Being Urhobo but Struggling to Speak My Language

I think I'm the wrong person to ask about my native language, of how easy or difficult it is to learn it. And that's because even as a native from that place, I know very little about speaking the language. Even though I was able to blame my dad for not using it with us while we were growing up, it's no longer his fault I don't know it.

My native language is beautiful, no doubt. I enjoy it when people use it around while I was growing up but the sad part was, it wasn't used often and what even sealed it for me not to learn it was that, whenever I tried to speak, they'd laugh at my pronunciations. I think right from the beginning, I've had an accent in speaking in our language.

Thankfully, I can hear very well, to the point where no one can say something wrong about me or give a good remark about me that I can't tell what has been said in English. It's been quite helpful in communicating with my grandma in instances where she can't find a word in English to use for me to understand her stories in storytelling time.

So if you ask me, how easy do I think my language is to learn? I'd say it's easy but not easy, like many other language from my experience. It only depends on how much of an interest one has in the language to decide how far and how well one will go in learning the language. I must say, it's a bit difficult for me to learn the language.

The reason is very simple and clear, I've got no interest to learn how to speak it anymore. I think I've gotten accustom to an accent that won't help me to pronounce the language I hear so clearly, anymore. Or maybe it's only because I don't have the interest or a good reason to learn it more intentionally because the accent isn't the barrier.

Learning the Urhobo language is easy but I think aside having the interest, being around people who speak it often is one of the ways it is learned easily. If you're the only one learning from a person or online or a small corner, I can bet that it won't be so easy to learn because the trick to learning new languages is hearing it very often.

So it's going to be a bit difficult to learn for someone who isn't living in Delta, and by Delta, I mean the places who the Urhobo language is spoken often like it's a first language there. So a good headstart is living right in the midst of people who are speaking in that language but not all can get such a chance, still it's not so difficult.

Well, since I've never really learned my language, I can't be so sure of how difficult or easy it would have been for me if I had to relearn a language I've learned before. But for a positive and interested mindset, my native language is an easy language to learn once you get the basics.