Why I Don’t Speak My Mother Tongue Fluently

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Not all of us can speak our mother tongue. Just because we look a certain way doesn’t mean we speak or write a certain language.

The dialect Cantonese runs in my Chinese-Malaysian family. My parents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts and extended family speak it fluently (and Mandarin too). While I have no trouble listening and understanding a conversation in Cantonese, the language doesn’t come easy to me when I speak it.

The languages we speak, and wish to speak, are a reflection of who we are |

The languages we speak, and wish to speak, are a reflection of who we are | Weekly Photo Challenge: Wish.

Defining mother tongue can be tricky as I’ve blogged about here. It can be what we call our native language. Or family language. It could even be our second language. For this post, let’s refer to it as the language from the motherland – the lands where our family are from, the languages our ancestors spoke throughout centuries.

When we were never formally taught our mother tongue while growing up or in our lives, chances are we might feel alienated from the language. We naturally feel less inclined to speak it.

When we’ve never been constantly exposed to a certain language, it might not have a place in our lives. We might feel linguistic insecurity surrounding that language and speak another language instead, sometimes in order to access greater social prestige.

As a kid in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, at no point did my parents insist I learn Cantonese or Mandarin. They speak Cantonese with each other. Whenever I interrupted their conversations, they paused their rapid-fire Canto and addressed me in English and in English only.

Growing up I never went to a Chinese school but attended private schools where English was the medium of instruction. As a kid, English was at the forefront of my mind and naturally on the tip of my tongue, and Cantonese…passed me by.

Where we are at in life and the company we keep often determines the language we speak. This can become the language we get comfortable with speaking over time. As our mother tongue may not necessarily help us assimilate and fit in, we speak a certain other language to get along with others.

In Australia, English is the primary language spoken and learning a second (Asian) language is declining. Some students avoid second-language learning in schools as they worry it could jeopardise their chances of getting into Australian university. In other words, at times speaking our mother tongue isn’t helpful when it comes to making strides in this world.

In school in Malaysia, half of my classmates were Westerners from the United States, the UK and Australia. The other half were local Malaysians of Malay, Chinese and Indian descent. Our common language was English and we spoke English with each other. Today, I speak English at work in Melbourne because my work conducts business in English.

We're drawn to some languages, but not to others.

We’re drawn to some languages, but not to others.

Perhaps we actually formally learnt our mother tongue at some point. However it was a subject taught by rote learning and we disliked that. While one can argue learning language by rote using flashcards encourages us to memorise and ignore the ‘why and how’, a study shows singing foreign language phrases makes it easier to remember a language.

When we’re forced to learn a language, it can feel like a chore and we might never feel drawn to it. It’s similar to how some of us are bad at maths, forced to learn it and hate maths.

For a couple of years in my primary school classes in Malaysia, Mandarin as a second language was a compulsory subject. Even after practising writing Chinese characters two hundred times, I’d forget how to write them the next week.

Sometimes we may want to learn our mother tongue or another language. However we might not have time to commit to learning and speaking it. The older we get, the harder it is to learn a language: adults tend to be biased towards logical problem solving, often treating language learning as an object instead of something to do.

The older we get the more difficult it is for the brain to overcome grammar rules of unfamiliar language – the tongue is wired to pronounce certain syllables. As adults, we might feel we can never catch up to speaking and writing a language fluently, always playing catch up.

Some of us may feel guilty for not speaking our mother tongue. There may be moments where we miss out on connecting with those who speak it and don’t speak another language. When speaking someone’s language with them, there’s often common ground. As Nelson Mandela said:

‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’

Language is a reflection of culture, and culture a reflection of language.

Language is a reflection of culture, and culture a reflection of language.

When we don’t speak our mother tongue, we may get singled out for ‘if you don’t speak it, you lose it’. When I caught up with a friend from Singapore last year, we talked about the languages we speak. When I mentioned I speak mostly English these days, he mentioned I was a ‘banana’ – Asian-looking on the outside but not fitting the Asian stereotype of speaking my mother tongue fluently.

I didn’t mind because this is a reflection of being Asian-Australian. I then remembered as an Asian-Australian, just because we don’t speak our mother tongue doesn’t mean we don’t associate with the culture behind the language.

Also while we may not agree with our culture’s values, we may in fact choose speak our mother tongue or at least try. For instance, I don’t believe in the Chinese superstition of not using scissors on the first day of Chinese New Year. But I still wish the folks a clunky-sounding gung hei fatt choi that day.

Consequently, some of us choose not to speak our mother tongue because we simple don’t have to. We are more than our labels and the languages we choose to speak, just as we are more than the way we look. We are the language of our stories that we live each and every day.

Then again, as much as culture is language, language is culture. When it comes to expressing certain emotions and sides of our personalities, some things are best said in a certain language. For example, it simply feels right when I address grandma as pópó (婆婆) as a mark of respect, no matter how unnatural it feels to enunciate the words.

In other words, I ‘feel’ my mother tongue within me no matter how bad I speak it.

MRI scans and studies show that ‘lost’ first languages can be unconsciously retained. This research found that when we listen to tones of a language ingrained within our heritage despite not speaking the language, our brain has a higher level of activity.

So oddly enough, we don’t ever really lose a language that we’ve been exposed to or never been exposed to at all. To loosely put it, we might know a language by sixth sense if it runs in the family. Moreover, languages and the ways we speak languages are constantly changing. As T.S. Eliot said:

‘For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.’

