Filipino Experience

I am an American Airman of the United States Air Force with a Filipino descent and because of that I’ve been speaking two different languages “English” and “Tagalog” my entire life not counting another major Filipino dialect “Visaya”. Now I would like to share some of my life experiences using those languages on some of the different communities that I belong to. Like how did I manage to switch or move between the language that is being used in my job and the language that I use at home with my family? How did it affect me, how it taught me and how it molded my identity of who am I now. I currently belong to a couple of communities, one of which is the military community that speaks English only at work, and the other, is the

There were times that find it difficult to express my views and ideas with my lack of mastery in English. Oftentimes, my English accent isn’t exactly as “Americanized” and there were times that I got misunderstood. However, I didn’t feel intimidated, but felt challenged instead to further develop my skills with the English language. On the other hand, being able to communicate in two languages resulted into broadening of my horizons on two different cultures and opening of doors for multiracial interactions and

It was rough having a very thick Filipino accent and limited amount of known vocabulary. Sometimes my fellow Airmen couldn’t understand some of the words that I was saying because my accent was too thick. And sometimes I couldn’t actually say what I wanted to say because my English was limited. It took me a little while before I started to fully adjust to the community. Five years had passed and I now speak fluent English without any problems on my words and accent. A couple of months after being in the Air Force, right after basic military training, I started using only one major language. And I did a lot of practicing with my accent, sometimes exaggerating my pronunciation of some English words so people would understand me. There were times, I would read paragraphs out loud and would listen to my own words just to see if I am saying it right and if it has a perfect English sounding accent. Eventually, I got a lot better on speaking English that I have currently no issues with it. Now that I’m a part of a military community, I am only allowed to speak English on duty which gives me a lot of practice and always gives me a chance to improve my English. Within the Military community, there is a lot of us who can speak different languages and being able to communicate with each other is mission critical. Every job, order or a command you