When Iwas a child, I never thought that one day I would live to speak English. Although learning English has always been considered “very important” in Taiwan, I had never really put much effort into learning it until I moved to the U.S. 
      The parents of my generation who grew up in the after-war time were barely English-educated. However, educated parents were convinced that the more English their children knew, the more competitive and successful they could be in their future. My mom was no exception. She sent me to an English class recommended by her friend. Since English was a totally new world to both of us, my mom sat in the back of the class and took notes while I was learning. That was my first step on the way to English.
          My learning went smoothly and the teacher liked me for being a good student even though I found that English had nothing to do with my real life. To me, it only meant one of the subjects which I had to study, and I just followed the good student’s rule: learn, repeat, memorize, and do homework on time. In class, we spent most of the time learning grammar and vocabulary, but we rarely had a chance to read and talk. Regardless, I could leave English behind right after I stepped out of the classroom.
          Then, I encountered a setback when I was in high school. For some reason, many people had a stereotype that music students had no talent for mathematics but had an aptitude for English, and so did our school. We were both lucky and unlucky to have the best English teacher in the school. The teacher had known nothing about the music class before she took over our class, and she didn’t want to understand us later, either. She controlled us as if we were in a military school and we could never satisfy her high standards. Her demands decreased my interest sharply, and my inner voice started to question why I should learn English. Studying very hard to get a few more points on the exam to please my teacher seemed to make no sense to me. Eventually, I refused to do anything related to English even after I was admitted to the University of my dreams. My aversion made me resistant to traveling to any English speaking countries for many years. I even turned down the opportunity when I was accepted by the Royal Academy of Music in London by the time I graduated from high school.
       At the university, I worked hard and with a passion; meanwhile, like other students, I also dreamed about studying overseas to broaden my world outlook. There didn’t seem too many options left for me if I didn’t want to apply to any school in the U.S. or in England. I decided to start over learning a new language and planned to continue my education in Germany. At that moment, I completely departed from English and stepped on the unknown path toward German, a language considered to be a difficult foreign language for Chinese speakers  and, consequently, much less popular than English. Therefore, I had very limited resources learning German.
        Fortunately, my progress in German was slow but encouraging. I met some dedicated teachers and experienced very different learning styles. The German language has a much stronger grammar structure than English; therefore, it took me a long time to be able to speak out a sentence correctly, putting all learned knowledge together. Now I can still remember the first time I tried to explain something to my German roommate which he could understand. It almost shocked me; I was so excited that Icouldn’t help jumping. All of a sudden, the door to the new world was opened to me, and I realized that when the second language was not for school grades, but for communicating with people, it was much more motivational. The most interesting part for me was being able to see how the language was related to the people’s way of thinking and to their behavior.
      There is a Chinese saying: “You can never escape from what you want to escape; the only way to get rid of it is to face it.” I found it to be so true! Last year in Germany I met a friend’s friend who had just arrived without any knowledge of German. (Was he an English speaker?) In my friend’s absence, I felt responsible for helping him settle down, and the only way to communicate was to use English. Mentally, I didn’t resist speaking English anymore, but practically, I didn’t think I would be able to make it due to lack of practice for years. However, I still tried my best based on all my experiences learning German. Gradually, I could catch the rhythm and feeling of English, and, to my surprise, I remembered some vocabulary dormant in my brain. It was the first time English was fun and not stressful for me.
      Thanks to this experience, I was more willing to return to my road towards English. Although my English still needed a lot of polishing, I was not afraid of speaking. Back in Taiwan, since my neighborhood was close to the Taipei American School, I got a few piano students from there. They either spoke poor Chinese with a funny accent or didn’t speak Chinese at all, and, for their sake, I also preferred teaching them music in English; therefore, I had to learn all of the material in English by myself before each lesson. Sometimes my little students corrected me and taught me new words.
         In September 2009, I moved to California because of my husband’s job. I felt as if I had to make up for those years I neglected English, and that is what I have been doing. Teaching the piano was not a challenge, but listening, writing, and speaking to Americans were truly challenging experiences at the beginning. Thanks to the ESL classes offered by the Fremont Adult School, I could review and enrich my English.  There I met a good teacher who intrigued and energized me.  It is said that a good teacher is a student’s great fortune, and I believe it wholeheartedly.   
          Every time I recall what I have gone through on my way to English, I admit I should have taken English more seriously when I was young. However, regrets don’t help me to move on, and I am already facing the reality that learning English will be an endless fun-filled journey in my life.

Miran

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