Our past will always be a part of us. Just like how some languages will always be a part of us and colour our life.

Our past will always be a part of us. Just like how some languages will always be a part of us and colour our life.

The other day I wandered around an Asian grocery store. I decided I wanted a sugarcane drink and took a can of it to the counter. The elderly Chinese lady behind the cash register scanned it.

‘Yi kuài qián. Nĭ yào sù liào dà (一块钱 你要  塑料袋 / One dollar. Do you want a plastic bag)?’ she asked.

‘Bú yào (不要 / No).’ Without thinking and without missing a beat I placed a dollar coin on the counter.

I left the store. Wondered what I just said.

Sometimes we might not feel the need to speak our mother tongue in the here and the now. For we simply don’t need it. But sometimes we can’t help it and when we do, we open up a bit more about ourselves.

Do you find it hard to speak your mother tongue?

 

250 thoughts on “Why I Don’t Speak My Mother Tongue Fluently”

  1. Hi Mabel! Excellent post, I truly loved it.
    It really made me think about my mother tongue which is Italian. Growing up, I only spoke Italian until I started school and then we are spoke English in my household. Nowadays, I understand the language completely but struggle to speak it and put the words into coherent sentences. I’m looking forward to Italy in June when I can see just how much I remember.

    I hope you’re well my friend!!

    xx

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    • Haha, you and Italian is like me and Cantonese! I am sure Italian is somewhere inside of you and you will be able to speak it when need be 🙂 So exited for your Italy trip! I hope you enjoy it and see great views and have yummy authentic Italian food too. Hope you are good and talk soon x

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  2. Thoughtful post as ever. I love the sentence “We are the language of our stories that we live each and every day.” I’m learning Spanish at the moment and it’s hard not to keep speaking it out of class. Also great reference to MRI- my own field.

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    • Good luck with Spanish. I’m not sure if there’s a Spanish community, fluent Spanish speakers, in Adelaide. I suppose there is since Australia is so multicultural. Here in Melbourne, we are famous for paella 😀

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  3. Really interesting read, Mabel. My Master’s is in Linguistics – specifically second language acquisition – so this is all fascinating anecdotal information to me. Mother tongues, native languages, second languages – they all function so differently in different people and, as you noted, culture is a whole other ballgame when it comes to ethnic identity and its relationship to language. Complex stuff!

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    • “They all function so differently in different people”. It’s so true, and I find this fascinating. I suppose in your study of linguistics you explore phonetics and how and why language works the way they do – and I’m presuming it is nothing less than complex at all!

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  4. Very relevant post Mabel.No matter what your mother tongue is, English seems to be the common language of communication at home too! Though my kids know their mother tongue, they somehow always switch over to English, except while conversing with their grandparents!

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  5. It’s sad and surprising that learning second language is declining in Australia. In the U.S. a greater selection of languages has appeared since I graduated high school. Once upon a time there was just French or Spanish. But the schools here in California now offer Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, and German, too.

    Korean is the most popular, probably because of K-pop. In another 10 years, don’t be surprised if you see white women eavesdropping on Korean conversations.

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    • It is shocking indeed, and quite the opposite of the U.S. Some schools are phasing out certain languages because not many students are taking them. Here in Australia, quite a few students who speak their mother tongue take their language subjects at school and at university – and in a way that gives them an unfair edge in terms of marks.

      Time will tell if K-pop is here to stay or it’s a passing fad. It certainly is appealing.

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  6. Interesting and awesome post Mabel. I can relate to everything you said. awhile am not fluent speaking spanish like my older brother and sister, I can understand it. I have difficulties speaking it, but can get by every now and then. Unlike my younger brother and sister, they are clueless. I like the banana reference. Here we use the coconut reference,Hispanic- brown on the outside and white in the inside.

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    • Thank you so much, Mikey 🙂 It is interesting to hear how Spanish runs in the family, and sounds like English is the language you need to get by where you live. Fascinating to hear about the coconut reference. At some point I am going to do a post on the banana reference.

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  7. A mother tongue is the language of your mother or the language which is learnt in the lap of a mother. It could be very relevant to feel connected with our families and culture but it may become redundant if we choose to live away from the native place of our mother because a language is learnt to communicate and if people around us don’t understand the language we speak, it would be considered useless.

    I made my girls learn their mother tongue, which they love to speak within the extended family but English is the language, (which didn’t come naturally to them) they are more fluent and comfortable with for all the reasons you have mentioned. However the next generation loses touch with their mother tongue if they are born and raised thousands of miles away from their mother’s native place. Modern families who have migrated to other countries have to face this dilemma and are torn between two languages though children prefer the language, which is more familiar to them and is spoken by their friends.

    I think it is absolutely fine to use the language we feel comfortable with but one’s own culture often gets drowned and the disconnect becomes more prominent after two generations. That is the price one has to pay for choosing another country!

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    • What a wholehearted response, Balroop. You must be proud of your girls for learning their mother tongue and they can speak it well too. Maybe they will pass it on to their kids too 🙂

      So true that mother tongue becomes more distant to us as we move and travel. It is interesting to see how some modern families are okay with this. Fair enough; new country, new mindset, new attitude. But nothing like connecting with one’s own culture through language and realise how important it is, or can be to you.

      If we meet one day, maybe you can proudly teach me a bit of your mother tongue 😀

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  8. Hello Mabel, thanks for another interesting post and I hope it doesn’t take too much of your time to write all this and reply to everyone.

