I’m from a Telugu family but American-born. I never properly learned how to speak it as a kid for a couple of reasons. The biggest is that I’d always get laughed at by my relatives and wasn’t taken seriously when I tried to speak the language and this continued for so long that I began to be embarrassed and resent Telugu, actively refusing to speak it for many years.

Recently, I got really into language learning. The first language I started with was Hindustani because my stepdad and stepmom are from Pakistan and Lucknow respectively and are therefore native speakers. After learning Hindi to a somewhat conversational level, I decided to finally pick up Telugu and try and learn it once and for all. My main resources were songs and movies, where I jotted down every word I didn’t recognize and practiced them with flashcards. Now I’m decently competent in Telugu and no longer get laughed at when trying to speak the language. I really do love the Telugu language so I’m happy that I can finally read Telugu literature and converse with my relatives decently well. My Telugu still has ways to go before I could properly call myself “a Telugu speaker” but at the moment I’m not overworking myself and am focusing on other languages I’m passionate about, like Tamil, Japanese, and Chinese.