselves in order to kill our fear of talking. Not like the author isolated himself or looked for friends who spoke the same language. He just lost the game of learning language because someone took away his desire to talk, and discouraged him to express his thought. He did not fight with the devil, his fear. Everybody knows it is hard for non-native speakers to express our thoughts. Sometimes no matter how many times we say it, native speaker do not understand our point.

But that does not mean that we should stop talking because they do not get it. For example, when I talk with my friends, and I want to make my point, but I can not pronounce the word correctly. I would spell the word, and then they probably get my point. In our live, we have good moments and bad moments, sometimes native speakers understand us and other times they do not. Because of one obstacle and give up a new opportunity to communicate with people how speak another language is weak. We could make new friends who have another culture background. If we do not work in our problem nobody is going to do that for us. We are the only one who can destroy our problems. We should take out the phase “forget it”, “whatever”, “nothing” from our vocabulary because they are barriers to improve our talking skills. Even I am not good at talking, but I always make my voice know it.

We must to ask every time when we do not know what the person is talking about. The author was in a new ocean of culture. He was a new fish in the water. I a lot of connotations of words was new for him. It was logical that he could not understand all the jokes that his friends said, or he got the meaning when it was too late.

He had the same problem with non-verbal language. From his essay a guy asked him to turn down his stereo, but he could not understand until it was too late. At the end, he was to mad with himself. We should not blame ourselves because we have never been exposed to the new culture before. Nevertheless as I am with my friends, and they are joking, but I could not understand the meaning. I would ask them and they explained to me. Next time if someone uses the same word, I would know what my friend is talking about. It is the same case when you are in a class, and you do not understand the instructor. There are a lot of things that we do not know. We can not learn everything in one day, or one week. Learning language is a long process.

All in all, learning language is a hard task that a lot of people do. Rolando Niella was frustrating of this weakness. He lost his game in learning language as in the tennis game. Therefore we should work in our debilities. The process of learning language requires all our effort, and courage to speak out, and share our thoughts and listening to others ideas.

It is not easy in the beginning, but we can do it, as Macy Ng did in the past and doing in the present, as she is expressing her thought, and experiences though this essay. It is a big challenge to ourselves, and we should prove to everybody that we can do it. Anthony Robbins said, “I challenge you to make your like a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people, who live what they teach, who walk their walk.”