    Yes, there seems to be different ideas on what constitutes a ‘mother tongue’, so it’s good that you’ve defined it here though I initially took it to mean the language I was raised with at home. You might remember that I have a slightly unusual family language background so this would not be the same as my ethnic or ancestral language for me.

    I probably mentioned before that my maternal grandfather desired his grandchildren to be fluent in Chinese, English, and French, even though he himself was not fluent in English. So I had to endure several (at least six) years of Saturday schools attempting to learn Mandarin along with some of my cousins in Sydney (all of whom were in higher-level classes than I was). It didn’t help that most of the other students there were of Hong Kong background and fluent in Cantonese already, therefore already having an advantage in recognising and understanding the Chinese characters, so I was ostracised on that level. I did make an effort – my teachers commended me on my written Chinese even if I kept translating literally from English to Chinese (no doubt resulting in the reverse grammatical hilarity that we often see in Chinese-to-English translations AKA ‘Engrish’). But by the end of high school I think my parents were convinced that it wasn’t a constructive use of their money to keep sending me there, especially since I was not exposed to Mandarin anywhere else – they were not fluent in it and our background is the Hakka dialect anyway. They weren’t mean in forcing me to go to Chinese school, though, and I suppose it was good idea to at least try to learn the ancestral language. (Ironically, given their exposure to the native Chinese speakers at our church they are helping at ESL classes, Dad is making an effort to learn Mandarin now, some twenty years later.)

    Like you, my parents spoke to me and my brother in English at home, at least from the time we had reached school age since that was what we were exposed to every day. It’s only nowadays that I’m picking up more of the Mauritian Creole that I supposedly knew more of before I started going to school.

    When I was visiting a friend in Munich, he introduced me to three of his friends – one was a German-born Chinese, another was a Peru native working in Germany, and the other was a German who had studied a long time in Ecuador. So two were fluent in Spanish, and of course, the four of them were fluent in German. Me being the odd one out and English being the only common language for all five of us, this was what we spoke together for the duration I was visiting. Currently, English seems to be the dominant lingua franca of the world, although I’ve heard some say this could change to Mandarin in the not too distant future as China becomes a bigger influence in the world.

    ‘Even after practising writing Chinese characters two hundred times in square-box exercise books, I’d forget how to write them the next week.’ Heh, I remember those books. The exercises might have been helpful for me to remember how to write the characters (even today I could probably write a handful from memory), but wasn’t so helpful for the pronunciation and memorisation of the meaning. But speaking of songs, I agree with that – part of the reason I really enjoy the Final Fantasy series isn’t so much the games themselves but for its music. In particular, its vocal tracks include lyrics in English, Japanese, Portuguese, French, Latin, and even Esperanto. I might not remember the meaning of all the individual words, but I sing along to them all the same because I enjoy the music. Even though it’s a far older song, I picked up ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’ when it was featured in the Inception movie. And Nena’s ’99 Luftballons’ is fascinating in that it has both a German and an English version that hit the pop charts in the 1980s.

    I find learning a new language beyond English difficult anyway, but it is true that adults find learning a new language more difficult than a child, whose mind is still growing and developing. I distinctly remembering reading an encyclopaedia article (back in the day before the ‘world wide web’ aspect of the Internet was commonplace) on multilingualism showing brain scans of multilingual subjects – one learned his/her second language in adulthood while the other had learned his/her two languages from childhood. In the former, distinct parts of the brain were engaged for each of the two languages while the other had the parts dealing with the two languages spread throughout. So it seems a pretty good indicator that learning languages as you get older is a different task to learning them as a child. That article you linked to about recognition of Chinese among Chinese adoptees in Canada is yet more evidence of how quickly the young mind develops.

    I don’t feel guilty for not knowing my ancestral language, though. Like your friend said to you, I’m fine with calling myself a ‘banana’. After all, there are more than a billion Chinese people in China – they’re not going to need yet another Chinese speaker in me. 😉 On the other hand, at least according to Wikipedia (citation: US Department of State), there are less than 40 thousand Sino-Mauritians so we’re pretty rare breed. I would love to be fluent in more than just English, it’s just not one of my talents to do so and as you mentioned, the lack of necessity hasn’t been encouraging of my efforts in this regard.

    ‘Culture is language, language is culture.’ I was having a discussion with my fellow developers from the open-source game Wesnoth recently, talking about translations vs localisations. More than just translating the meaning, localisations intend to provide the meaning behind cultural and situational factors behind a text or graphical element, literary device, joke, or whatever it is that’s being translated. (eg I handle the ‘British’ English localisation now, and try to smooth over the excessive use of Americanisms that’s prevalent in the on-line English dialect.) And like you, I still call many of my relatives by traditional Chinese titles, eg my uncle in Toronto – Dad’s third eldest brother – has always been Sam-Pak to me (not sure what the equivalent is in Cantonese or Mandarin). When I explain the numbering system for aunts and uncles to my Caucasian friends it never ceases to bemuse them, but with an extended family as large as mine (Dad had 10 siblings before his mother died giving birth to his youngest brother), it’s certainly come in handy!

    Regarding subconscious use of non-English words/phrases. Perhaps because of my family background, French has usually been my subconscious ‘go to’ language for anything non-English. Handy for when I was in Paris, but not so helpful when I was in Munich. Before realising it, I found myself saying ‘pardon’ (sorry / excuse me) to Germans, and had to ask my friend what I should be saying in German instead, once I caught up with him.

    Thanks again for the conversation. I feel I’ve written too much again. I hope I don’t take up too much of your precious time!

