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Learning a New Language Is Giving Me an Identity Crisis
Language forms a big part of my identity, and yet I’m uncertain about my second language
I have a bit of a dilemma: I’m no longer certain what my second language is.
This became apparent to me during a casual conversation with my father as we took our elderly golden retriever on a walk around the neighbouring golf course one afternoon.
(Yes, we live next to a golf course. No, nobody in my family plays golf).
The great thing about the golf course is that it’s serene; creeks trickle past winding trails, canopied by great pine trees — look out for the pinecones! — and fields of endless grass, as though made for elderly dogs who still think they’re puppies, stretch far into the distance alongside the playing green; the perfect place to let your mind wander.
That is, until your thoughts are punctuated by a particularly rowdy Egyptian goose or, worse yet, a trio of .
Noisy birds aside, the serenity of the golf course provides the necessary environment for the stimulation of either internal or external philosophizing. And it was during this time that my father and I were engaged in discourse surrounding one of my previous language-learning articles.
