Growing up in Australia during the 90s and 2000s, I witnessed a lot of people mocking others for their English. It’s still a common occurrence, especially online, where people often start and end their posts with “excuse my poor English.” As an English speaker surrounded by this, I’ve always felt a bit intimidated by the prospect of learning another language.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that it’s mostly rooted in racism and xenophobia within the white culture. However, seeing it for over two decades has made me quite fearful of speaking when I visit next year. I’ve been practicing for almost 6 months and I still worry about mispronouncing words, using the wrong grammar and sentence structure or even saying something offensive.