El Hadji Lam  

Freshmen composition  ENGL.110                                                

Professor Alcala         

Cheat sheet 

Trevor Noah’s personal essay titled “Chameleon” is a topic that expresses how powerful language is and how it can help us in society.  Noah attended Maryvale College, a private Roman Catholic primary and high school in Johannesburg. Being the only skin color in his community is associated with his investments issue.The author is writing about himself on how the people treated him because of his skin color. However, it used language as a tool to overcome. He used examples and anecdotes to prove his idea that language is a great power that shapes your personality no matter what race you are or where you are from. He was able to cross over the bridge of that discrimination through language. The author intended to reveal the power of language and its importance in society. In society there are some places where they only respect you because of the way you talk even if your skin is different to them. For example the people who wanted to mug Noah “Yo, guys, why don’t we just mug someone together?…”and he used language with the same accent as them to get out of that situation. It also proves language can even save your life in a situation. You might have witnessed a lot of people in the street being ignored when they need help because you don’t understand or try to make fun of their accent.

The purpose of his writing was to reveal how powerful language is and its importance. However, if you don’t have a good use of it, you are not going to see its importance. Whenever the kids in the street saw me they’d yell, “Indola yomlungu!” “The white man!” Some of them would run away. Others would call out to their parents to come look. Others would run up and try to touch me to see if I was real.” Using himself as an example helps the reader to understand better how useful languages will be. But for Noah it was a different story, people being shocked seeing him or even touched him it is just like seeing a doll. “Living with my mom, I saw how she used language to cross boundaries, handle situations, navigate the world.” I kind of like the quote because I feel a connection to it. It’s my  mother who helped me to cross a lot of barriers. I used to be bullied but she taught me how to be fearless and not worry about what others say to me. Additionally I felt a lot of connection about this article. It feels like the text speaks to me.     

Personally speaking, learning another language wasn’t something I thought I would do until now. I thought that knowing my native language, French and English is just enough. But after reading the article I want to learn more languages so I can socialize with people, even help them. Language can even save your life as you read in the article. Think about it, I don’t know how many times I want to watch an anime that I envy and if I checked and it’s not dub I gave up watching it. I even met a lot of people who needed my help in the station and I feel sad that I didn’t help them because I didn’t speak the same language as them. As an athlete, practicing martial arts by the way, it felt so good if I talked to other athletes in French and shared ideas. But I always feel uneasy  whenever someone talks to me and I turn them down because I don’t speak the same languages as them.