bilinguals 🤝 dyslexics
Hello everyone :)
This is a random post but I wanted to see if any other dyslexics like me have similar experiences/thoughts on this.
So I am from Ireland and was diagnosed at 6 years old. In Ireland we speak English and Irish but English takes the front lead language in our country i.e. schools, jobs and everyday life. most Irish peoples first language is english due to colonisation by the English (I'm attempting to try not give ye a whole history lesson apologies haha) but anyway most Irish people can speak a little Irish too but not on a daily basis, I won't get into the whole reasons/problems of how the language is taught in our country but anyways ahah.
I have many friends that are Irish like me but also friends from other parts of the world and I find talking to my friends who are bilingual is so much easier sometimes than my Irish friends because of my speech issues which aren't a crazy issue but always going to be a part of me i.e. my sister yesterday asked me how a unique name I love is spelled, it starts with C but how the name is pronounced it sounds like an S so my brain straight off the bat said S first before I couldn't even recollect saying how it is actually spelt.
as a dyslexic I often have bad word recall or the words come out funky sometimes you know the drama. But when I make these mistakes it can get really annoying with irish or non-dyslexic people because my friends will interrupt me to laugh about how I phrased or said something which is fine, I am 23 years old, I am well used to it and I do not care and know they don't mean any harm but jesus christ sometimes it does boil my blood cause I just want to finish what I am saying and move on ahaha. Sometimes it can feel like I'm throwing bait to the sharks, I barely have a second to correct myself before someone else steps in to note it.
but with my bilingual friends this never or rarely happens. I have friends who speak Polish, Urdu and Arabic, Romanian, Spanish, etc and I often feel they have the same issues as me when it comes to speaking their second language which is English for them. We misspell things, say words incorrectly or pronounce it funny and we laugh about it but there is room for error and correction whilst talking and what the person was trying to say overall have time to actually correct what they want to say.
Just want to add I have nothing against my Irish friends at all, I love them to pieces and also usually turn those dyslexic moments of mine into learning lessons for them as they aren't dyslexic so they can understand the disability more and I have expressed to them how frustrating it can be to know what you are saying in your head but it comes out a bit messy. And funny enough I had a teacher who I was doing extra home ec lessons with when in secondary school who would pause a lot and look for the word in english as her first language was Irish and which again I fully relate to and It is rare to find Irish people whose first language is Irish over English.
anyways just curious if ye have similar experiences or if ye have any bilingual friends or family and have felt similar to me.
thanks everyone :)