I

have been speaking English since I was 4 years old. Today, many would say that I can write and speak as well as a native speaker. I find that English, however, sometimes only lets me express half of what I am trying to say.

Let me give an example: Just the other day I was stuck in one of the infamous Jakarta traffic jams. Unfortunately for me, I needed to go to the toilet really badly. If I were speaking to someone in English, I would say, '€œI can'€™t hold it anymore!'€ On the other hand, if I were speaking in Indonesian, I would say, '€œKebelet!'€

Being a bilingual Indonesian, I find the latter option to be the more effective in delivering the purpose of the sentence '€” the sense of urgency. In comparison to the long sentence spoken in English, kebelet quickly rolls off your tongue, displaying just how fast you need to get to the toilet. This example presents the problem I have with speaking English: its lack of soul.

The sad end to this story? I can barely communicate in Bahasa Indonesia. For a writer whose sole purpose in life is to better her ability in expressing herself, it is disheartening. Thankfully, although I could not write a decent Indonesian essay, I can still speak in informal Bahasa and read Indonesian literature pretty well. My little brother, I'€™m afraid, is much worse. He tries to not fall asleep in his fourth-grade Bahasa class, for he claims not to understand most of what the teacher is saying.

Am I trying to condemn this generation my brother and I are in as part of a string of Indonesian children who have had English-speaking parents, went to international schools and studied abroad for college? Not at all.

My parents could not be more proud with my little brother'€™s fluency in speaking English, as he happens to be a very articulate fourth-grader. I applaud the several private schools that have successfully taught their students to fluently speak English, for more and more Indonesian students are doing well in their studies abroad.

But it would also be ignorant of us to be completely unaware of the growing effects of globalization over the past few years.

My little brother and I have a 10-year age difference between us, thus we had very different childhoods as well. I was taught in Bahasa Indonesia for the first five years of my education, as the number of English language schools then were very limited. In the meantime, my brother has been taught in English his whole life, simply because there were more schools in Jakarta that had English as their primary language of instruction.

The increasing availability of English resources available in Jakarta is also another factor '€” my mother can buy my little brother good quality English books in Jakarta anytime she wants to, as opposed as to buying them in Singapore for me perhaps only once a year. And of course, who would hinder their son in bettering his English, especially if it will take him further in his career later in life?

That is why it is time to consider a tweak in the approach in teaching the two languages. As I said previously, while communicating in English allows me to express myself with candor and accuracy, it does not let me present the whole package.

For instance, I have always been dissatisfied with the fact that there is only one word for love in the English language. Love is many things and categorizing it in simply one word seems rather unfair. Like using the word kebelet, there is something different in saying, '€œAku cinta kamu'€ to your first love instead of just a flimsy '€œI love you.'€ Cinta is reserved for a more passionate kind of love with its hard c and t sounds, showing one'€™s ardor and zeal upon confessing one'€™s feelings. English is a universal language that allows you to communicate with everybody, but Bahasa Indonesia lets an Indonesian express him/herself from the bottom of the heart.

Thus, one must place equal importance on both English and Indonesian languages, for they play different roles. The English language should be treated like one'€™s limbs and Bahasa Indonesia the driving force behind every action it takes. Do not let the invasion of the English language make you a child of globalization, a product of the overgeneralized '€œlove'€. We should aim to be Indonesian children of the world, whose roots are local yet have the ability to reach out to the global culture, who can express the deepest cinta out of their hearts in all they do.

The writer is studying at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.