Ruth Callado

ENG113A/Professor Lewis
September 6, 2015
I was born in California but was raised in Mexico. Ive lived in
Mexico for 5 to 6 years so Spanish was my first language. I lived with
my uncle, aunt and grandma in a small house in a small city near a
lagoon. I remember going to the lagoon every Sunday singing the
same Spanish song. El Rio de Yautepec was the song my friends and
I would always sing. This would happen every Sunday nights. English
was a language I never had the chance to learn the days I was at
Mexico until I moved to California.
I remember moving into Los Angeles California and entered
school starting second grade at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy. This
school talked both English and Spanish but of course Spanish was a
language teachers would speak to elementary kids who barely started
school. I remember learning the numbers and colors. The color yellow
was one of the hardest words that I would never memorize nor
pronounce. In Spanish yellow is translated into amarillo which was
quite difficult to say. In English I would pronounce yellow as Jello. This is
one of the memories I still have in mind. Spanish was a language I
known for a while but realizing that there were plenty of Spanish words
I still didnt knew what they meant, was one of the hardest parts of my
life since Spanish was my first language.
Learning numbers gave me a quick flashback about a memory I
remember. Counting numbers in Spanish was easy to count, therefore
counting them in English were really complicated to memorize. I
remember skipping numbers or counting numbers out of order. Spanish
numbers sounded way different in English and learning to put them in
order was also one of the challenging times back in elementary school.
I will always think, why other kids knew the numbers in English already.
Well, I come from a family who thought me Spanish as my first
language and realized that I came to California not knowing a single
word in English at all. Entering school and meeting new students was
kind of an embarrassing thing because I came from a whole new world,
and knowing that school in California focused on English was a
language I needed to put an effort on. It was something I needed to
accomplish later in the future.
Another memory of my first language was the day of when I
needed to present my 100 things project. The whole point of this
project was to gather 100 small objects and know what they were
called. Since my first language was Spanish I would name my objects
in Spanish and when it came to presentation day, I had no idea what
they were called in English. I knew some words in English but needed
more improvement. This was one of my most embarrassing moments
because it was a day of where families were invited to watch

presentations and when it was my turn to come up, I have to admit I

was really nervous. Many parents were watching me and I tried my
best in pronouncing each word carefully but at the end, everything
went well. English was not my best subject but I also noticed that
during that time, some Spanish was also a difficult subject to
memorize. Like for example I came to this state knowing new words
and having a full understanding of it.
Spanish was my first language. I have many memorable
moments where I remember that Spanish was the first language I
spoke in my life. Spanish is one of the most wonderful languages in
the world. Spanish allows people to express their deepest feelings in
the most beautiful way. There is nothing more beautiful than hearing
someone talking to you using the Spanish language. The Spanish I
grew up is a Hispanic country where Spanish is the official language,
like Mexico.