It’s a normal day at Smoky Hill high school. You make small talk with your peers, listen to lectures, and write essays. Most of the work is in English and thus you speak English at school. But when you go home, you are greeted by your guardians asking whether you had a good day at school, and you reply with sí.

According to CNN.com, about 13.4% of the U.S. population speaks Spanish at home. Spanish is the most common language other than English that is spoken at home. In the united states 10.9% of people speak Russian. Russian is the third most commonly spoken language in the United States other than English.

According to world atlas.com, the primary language spoken at home in the United States is English. This would make it hard for some kids in the United States that are bilingual or who only learned one language other than English to be able to function around others who are fluent in at least English.

For some students at Smoky Hill High School, there is a complete difference in their culture at home than the culture at school or other places in public by fellow peers.

This is the same for Freshman Nargis Khodjaev. At school, Nargis speaks the primary language of English, but at home, she speaks Russian. “ Well, we don’t speak a lot of English at home because our rules are different when we go home. My family always speak Russian when we talk to our parents and almost always speak it at home but I always speak English when I’m school.”

Everyone has their own style no matter where you go in the world or what culture they celebrate.

“When I’m at school I like to dress normally because I like to wear my nice clothes at home and when I go out because it’s important to me and my family.”

Allison Moreno is a Freshman at Smoky Hill and speaks three languages Spanish, English, and Portuguese. Her newest language is English, but she continues to improve on it. She said,” I’m new to English but I’m still learning it but it was definitely one of the hardest languages to learn. I’m so proud to be Latino and I love Colombia and Mexico.”

Three percent of the world’s population speaks more than three languages fluently. “It’s so cool being able to speak more languages because you can talk about people and they won’t know and it will give you more chances to get a job and it’s impressive to people too.” Said Moreno.  She loves speaking other languages and really wants to learn more. Next year at Smoky Hill she would like to take french.

CNN Article: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/20/us/english-us-official-language-trnd/index.html