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    • A very spirited, thoughtful and articulate response, Simon. I think the argument on what is ‘our mother tongue’ will never end. Language and the language we are comfortable with is complex, and even more so if we come from a mixed background or traveled heaps.

      I do remember your (Mauritius-creole) background, and you’re the first person I’ve encountered to be of that background and where you’ve been. It did sound like your parents had the best of intentions sending you to Saturday language school to learn Mandarin. I wonder if many Chinese parents who migrated to a Western country think that way – that they decide to stop language studies for their children at some point, because English is most beneficial in the end – and walking away from it all thinking that it is great their children got exposure to their mother tongue. Maybe your dad wants to reconnect with his culture on a deeper level, and maybe reckons formal language classes will provide him with this opportunity. Or maybe he wanted to learn the language all along and now is his chance.

      It certainly is interesting to see how fluent speakers of a certain language like Mandarin will take up Mandarin language classes in school and at university. I’ve heard some do so to have an ‘easy pass’ and to gain better marks. Whether or not it is their choice or their parents insistence, maybe, maybe not.

      I agree with you that music can leave a lasting impression on us, not just our minds but more importantly our hearts. The Final Fantasy example you mentioned is a great example. You don’t know the words, yet you know them and aren’t afraid to sing it out loud – and you may not even know the true meaning of the words to the fullest extent. It is all about the feeling and the emotion. Speaking of French, I think that is why many people are drawn to learning French: the culture comes across as classy and romantic, and also how smooth the way the language sounds.

      It is true that China is a rising superpower in the world. Knowing Mandarin, there is every chance it will open opportunities for you. Then again, English can be seen as the classier language than Mandarin to some of us. Would you rather speak a bit of many languages but not that well, or speak it well and fluently? With the former, that might get you by the places you are but with the latter, that will leave an impression. And this thought comes to the point that you mentioned, localisms. You can learn some of a language as how it is spoken in a certain place, but it may not be helpful in another place that speaks the same language, but in a different way. Sort of like dialects too.

      You’re always welcome here, Simon. Thanks for making us think 🙂

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      • I didn’t mean for you to think I was arguing with you, I was just initially unsure as to what you meant by ‘mother tongue’.

        My parents are more westernised than you might think. Mauritius was colonised by the Dutch, then the French, then the British took over during the Napoleonic wars. So they weren’t particularly exposed to Chinese either. I went to Chinese school for a little while even when we were still living in London, but I was still young then and had no idea what I was trying to learn. It was very foreign, in the sense of the school experience, not just the language. As for Dad, I think it’s more a case of learning for interest’s sake and to communicate better with his ESL students. His brother in Toronto is also learning, so there may have been that influence too.

        I’ve heard of those who take non-English language classes in school for ‘easy marks’. I think I would find it quite boring, though – easy or not – ‘learning’ something you already know. I did a TAFE accounting course as part of my HSC (VCE) in high school, but it was not recognised credit for my university degree so my first semester accounting class was pretty boring for me, re-learning what I had already done before.

        Music has helped me learn a little! Particularly with Latin, it’s interesting to see the links to English and other European languages, the origins of many of their words. I admit I also like the sound of the French language generally, though sometimes it can come across rather arrogantly, like the Merovingian character in the Matrix movies (although he/it was deliberately portrayed that way).

        It’s funny to think of English as a ‘classy’ language, but I suppose it might seem that way for a native Chinese speaker. I suppose anything that’s foreign or unfamiliar can have an ‘exotic’ air about it. Like there was a time not so long ago when it was popular in western fashion and decorations to have Asian characters feature prominently – they were probably nonsensical words, just as I’ve seen nonsensical Engrish on t-shirts and bags from Asia. Actually, not even just in recent times, ‘Chinoiserie’ was popular in Europe in the 18th century, or so I understand.

        As to your question of knowing many languages weakly or a few strongly, I think I would prefer the latter. Like former PM Rudd being known for his strong grasp of Mandarin – I don’t know how good he really sounds to a native Chinese speaker, but such fluency would certainly leave a good impression on me!

        Thanks again for your kind words. Hope engaging with the community continues to be pleasing for you.

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        • I think there are usually two ways we approach the foreign: we either go for it or not at all. When you can find a connection or at least some kind of indirect connection to something unfamiliar, that can spark an interest in us to go for it. Probably that is your dad. Maybe he likes to communicate and get to know others, and that maybe is something he looks forward to each and every day. There was a comment earlier by Ethical Artisans that touched on that and that made me think this might be the case with your dad.

          Agree with you about ‘easy marks’. When I did my last year of high school in Australia, I realised I had already learn the entire Maths subject back in Singapore. Those classes were dull. Yet, I didn’t get a perfect score for the subject 😀

          Such a fascinating point on fashion and language. Engrish and Chinglish is still quite the hit in China today – it is seen as cool aside from classy. As much as Mandarin will dominate China, English always creeps prominently in one way or another.

          Always addictive engaging with a community that wants to engage and most importantly are respectful to each other. It is special.

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          • I keep seeing those news reports of how far ‘behind’ our schools are (usually with reference to Asian education systems).

            Engrish still amuses me, but I’m sure the reverse makes Asians laugh too.

            Special indeed!

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              • I hope so! But given so much bad grammar from both kids and adults these days… maybe that’s why the NSW school curriculum has called for a return to grammar basics among other things.

