My Journey

I have a disability called cerebral palsy which affects my ability to speak, however I have a real talent for foreign languages. I have been speaking French since the age of ten but in February 2020 my life changed when I hired a new personal assistant who had just come over from her homeland in Germany.

I have always thought it respectful to know some of a person’s mother tongue so I took the time to learn basic German and by the time she started I knew how to do basic greetings . My new employee was quite impressed by my efforts and within two weeks of her starting, she had taught me basic commands in German such as “put the brakes on” and by that time I had to choose my subjects for my final year of high school and despite many people’s skepticism due to my lack of experience, I chose nothing but languages- Higher French, National 5 English German and Spanish….

….and then lockdown happened the very next day …

At first I was thought to be “clinically vulnerable” so apart from my personal assistant visiting three times a week, I just stayed home and didn’t go out at all for the first three weeks which was unbelievably boring until my dad recommended Rosetta Stone for me to practice my German with. Gradually, with a combination of daily Rosetta Stone lessons and frequent conversations with my German personal assistant, my German skills steadily improved and by the time I returned to school in august I almost knew as much as my classmates, most of whom had been studying German since the age of 11! The first few months I was in the middle of the class but by Christmas I was correcting my teacher and by the spring I was reading German novels as if they were in in English and frequently scoring extremely high in tests so I decided to apply to the Goethe Institut.

unfortunately the Goethe Institut is shockingly ableist and informed me that because I use a communication device, I could not participate in their classes! Even although I was extremely infuriated by the blatant ableism of the institution that I had just fallen victim to, instead of emailing the Goethe Institut a long essay on disability rights and inclusion as was suggested by a number of people that I do, I decided that my time would be much better spent applying to study higher German at college so I went onto the Edinburgh College website and filled in the application form and within 24 hours I received a conditional offer saying that if I got a B in national 5 German I would be enrolled in the course in august.

after having left school with B’s in French and Spanish and a whopping A-band-1 in German, I had truly met my condition for college but now I had two long months to wait until my course started . I soon remembered that I still had my Rosetta Stone subscription and decided to learn a bit of Italian just because I come from an Italian family and felt that learning Italian was a sensible thing to do. A few days into my Italian lessons I just happened to mention to my dance mentor I was learning Italian and just like that he offered me the mega opportunity of choreographing a warmup for his other students in Milan. I was unbelievably excited about the opportunity and immediately decided to write as I learn, after just 3 short weeks I seriously surprised myself with my talent because I had just finished a piece of proper choreography in a language that I was unable to speak the previous month!

I have genuinely no idea why someone like me is so gifted in language but I am human proof that disability is not a barrier and no matter who you are you can do anything you want to do and this blog is going to reinforce that message

e e m mcgrath