{"id":15499,"date":"2018-02-21T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T17:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=15499"},"modified":"2018-02-19T12:19:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T20:19:04","slug":"unpacking-the-bags-be-proud-of-grammatical-errors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/02\/21\/unpacking-the-bags-be-proud-of-grammatical-errors\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpacking the Bags<\/em>: Be proud of grammatical errors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYour problem is that you\u2019re still thinking in Portuguese.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve lost count of how many times I\u2019ve heard this phrase in my day-to-day life. It\u2019s common for us international students to hear that our grammar and pronunciation mistakes are the fault of habits that we\u2019ve picked up from speaking our native language.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t believe this is totally true. If so, it means that we have to accept the fact that we can do nothing to improve except be patient. This is one of the great factors that discourages international students, both at college and at work. After all, it\u2019s impossible simply to stop thinking in our language.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Unpacking the Bags<\/em> is a column giving advice for international students appearing in every issue of Nexus<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So what should we do? The first thing is to understand that our difficulties with English grammar are the result of a lack of studying English, not a barrier generated by language. I studied four years of Portuguese grammar during my journalism degree. It was four years of great dedication and deep study in the language that led me to rarely make grammatical mistakes. Of course, I can\u2019t expect myself to have the same performance now that I am writing my academic papers in English; after all, my time in Canada does not compare with years of dedication in Brazil.<\/p>\n

In fact, I believe that international students have an excellent advantage when it comes to learning a new language. Most of us already have previous work or schooling experience that allows us to know exactly what we need to do to succeed.<\/p>\n

Plus, to get here today, we overcame differences, distance, loneliness, and many challenges. Just as no knowledge comes without a lot of work, no deficiency is overcome with patience alone.<\/p>\n

So I do not intend to stop thinking in Portuguese. I\u2019m proud of being able to speak more than one language, of being able to laugh after every expression that I use that doesn\u2019t exist in English. I\u2019m also proud of learning from my mistakes, which include my grammatical errors (which will not last long). They represent another stage of my life that brings adventures and new challenges. I do intend to learn English and walk my way in Canada with the same willpower that made me leave my country. I am also proud to be living in another city, of having the courage to completely change my life, and of how well I\u2019m doing here.<\/p>\n

Maybe I can even say that I already feel a bit Canadian (with an accent) and I\u2019m proud of that, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYour problem is that you\u2019re still thinking in Portuguese.\u201d I\u2019ve lost count of how many times I\u2019ve heard this phrase in my day-to-day life. It\u2019s common for us international students to hear that our grammar and pronunciation mistakes are the fault of habits that we\u2019ve picked up from speaking our native language. But I don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-february-21-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15500,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15499\/revisions\/15500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}