                Interesting coincidence: I had lunch with one of my many cousins over the weekend – this one I hadn’t seen for many years as he’s currently living in Singapore for work and he was visiting us in Sydney while he’s in between jobs. He only brought one of his sons along but I learned his eldest, Perth-born, daughter is now in a boarding school in Perth (she is early high school age) specifically because they found the Singaporean schools too focused on academia and she wanted opportunities for more sporting development. Her mother is from Perth, so it’s an interesting mix of Asian and Australian ideals and goals in that family.

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                • Hope you enjoyed your lunch and time with your cousin 🙂 It is an interesting situation their daughter is on. Maybe his son will tag along at some stage. In Singaporean schools, focus does seem to be on academia, and language learning is generally prided upon over sport. Fascinating.

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  9. Mabel, I cannot speak to this directly, but indirectly I certainly can. My husband’s parents are both Finnish, and it was the only language they spoke to him, growing up. When he entered kindergarten, his accent was so strong and he spoke English so poorly that he was made fun of pretty badly. Thus it was not only a parental choice but his own that caused him to drop his mother tongue. Yet as your MRI study pointed out, he does retain a certain knowledge of it. While he’s forgotten sentence structure and such, his pronunciation is spot-on. And when others speak it to him – a rare thing on these Hawaiian islands, but it has happened – he can haltingly speak back.

    As an interested bystander, of course I feel as though it’s a shame he lost that language. But he’s perfectly content not taking it back up again. I wonder if that will change with age, but it’s not at the top of anyone’s list at this point. Perhaps because you ‘look’ Asian, it is more of an in-your-face kind of thing. He Does look Finn, but many to most people don’t know what that is. And so it goes.

    Another great post! Aloha.

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    • I agree. We are not how many languages we speak. But rather we are what we think of ourselves and how we treat others. Not saying that language is not important, but really, we all have our own reasons for not learning a certain language. And some reasons are more personal than others.

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  11. Great post, Mabel. It made me wonder about people with mixed parentage, for example, Chinese and Italian living in Australia. What would be the ‘mother’ tongue?
    There are times when I regret no longer being able to understand and speak Cantonese, but I know my life is settled in Australia and so Strine is really all I need to know. I just have to be able to modify it to speak with Americans, Canadians and British 🤣😂
    As much as the French may want the world to change I think English will continue to dominate as the language use in major international fora. I remember being at a UN meeting in Mexico City and having to listen to translation when French and Spanish speakers were on stage. After the formal meeting elements, the French were able to communicate in English fluently, but officially they had to speak in French.

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  13. Great to feast my eyes (and the few remaining grey cells) on another of your interesting posts. This one I can truly identify with. I am a Bengali but raised outside of Bengal where the language is Hindi. At home, my parents insisted on speaking in Bengali and refused to answer us if we inadvertently spoke in Hindi. English was of course the academic language. So as I may have mentioned before, I am Jack of three languages – mistress of none 😛 I just wish I had known as a child how important language was going to be in my life and paid more attention to each! 😀

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  14. Great thoughts here Mabel! I do speak Bahasa, my parents “forced” me to speak it when I was young (yes, my dad also speaks it), but because I only speak it to them, I have to admit that unfortunately I’m less fluent in it than in my other languages that I use on a day to day basis.

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    • Haha, I speak Bahasa too. Learnt it for ten years. My parents speak it too. Again, we have things in common 🙂 I’ve forgot some Bahasa to be honest. Maybe one day if we meet, we can have a conversation in Bahasa together, lol.

      I left a comment on you blog but don’t see it. Maybe you haven’t approved it yet :/

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  15. Another great post, Mabel. It’s interesting to know that you can speak your mother tongue almost subconsciously. I wish my dad had spoken his mother tongue in our home, then I would be able to speak Dutch instead of just English. Consequently, I can’t converse with any of my Dutch relatives. I never heard him speak Dutch except when we visited his family in Holland, and my mom told me that when she went with him to see relatives in Indonesia, he was able to speak fluent Malay to them, even after almost fifty years of not using it.

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    • “you can speak your mother tongue almost subconsciously” You put it so elegantly, Sylvia. Much more better than me 😂 Never knew your family had an Indonesian and a Malay connection. So interesting. Maybe Malay holds a special place in your dad’s heart.

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      • My dad passed away 12 years ago, and I always felt that he must have missed the culture which he left behind when he joined the Dutch Royal Navy to serve in World War 2. He met my mom in London just before D Day and never saw his parents again before they died. His brothers and sisters moved to Holland, and I remember visiting them a couple of times when I was young. We didn’t have enough money to travel in those days. I’m sure my dad had regrets and this made him a very unhappy person especially as he grew older. 😥

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        • I am sorry to hear about your day, Sylvia. He may have had challenging times in those days but I am sure he gave it his all in every situation wherever he was. Right now I am sure he is smiling down at everyone and seeing how far all of you have come 🙂

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  16. Very interesting post Mabel with many thoughtful dimensions re culture and mother tongue. My grandparents spoke a fair amount of Yiddish, which today is considered to be a dying language. My mom still uses many yiddish words, as do I ( although less) and many of them express things in a way that English just does not and cannot. Take the word Chutzpah as an example

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah

    Nothing expresses chutzpah as much as this word in Yiddish. And there are many other examples…

    I think even if many of us do not fluently speak our “mother tongues” using words and incorporating the spirit of the language, definitely has it’s place in retaining cultural ” traditions” and family ones.

