Youth Camp in a Second Language

It was Friday evening. I completed my last exam and went home to get everything ready for camp. I was so excited to attend AYC in America. I would meet heaps of people and was hoping to make some new friends. I was so looking forward to it. There was only one little problem: It wouldn’t be in my mother language—Dutch.

Millions of questions were going through my mind: What if they don’t understand me? What if I say something wrong? Will they laugh at me?

When I arrived in America, everything seemed to be going fine at the airport. I even successfully translated for two boys who only spoke French and didn’t know Dutch or English.

As my brother and I finally arrived at camp, I could hear many people speaking English, which was confusing at the beginning. I saw so many new faces come up to me and begin to talk to me—in English!

People mostly understood me, but sometimes I had to repeat things because of my European accent, which seemed to be pretty funny. I tried to speak as normally as possible, but apparently there was something funny about the way I say “Don’t do that!”

I enjoyed camp in a different language. You learn so much more from it than just listening to an English song or watching an American movie. This was such a lovely experience. I would definitely do it again as I enjoyed it so much! I learned new words such as poking (I had no idea what it meant before I came here), Gatorade (I’ve never heard of it in my entire life!) and chapstick.

The hardest part about camp in a second language was that I had to repeat words if no one understood me. I wasn’t always sure whether I pronounced a word correctly or not. When you cannot understand or say something, and there’s no one to help you, you feel really helpless!

But speaking another language for two weeks was so much fun. At the end of camp I even started to sometimes think in English, and I dreamt in English as well, which was sometimes scary.

But no matter how much I love English, I’ll stick to Dutch for the rest of my life!