It all started with a man and a question by valeria

It all started with a man and a question by valeria - March 2026 Scholarship Essay

A Time that I helped a person in a meaningful way was when i was little, around 5, this man came up to me and asked me in a language that I had a hard time understanding when i was little, at the time I only knew a little of this language but that was because my brother spoke it at home because he was a little fluent in language. The language was English, I didn’t learn much of it, not until I was 10, that’s where I learned how to read and write more English than my native language, Spanish. The man asked me if I knew where this train lead to, at the time I had only went on the city bus once so I only knew a little, I shook my head because I didn’t remember at all where that bus lead to or what stops it had. At the time I wondered why it was so important to even learn English, I thought it was silly to even understand English. I told the man “Me no understand”, the man saw me struggle and he told me something that till this day sticks with m even though I didn’t understand it had a nice rhythm to it, “never lose the opportunity to learn more about another language”. I thought about it all day that day, I wondered if that man's words were an insult or a compliment to my English. Nevertheless, once I grew up, I had and have this passion to learn more than one language because of that man's words, I never knew his name nor what he did all I knew that day is that he was in a hurry, wearing a suit and tie not tied properly.

Something I learned from that experience is that you never need to be afraid to try to learn things that you need at any point in your life, Learning is what makes us better at something that we have a passion for. Like for me, English was and still something I'm passionate on still learning because of all the opportunities just by learning the language, not just school or job wise but because it means more to me to learn a new language than me dropping out of school and never learning about it at all. I learned so many new experiences just by learning English, I have made so many friends and was almost the top of my classes, scoring As and Bs on every report card. Thanks to that man with the question and that lovely quote I learned more than I can imagen, I'm truly grateful for all the chances that I have had to spend with my time learning new things about languages around the world.

The end

Sincerely, Valeria Lemus