    Great post Mabel.
    Peta

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    • So interesting to hear Yiddish is in your family. It is not commonly spoken here in Australia, and not taught often in schools. Hopefully the language will be preserved over the years. Chutzpah…I learnt a new word today. Thank you so much 🙂

      Agree with you. Speaking snippets of a language is better not than speaking it at all. Sometimes the less you say, the more and louder you speak and show the world who you are.

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  17. Mabel, this is a wonderful topic to explore. I learned a lot from your post and the comments of your readers. Language and culture have such an impact on our lives. As an educator, who only speaks one language, I am grateful for the insights into the experiences of others who have moved to a new country, speak more than one language, or continue navigating between cultures. I want to be sensitive to the experiences of my students. Thank you.

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    • So lovely to hear of you background, Ali. It must bring you joy to teach and impart knowledge to those who want to learn. I am sure you are sensitive to your students. That starts out by listening and you do that so well – taking the time to read this post and the comments too 🙂

      “Language and culture have such an impact on our lives” So well said. Agreed. And lives have an impact on language and culture too.

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  18. I think it is a good practice for emigrated families to speak the native language in the house and of course learn the language of the hosting country where they will be working and living. I have the opposite challenge. I have learned 4 languages in the schools growing up in Italy, in addition to my native tongue. While I lived there, I used all 5 languages, due to tourism and the closeness of European nations doing business with each others. Then, as an adult I moved to California and now I am forced to speak only English, as there are no opportunities to speak all the other languages I know.

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    • That was quite a few languages you learned growing up, and you must have enjoyed it. I’m sure you still know all these languages today and if you were to travel around Italy and the region again, they will come in handy. Imagine, ordering ice-cream on holiday in five different languages 🙂

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      • It was fun learning all the languages I know, you are right Mabel. However, I have kept up with all of them, I read in foreign tongues, watch foreign films, have many friends who speak those languages and of course I go back to Europe every year, all my family live there, so it’s a kind of duty to visit them.

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  19. Hi Mabel I am Anglo-Indian , brought up in Britain. My father did not speak to us as children in Bengali, I think because he felt there was no real use for it. During the 60s and 70s we travelled much less than we do now. My father’s family were mostly in India and any communication would be by air letter. I do recall though, a very strong sense of pride for the Bengali language. Honestly, I think he should at least have spoken to us in it for us to engage in a very different side of our background. Language opens up the world for sure. I felt it was part of my heritage which I did not have. Many years later I met a gentleman who speaks 9 languages fluently and 4 more at least of good fluency. I asked him how he managed to speak so many languages – he said because he enjoyed communicating with others. For me the very best reason.

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    • Very intriguing as to why your father chose not to speak Bengali to you and your siblings. As you said, maybe there was no real use for it. But maybe he wanted his kids to look into speaking English and so focus on looking out for opportunities in the bigger, wider world.

      “he said because he enjoyed communicating with others.” This is such a simple reason as to why one learn so many languages. It is incredibly heartwarming to hear. My hat’s off to that gentleman. I am sure you and him had a great conversation that day 🙂

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      • Thanks for taking the time to respond Mabel. Just to pick up on your comments, English has been regarded as a global language, but it wasnt just language we missed out, it was the subtle details of everyday behaviours which begin to define a background. It is a little bit of a mystery!
        And 0 plus languages is fantastic and really I think his response was the best incentive 🙂

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  20. Excuse me for the long comment post since I have a lot to say on this topic. I do find it hard to speak my mother tongue, mandarin, depending on what topics are being discussed in the language. I feel like there will always be a barrier between my parents and I due to the language difference. I can speak mandarin a lot better than I did when I was younger, which was during a time where I wouldn’t speak the language unless absolutely necessary because I felt quite awkward enunicating the words on my tongue.

    I made a true effort during my teenage years to not only speak mandarin better but learn to read and write whole sentences instead of just being able to write my own name in chinese. I found it was helpful because the experience opened my eyes to chinese dialects and having a better understanding of what their differences are. For example, both my parents are chinese, but they actually speak different dialects due to being part of different chinese ethnic groups. I would have never been aware that there is such a thing as chinese ethnic groups, with differences in family origin, cultural and food customs and language dialect, had I not studied mandarin.

    The reason why I wanted to improve my mandarin is because my parents always speak to me in mandarin. Many things, if I try to explain it to them in English, they will not understand. However, that is not to say my mandarin is as fluent as my English. It never will be, and I stopped studying mandarin as diligently as I did 2-3 years ago, so I’m a bit rusty. This can make things awkward if I don’t know how to say something in mandarin but I know how to say it in English.

    My mom’s English is like a 6th grader’s. She seems to have no interest in increasing her vocabulary in it, and her written grammar in English is a bit poor, to the point she has me spell check and grammar check her writing if she’s sending out a professional correspondence in English. I don’t mind doing this for her because it’s not like on a frequent, every day basis that she needs my help, however, it can be frustrating for me. I’ve had times where I’m watching a show with her, and the characters are speaking English, but she won’t be able to grasp the meaning of a sentence here and there because she doesn’t understand one of the words in it. This is what I dislike most about my parents relying on mandarin to communicate with me.

    Since my mandarin is better now, they treat me like I’m a master translator of anything in English that they don’t know. My dad, I can understand him relying on me to translate because he’s basically illiterate in English and can read very little English, but it upsets me somewhat that my mom depends on me so much when she’s capable of learning English on her own and she doesn’t do it. I think the problem is she still sticks to communicating with others in mandarin or in cantonese (most of her friends speak cantonese), and she has very little minimial interaction or chances to speak English with people. Like, even some of her friends seem to not be good in English and she actually has had friends calling her to ask for a translation of a word in English. One time I found it kinda ridiculous because her friend called asking for a translation and my mom proceeded to ask me for it.

