Growing up knowing three different languages is like growing up in what feels like three amazing yet different worlds all at one time. I am so grateful that I had the chance to grow up not only communicating with my family differently, but also with people from other nations. I speak English, Russian and Spanish, but Russian is by far my favorite. Knowing these different languages has helped me expand my knowledge on knowing more about important news stories and things going on all around the world, not just the United States. I also feel like I can memorize things well and am pretty good at problem solving because I can see things from many different perspectives.

Being trilingual can be amazing, but also so strange at the same time. Like sometimes in the middle of an English class, I’ll be thinking of something in Spanish or Russian and the teacher calls on me and I have to rewind my brain a little bit to have it come out in English in order to make sense. Yet, the thing I really love is being somewhere and hearing people talk in different languages because I can help them out if they need directions to somewhere or just need help in general. I feel a little bit different with each different language that I speak because I just love being able to convey myself in a different manner.

RUSSIAN

I feel that Russian is such a rich language because you get to say things that are way more complex and expressive than in English and Spanish. I have known Russian pretty much my whole life. My parents would throw in some words for me here and there, but my grandma helped me the most. We read books in Russian together and even studied Russian grammar. I oftentimes think in Russian and then have to speak what I am thinking out loud into English, so people can understand me. I also feel closer to the Russian heritage, and I feel a sort of sense of pride in myself.

SPANISH

I learned Spanish from my entire family because they have the ability to speak it more fluently. I love how the words just roll off your tongue. I went to Argentina over winter break with my family and every person there assumed I did not speak Spanish since I was a young, blonde boy with blue eyes. Most people in Argentina have darker hair along with brown eyes, so the people there just assumed I could only speak English. Quite a few times while we were there, people would be talking about something that was going on, and on occasion, I would respond to what they were saying in Spanish. When I did that, their eyes got so wide that you would have thought they had just seen a ghost or something. Then these Argentinian’s started talking to me more as if they were testing my fluency, and sure enough I had an answer for everything they asked. However, when I came back to America after my two weeks of speaking straight Spanish, I almost felt as if I could not speak English anymore, no matter how hard I tried. However, once I said one word in English, everything was back to normal. It felt almost as if there was this switch in my brain with three different settings and when one switch is on, the rest are off and I have to try to find a way to turn the switch of the language that I want to speak on.

ENGLISH

My whole entire family and surroundings caused me to learn English at a very fast rate. English is obviously the easiest language I’ve learned, since almost everywhere I have gone since I was born was all English speaking. Yet, I honestly think English might be my least favorite of the three because I feel like it doesn’t come off as smoothly as the other two languages do. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy knowing English and all, but it just isn’t one I would choose to speak all the time if I had the option.

I feel like knowing these different languages has caused me to become more open-minded and formed me better as a person with each different language I know. I look forward to being able to use trilingualism in my future if I am in need of a job or if I want to travel around the world. I am also very excited to keep expanding my vocabulary in all of the languages and learning more and more about each culture as I continue to explore them.