I glanced at some of the older blog entries and discovered to my dismay that I still have lapses in the use of prepositions. It bothers me because things like when to use on/at/in should be a breeze, especially for an alleged English major. There is nothing more annoying than bad grammar. I like words to flow with ease from whoever is speaking/writing. Most of the time, you go with the first thing that comes into your head. Then later on you will realize that there's been a slip, a lapse in tense, aspect or an awkward preposition, you want to slam your head against the wall. How could you have missed that?

It occured to me that perhaps I should take up French again. A foreign language allows you to see things from a different perspective. You will have to assume another frame of mind where a particular language and culture makes sense. Abandon all thought in English, and then it makes sense why "au fond de la salle" is "at the back of the room." Of course. An action continuing, yet to be completed requires a form of verb different from that action that's been long over.

But this presents a handicap: We live in a country with so many tongues that does not in a way resemble French or any of the Romance languages. It would be more pragmatic to take up Cebuano or Ilocano and actually understand what's being said around you. But I've long found out that I can never go beyond saying Para and Magkano ito in any of the regional languages. It's always the wrong curling of the vowels, the hard stump of consonants and nasal intonations. I tried to listen to the flow of the words, and attune myself to the rhythm of speech and syntax, and failed miserably in that pursuit. It makes me feel like a stranger, in my own land, with all the conversation going around me and I couldn't understand why everyone was laughing. There is no other choice but to watch the unfolding of arms, the occasional nod, the knotted brows, or the wide smiles.

This is the downside of being raised in Manila all my life, with no province to go to on summer vacations, of not being let out of the house to play tumbang preso with the neighborhood kids, and learning how to speak Tagalog in preschool. Somewhere here is an anomaly. While I can process both speech and thought in both English and Filipino, the end product is something of a hodgepodge. The thought conceives itself in one language and then comes out as speech in a fractured, two-pronged, broken eludition of words. The flaw manifests itself in the writing: while conversation can sustain the imperfection, seeing the lapse standing out from a page renders the imperfection real and subject to scrutiny. You seek to amend it, and take refuge in the idea that perhaps, the third language will solve the problem. But at the back of your mind, you are resigned to your fate that you will forever be burdened by the confusion of tongues.