    Speaking mandarin better hasn’t made me feel closer to the chinese community though. I don’t really feel like I’m part of a community in the area I live since I’m not a member of any of them. I don’t like that random strangers assume I can speak cantonese and come up to me asking me something in cantonese. Then I feel very awkward, not knowing if I should answer in mandarin or English to say I can’t understand what the person said. I also think putting on my resume that I am bilingual is basically a death sentence.

    Yes, I can speak mandarin casually. I can ask someone in mandarin if they are diabetic or explain that the train is late by 15 minutes, but that doesn’t mean I know how to tell someone that their lawyer can’t represent them in court or how to tell someone that the construction site contains potentially toxic fumes. At a prior job, I just about blanked out in panic when a receptionist working there asked me to explain to a customer that the office doesn’t accept insurance for dental work because it’s not covered under her specific insurance. I wouldn’t even know how to begin such a sentence in mandarin. Ugh.

    It’s common in my household for my parents to talk in their own dialects if they’re speaking to family members on the phone or in person. I resent that they’ve taken advantage of this at times to talk about me while I am in their presence because they know I can hardly understand what they are saying or can’t understand the full context of their sentences.

    One time, I was eating dinner with my mom, her brother and their cousin. The cousin said in the dialect, “oh your daughter is so quiet”. Even though it wasn’t a bad comment, I still didn’t like that I felt quite excluded. There have been numerous times I can remember being in the presence of my mom’s family and they would carry on speaking in their dialect, while I’m sitting there having no clue what is going on. This is at least one partial reason why I don’t like visiting my mom’s side of the family.

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    • This is one of the most honest comments I’ve read, and I can relate to what you say, Nat. It sounded like you put a lot of effort in to learning Mandarin, because you wanted to, probably because you were interested in it. So true that you learn the culture behind speaking your mother tongue. There are certain words for certain places, experiences and food that can only be said in a language and not another.

      Maybe your mum is not aware of the resources to learn a language today. Maybe she just wants to stick to her own and old ways. She sounds a lot like my mum. My mum has lived in Australia for about a decade and still can’t many grammatically correct sentences together in English. Like you mum, she always asks me to check over correspondence she has written like cheques and on forms where she has to spell out things like addresses. She also finds listening to automated voice-machines on the telephone hard – she has a prepaid phone and when it is time to top up the balance, she never fails to ask me to do it.

      You sound like a very patient translator and I applaud you for that. Maybe your relatives do see it as some kind of skill, I don’t know. Or maybe they just want to get on with their lives. Maybe you could make a living as a translator some day. You probably speak Mandarin more than I speak Cantonese.

      I feel you at your prior job. In a previous job, one day a customer walked into my office and spoke Mandarin and stuttering English. One of my colleagues called out over to me loudly and asked if I spoke Mandarin. Of course I didn’t and I didn’t like being singled out like that. The whole office could hear. In the end the customer decided she wanted help from me as opposed to my colleague I tried my best to help her in spoken English.

      “I’m sitting there having no clue what is going on.” I think that sums it all up for the two of us pretty well when it comes to our mother tongue. We just don’t really know what’s being spoken and we don’t know why it’s so important even if we chose to speak it.

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      • Yes, I really had no idea how a single word in mandarin sounds so right to express a meaning or idea, while the feeling can be lost in translation into English.

        I was actually a little worried my comment post would come across as being very complain-y about my language woes, but I’m relieved to hear you can relate to my struggles.

        For sure, I do get the sense my parents want to stick to the old ways. They especially value filial piety from the young generation and for my brother and I, it’s sort of been expected on some level that we help them even when we don’t really want to because just by being born as their children, it’s a cultural mandate right from then that we should help our parents to repay them for raising us and caring for us for so many years.

        I don’t think my mom has her head buried in the sand about there being whole textbooks and study guides out there that can help if she wished to study English at her own pace. But I do think she has only been exposed to certain aspects of technology and some of it she still requires help navigating if she doesn’t know how to find something on her phone.

        I too have had experiences with people asking me loudly (in public places) if I can speak mandarin or Cantonese. It’s annoying when others find it ok to literally shout things from across the room for everyone to hear even though the question was meant for only me to answer.

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        • I thought you articulated your point across very level-headed. Sometimes there are others who can be extremely opinionated in one or two sentences.

          Interesting you mention your mum requires help navigating technology. This is the way with my mum and some relatives too – they want you do sit with them and they will ask a million questions, prefer to be exactly shown how to do things. It is especially so if my mum can’t understand what she’s reading or listening on Australian TV. Maybe it is the way they prefer to learn. Fair enough. But as someone who is creative and likes to try things spontaneously at least with writing and things like new cameras, I don’t know why some don’t want to try on their own. There is only so much that can happen with failure.

          Language, speaking a language or not speaking it, is a personal thing. Some just don’t get it. But I suppose there are valid reasons why.

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          • My mom with technology is more like she asks me for help when she can’t do something on her phone, but she rarely ever asks me to show her how to do it so that she knows how to use it next time. Even the times she asks questions about how to get to a certain screen or icon, half the time she won’t remember when the situation arises again. Also, her default answer is often, “I don’t know how to use it”, which, to be honest, makes me want to sigh and roll my eyes at times because it shows just how dependent she is on other people. I don’t feel it’s good because people have their own lives and are not going to be there all the time to help.

