I started kindergarten knowing absolutely no English since I had always spoken Japanese at home until then. Although I don’t remember, it was probably frustrating to have been a child who couldn’t communicate with people around me but I was able to very quickly catch up on my level of English. I learned how to do simple math (multiplication, division, etc.) in Japanese so whenever I would do math in school (even now), I would say the math operations in Japanese in my head. Also, I feel like I picked up a new language (Spanish) faster than my English-only speaking peers so I think knowing another language helped with that. I like being able to have private conversations with my family in public without worrying about people understanding what we’re saying but it’s also annoying when people look at you differently due to speaking a different language in public.
