tapestry 17岁华裔女孩凭一篇作文被哈佛耶鲁录取，来感受一下这开挂的人(2)

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.” 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.

在我们家，“cast”（抛掷）和“cash”（）没有分别，这就是为什么在教会退休会，人们常常取笑我说的“cashing out demons”（本应为“casting out demons”，赶鬼）。我一直没有意识到这两个英语单词之间的差异，直到老师纠正了我的hammock、ladle、和siphon的发音，才恍然大悟。同学们笑我，因为我将accept（接受）读成except（除外），将success读成sussess。尽管我参加了创意写作，但常常词不达意。

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，只懂得“flower”和“flour”发音相同是不够的。我开始逐渐摆脱那些伴随着我长大的、教会了我一切的英语，既然其他人的父母都能说一口博士、大学教授般的流利英语，为什么我的父母不能呢？

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

我的母亲摊开她那双饱经日晒的双手说：“我就是从这儿来的”，接着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.”

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