10 Issues Bilingual People Have (Pt.2)

If you haven’t read my previous post of 10 Issues Bilingual People Have, make sure to check that one out as well. Due to all the positive feedback and requests I’ve gotten, I just had to post a second part. Here goes!

1 – Feeling as if you don’t fully belong anywhere. Because I’m a hundred percent Moroccan, I don’t “suffer” from this issue as much as my half-blooded friends, but it’s not that serious to be honest. In fact, most of us/them consider this to be a plus most of the time.

2 – Never being satisfied by subtitles or actors’ attempts at speaking your language(s). OMG, the amount of times films made gibberish pass for Arabic is ridiculous. I’ve just seen The Kingsman a couple of weeks ago and the first scene where Liam Neeson “speaks Arabic” whilst on a mission was absolutely silly. Also, outsiders-aka film makers-think that Arabic in Africa is the same as the Middle-East, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Therefore, hiring Moroccans to play roles of Middle-Easterns or vice versa ends up almost always failing.

3 – People expect you to know every single place in your country. Even if I were to live in the same country I was born in for the rest of my life I wouldn’t know every single spot. Why do people keep having these expectations? You tell me. 

4 – Forgetting words in your native language. I always feel embarrassed-I know I shouldn’t-when someone asks what a certain word is called in “my language”. They suddenly belittle you when you can’t answer, simply because you forgot after not using it for a while. To be honest, I’d sometimes come up with a random word just to get them off my back. Hashtag sorry not sorry.

5 – Using a cocktail of swear words. There is certainly something for everyone when I start swearing. 

6 – When you’re asked to say something in a foreign language. That’s always the closest I get to feeling like a circus monkey. 

7 – Being a joke. I know it comes from a good place, but when people mock a certain word or the way you talk in a foreign language for too long, it becomes offensive. If anyone reading this finds themselves actually doing it, I’m asking you on behalf of the person you’re making fun of to please stop. 

8 – Having a too complicated case to explain. Take me for example, I understand French, I can watch a whole film or read an article and understand pretty much everything, but for the life of me I cannot speak it that good and certainly not write it! 

9 – Turning into Google translate when only you can understand a certain language. A lot of my friends will relate so bad to this I’m sure! Remembering the times we had to translate conversations at school or during gatherings to a parent because they don’t speak/ understand the laguage being used.

10 – When you can’t understand your country’s slang because you haven’t been there in ages. Needless to mention the humiliation when either being there, or bumping into people from your native country during holiday who would start a conversation with you only to realize their speaking to a grandma who has been living under a rock for the past ten years or so.