My proficiency in written Chinese and oral Cantonese is not perfect, but at least I have published two novels in Chinese. I dream in Chinese and if my brain have a native language then that will also be Chinese.
I have to admit that my proficiency in English is not as good. It may not be a problem in 80% of life. I talk with my wife, my mother even my boss in Cantonese. I can also buy myself something to eat in McDonalds without speaking a single English word.
The thing is getting more complicated after this September. It is because I am now a tutor in a so-called "International University" and I need to teach a cohort of would-be journalists Excel and Statistics, IN ENGLISH.
I know that my oral English is hardly intelligible. I can feel the pain that my students are suffering because of the difficult subject itself and my poor instruction.
I always admire my colleges. Their skin colors are yellow, some of them are white. They are mostly educated in foreign countries, with perfect non-Chinese accent English and good confident. Yeah, the classical elites. Not me, a classical dumbass with an asshole-like attitude.
I have a very poor English foundation and it is impossible to fix. I don't care about the style of my English but I need my English to be clear and correct. I need to proof read my written English constantly for multiple times to make sure it is correct. (Yeah, I am still proof reading this blog post and there are still numerous grammatical errors) On Facebook, when I talk to someone in English, I can feel their pain too. Preposition is always wrong. I always confuse at/on/in/by before a place or time. I also tend to use or/and incorrectly. Not to mention the biggest problem: tense. I can write a blog post in broken English entirely on my style of broken English. But I am really shame about it so I think I should cut it short.
My language is my biggest hurdle to express myself. Speaking more broken English will just make my English more broken.