[ModusOperandi]

Boy did I have a hard time learning English. You see, I’d moved from my native country to Kenya and in order to communicate effectively, I had to learn English AND Swahili at the same time (Kenya’s native language is Swahili but English is widely used since Kenya was a British colony). Needless to say, a new environment -- coupled with new cultural norms, placed alongside two distinct languages -- does not a happy Modus Operandi make. :P

All in all, to make an extremely long story slightly more tolerable, I ended up learning English from the media (I grew up watching silly shows like neighbours, Egoli etc.) and Swahili from communicating with friends and neighbors (which, surprisingly, made my English acquisition process worse). I was young at the time, so I had a hard time creating distinctions between some English terms and Swahili terms since there was something called “sheng’ ” in Swahili which can be loosely translated into “slang.” Sheng’ is mostly the morphing of some Swahili words and also includes the fusion of English and Swahili. I guess you can call it a slightly distorted, youth-inspired, yet an unconventional creole language.

Of course, as I grew older and started delving into the academic world, it didn’t take long for my teachers and tutors to swat the distinctions into me. After that, with all the amounts of mischief and disciplinary caning (I was a delinquent) that went into my primary education, I managed to walk away with the ability to, at the very least, express myself effectively in either of the languages.