I can’t comprehend english.

i’ve just realised out of my entire 17 years of living that my english comprehension is terrible.

today my japanese teacher told me, “your japanese understanding ability and writing and speaking is actually extremely impressive! you’re far better than the other students. however, what brings your marks down than the others is you’re always misinterpreting the question therefore you lose those marks. everybody else can understand what’s the question trying to ask except you” and that just hit me so hard that i feel so.. stupid.

just for context, my weakest subject is english for the entirety of my schooling life and i just assumed i was weak in the first place bc i didn’t enjoy the topics we learn. japanese used to be my highest subject but since the beginning of grade 12 it’s gone to another one of my weakest subject because of one aspect: comprehending english questions and answering them in english.

i’m also a chinese person but having been raised in australia since birth. i only ever learnt english as a native language and i can understand chinese but not literate. my parents always speak to me in chinese and i answer them in english, so the only time i talk english is with my school friends and siblings. i feel that is contributing to my english being weaker than everybody else’s (bc like 95% of kids from my school are white aussies so they’re obviously more native speaking than i ever could be lol)

anyways, the more i realise it, back in primary school i’ve always wondered why i was stuck in level 20 home readers for a year straight whereas everybody else were onto level 30+ by the end of year 6. these home readers, started all the way from kindergarten, was a way to help teachers understand where our comprehension levels were. there were times where our teacher would test us privately to level up on our home readers so we were required to read a short story, summarise it, and answer comprehension questions. so when i do it, they just jolt down notes but never once have they gave me any feedback or critiqued my answers and mistakes, and the next time i saw my result, i was still stuck on level 20, even in year 6. however like i was literally a kid so i never actually thought about it that deeply and just simply went on with my life.

then by the time you start middle school + highschool, the school already expects you to know foundational level english and immediately go straight to building up more complex material such as identifying literary techniques, camera shots, memorising quotes from novels and poems, and then by year 12 you’re learning to very deeply analyse and write essays and discursives.

everytime i now open a past english and japanese exam paper to do, i can’t even write the essay required or answer short-answer questions from story exempts.

i just don’t even know what to do anymore bc like my official end of year exams are a month away and my trials are already starting tomorrow (english paper 1…) and ik im already cooked enough for english so what’s even the point of memorising quotes and techniques if i can’t even write a proper thesis statement and essay paragraphs and analysing texts properly????????? it’s too late to go back to primary school english ain’t it?