萧靖彤的essay全文

In our house, English is not English.

在我们家，英语不是英文。

Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in our house, snake is snack.

不是单词意义上，比如用a来代表apple，而是在发音上。在我们家里，蛇（snake）就是小吃（snack）。

Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.

我们的舌头并不能正确发出这些单词的音。然而，不得不走出课堂和语言学家们会面的我，和出生于马来西亚的把拼读flim当作film的我母亲，依然能够理解对方的意思。

In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for “cashing out demons.”

在我们家里，cast（投掷）和cash（现金）之间并没有任何区别，这就是为什么在离开教堂时，人们拿我开心说“cashing out demons”（兑现恶魔，本意应是丢弃恶魔）。

I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock,ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except， success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.

我没有意识到两个英语单词之间的明显差异，直到老师纠正了我的hammock（吊床）、ladle（钢包）和siphon（虹吸管）的发音。当我把accept （接受）读成了except（除了），success（成功）读成了sussess的时候，我的同班同学都会大笑。我在创意写作最需要语言的时候，却失败了。

Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?

突然，我明白了，仅仅知道"flower is flour "是不够的。我拒绝了那种我曾认为是毫无破绽的英语，虽然它养育了我，并且教会我所知道的一切。但既然其他人的父母，包括那些聪明的博士和大学教师，都说着带口音的英语，我为什么就不能呢？

My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, “This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.

我母亲摊开她那双晒黑的手说："这是我来的地方"，她用自学的英语讲了一个故事。

When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, “That’s enough.”

当我母亲从她原来村庄搬到一个城镇时，她不得不在中学里学习一门全新的语言：英语。她的老师曾经在全班人面前用尖酸的言辞批评她的作文，虽然感到十分耻辱但她无力抵抗。当她开始哭泣的时候，班长站起来说"够了"。

“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”We were both crying now.

母亲含着眼泪说，那个班长保护了她，耐心地为她纠正语言。"她为弱者撑腰，并反击回去。"我们俩都哭了。

My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation.

母亲要我教她正确的英语，这样一来，Target 商场的白人老太太就不会嘲笑她的发音。

It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.

但这并不容易。当我把她的话语拼缀在一起时，会有一种内疚感。长元音、双辅音，这些我自己仍在学习中。有时候我避免让一些只言片语伤害她的自尊心，但也许我已经在不经意时，伤害了她很多。

As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English.

 随着母亲的英语词汇增长，我也努力纠正自己的英语。

Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway.

通过在学校3000人面前演唱诗歌，采访各界人士，为舞台写故事，反对无知，并支持为无家可归者、难民和被忽视的群体发声。我用自己的语言，去反驳一个在纽约地铁遇到的老亚洲街头艺人的嘲笑。

My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.

我的母亲关注那些贫穷的、英语非母语的孩子，这些孩子身上其实有许多故事，但不知道从何说起。我用文字来把这些故事补充完整，就像他们用针头和线纱编织起一幅挂毯一样。

In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.

在我们家里，彼此说话的方式是很温馨的。在我们家里，没有糟糕的英语，只是有点情绪激动。我们在词穷的情况下建造了一座房子。食橱里有友善的"蛇"和碗柜里有小吃。这是一个弯曲的房子，里头有一点凌乱，但我们就在这里打造了自己的家。