![[OPINION] The guilt of being born and raised Filipino, but having English as your first language](https://i.headtopics.com/images/2023/8/12/rapplerdotcom/opinion-the-guilt-of-being-born-and-raised-filipin-opinion-the-guilt-of-being-born-and-raised-filipin-1690228385375526912.webp)
FromOurArchives: 'English is my first language, the one I hear in my head when I think, the one that just rolls right out of me when I need to convey something, anything.'
I was born and raised in Metro Manila, to fully Filipino parents, in a fully Filipino household, and had never based myself outside of the country. But if you told me to hold a conversation or write an essay in the Filipino language right now, you would be subjecting me to a daunting, maybe even frightening, task.
I, and many others, grew up in an English-speaking household and studied in a private school that favored speaking in English. Consequently, I wasn’t exposed to Filipino as much. Because of that, probably in the same way that musicians are best bred at an early age, I missed out on that precious sliver of time when Filipino could have been ingrained into me more organically.
The bizarreness persists to this day. My job involves going through a ton of writing submissions, and whenever I do get a piece in Filipino , I need to coordinate with fellow editors to make sure that what we put out is well-written, which I sometimes have a hard time identifying. Sometimes, I think a piece reads perfectly fine, only to be advised later on that it is actually quite messy or amateur.
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