Oxford Dictionary defines “language barrier” as “a barrier to communication between people who are unable to speak a common language.” As I grew older and the Korean words that used to spill so easily out of my mouth seemed to leak out of my brain, the language barrier was often blamed for the… misunderstandings between myself and my parents. And I didn’t even have it that bad–both my parents spoke fluent English, after all. It was still their second language, though, and it wasn’t easy for them raising an extremely precocious daughter whose lexical catalogue surpassed their vocabulary by the time she reached junior high. It also didn’t help that I often liked to remind them of my linguistic superiority as a way of getting back at them for stupid things like not letting me go to the mall with my friends, refusing to buy me a pair of Birkenstocks or Doc Martens, marching me back into my room to study when everyone else was having fun at the beach. “Never mind,” I’d mutter loudly eno...