Nosebleed? Here’s Why You Might Lack Fluency

“Josee, the Tiger and the Fish” is one of my favorite anime movies so far, and I’m still fairly new to anime because I only started getting into it during the pandemic. But if you’ve watched a lot of anime shows, you may be familiar with the trope wherein a character’s nose bleeds when they get too excited over something. Here in the Philippines, it’s become an expression to say that your nose is bleeding when a language becomes too deep for you to understand. Oftentimes, people may not be fluent in a language because of their lack of exposure, practice, and motivation.

Nelson Tana’s study on what influences the level of proficiency among Filipino secondary students says that learning the Filipino language can be difficult because of the vast cultural differences and dialects in the country. Some of our youth cited their environment growing up as a reason why they lack proficiency in Filipino, as some were raised in non-Filipino-speaking parts of the Philippines, like in the Visayas region. This could explain why most of my friends from Cebu could communicate better in English than in Filipino.

For others, it had to do with the people they were exposed to growing up. Some of the reasons why the youth speak primarily in English is because they were exposed to people who spoke more English than Filipino during their upbringing. This caused them to adapt to the preferred language of the people around them, whether peers or family. This could also be attributed to some Filipino youth being of mixed ethnicities, where one of their parents are a foreigner, and their family having to migrate from place to place, which forces them to use English more since it is a universal language.

When you are not exposed enough to a language, you could be using it less, which could mean you’re no longer honing your proficiency skills. I’m reminded of these two popular principles, “Practice makes perfect” and “Use it or lose it.” Ruanni Tupas and Beatriz Lorente’s study on Bilingual Education here in the Philippines mentioned that bilingual education in the Philippines plays an important role in teaching proficiency in Filipino and English. They argue that schools play a big influence on the youth’s language skills.

There are a few youths who have also shared how they are conscious about how they speak the respective languages they struggle with, their accents, and their fear of using wrong grammar, almost preventing them from pursuing the language further. They worry that their grammar is wrong, or often can’t find the right words to say. They find the need to gather their thoughts for longer before sharing them with others. That is why school is a good place for youth to practice their reading, writing, and speaking skills by doing their best in their language subjects and constantly communicating with their friends, classmates, and teachers. This would greatly help improve their language proficiency and give them the confidence to speak.

However, the world is no stranger to language discrimination. There are many instances all around the world wherein people are mocked for not being fluent in the English language. This is what loses people’s motivation to learn. The Philippines is no exception to this. Some participants have mentioned that they have experienced bullying or being shamed for not being fluent in a language, and this unmotivates them from wanting to speak or learn the language more.

Kyrah Porras’ study on language shaming practices online found that Filipinos seem to have a superiority complex for the English language, which greatly motivates the language shaming that occurs in the country. She focused on one Facebook page that revolves around making fun of English grammatical errors committed by Filipino netizens and saw that these people who lacked proficiency were judged by others and seen as shameful and lacking educational attainment, which caused users to overthink about how they use their English or be doubtful of their English use due to their fear of lacking proficiency in the language. Netizens would try to dissociate proficiency and superiority as a response towards hateful comments because it was common for users to associate a lack of proficiency with low intelligence. This is referred to as “Linguistic Insecurity.”

Improving your language skills can be challenging, especially when you’ve got people around you who don’t believe in you or would even shame you despite your best efforts. But in these situations, the best course of action would be to ignore all the doubters and focus on you – working and getting better. Silence all the negativity and listen to the people who genuinely care to see you grow and become the best version of you. It may not be easy. You may be feeling a little anxious or scared, but there are people out there who got your back. You are not alone in this journey. And if you are in search of friends or a community of Filipino-English language learners, feel free to join us here.