            Back to the topic of language. The neighborhood I grew up in used to be heavily populated by Italian American families. Now it’s exploded to have a majority of Chinese immigrants or first generation Chinese Americans. There was a time when my parents were the only asians in the neighborhood. I feel this change could stilt my mother’s English even further. Many (but not all) grocery stores here are Chinese owned. So many Chinese people who are more comfortable conversing in Chinese have the convenience of going to a store and not having to say one word of English. For me though, I find those stores make me feel highly uncomfortable because I sense there’s an expectation from those people that I’m supposed to use mandarin with them just because I am Chinese.

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            • I agree with your point – you can’t be so dependable on others because they won’t be there all the time. Then again, I suppose the tables are turned and the phrase applies when you are in the Chinese shop and don’t speak Mandarin. I feel that way too, and I will speak in English. I’ve been met with stares but well, if I can’t speak the language, I can’t speak it.

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  21. Well observed, Mabel! I do find bit tough nowadays to speak the Indonesian language after being away from the country of more than 10 years. Sometimes I forget few words when chatting via WA with my friends or family in Indonesia! It’s tough when you do not practice the language regularly. When that happens I do feel so embarrassed.

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    • I am sure you speak Indo very well, Indah! I have a few Indonesian friends in Australia and they talk to their Indo friends and family every day in Indo, and they do it very fluently. Keep chatting with your friends and family back home 😉

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  22. I was born in Wales and my parents asked me if I wanted to go to the ‘Welsh school’. I of course said no because I walked the school every day and heard the kids peaking Welsh and thought it sounded weird. So hence I cannot speak my mother tongue. Not that I would have used it as it’s not a regularly spoken language out of Wales but I do regret it. I think my learning Mandarin for the past eight or so years has helped me get over my regret. I really love learning Mandarin.

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  23. An interesting perspective Mabel. Although I am native-born English speaking, I find language fascinating and in fact majored in it at University. I took French, German and Spanish and actually taught French for a bit as well as studied in France. My father’s family spoke Hungarian and they spoke it in their home. My father only spoke it with them; my mother didn’t speak it at all. Let’s just say my grandmother never got over my dad marrying a non-Hungarian! But one of the things I learned in linguistics is that if children are exposed to a second language before the age of 5 they have a much greater capacity for learning other languages later. So I guess I can thank my paternal grandmother for my love of languages.😊

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    • It sounds like different languages run in your family. And you taught French too for a while. It is a great skill to have, knowing a language fluently and then being able to teach it. That is always something to fall back on 🙂

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  25. Mabel, thank you for posting a beautiful article, as always!

    I find that the more languages one speak, the more educated the person is. It also makes you stand out from the crowd of job applicants (but this is dependent on the type of position you’re after). The environment plays a key factor on learning a language.

    But back to your question, I don’t even know which language my mother tongue is because I grew up speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, and English to my parents. I guess I’ve been lucky to have been exposed to the Malaysian and New Zealand way of life. I’m able to understand Cantonese (although I can barely speak the language now. I used to have near-perfect fluency before I spent some time in Auckland). I was forced to learn Malay in school (I still have that slang when I speak it, sigh), so yeah. I won’t say that I’ve proficient fluency in both because that’s up to individual interpretation.

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    • “the more languages one speak, the more educated the person is” So well said and this is so true. Language is a skill and if we know it, it means we have taken the time to better ourselves. Learn.

      Maybe all of those languages can be your mother tongue. Doesn’t have to be just one 🙂

      Lol. I learnt Malay too in school. For ten years. Some of is has faded away but til this day I can read the Malays newspaper and understand it 😀

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      • I would love to take up either Spanish or Japanese if I’ve the speaking environment. Languages have their distinctive beauty in it. If you ask me to choose my mother tongue, I’d have to say English. That’s awesome to heart! I guess we can never forget a language after all. =)

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        • Maybe one day you’ll be able to learn Spanish or Japanese. Maybe a once a week class, or do it with online lessons. Anyone can learn a language these days if they can commit to it. Good to hear you like speaking English and are proud of it 🙂

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  26. Mabel it seems that your parents felt very strongly about you learning and thriving in English. I was fascinated with the example of you interrupting them and they responding in English. I have no personal anecdotes as my first language is English. However having once been fluent in French after high school, now I can barely say a few words. There is that use it or lose it business.
    A reflective post that as always leaves me thinking.

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  27. This is a great article. First, I love your street art pics, they suit the subject perfectly, in some unique way. Secondly, there is always a struggle for AAs when it comes to language – whether it be expectations from others, ourselves, stereotypes and being called things like ‘bananas’ or ‘coconuts’ 😛

    What other people don’t understand is that even though we might not speak our ‘mother tongue’ fluently or even at all, we were still raised in that culture (dual cultures if you want to be more specific). And that’s where it get sticky. Culture is unseen.

    Like you, I understand what I hear more than I feel comfortable speaking. Very often, I’ll respond in English. But here’s what I’ve learned, the struggle is real and don’t feel guilty and don’t ever let someone make you feel guilty for the way you were raised, what did or didn’t happen, etc. You don’t need to prove to anyone else that you are ‘authentic’ or some other BS. You are who you are and that’s what makes the world an interesting place 🙂

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    • “Culture is unseen.” That is such a profound phrase. It is rightfully true, and I reckon we feel culture much more than we see it. With language, it is something that you have to see and hear to believe, unless you are talking about the language of love, which is also tied to culture but let’s get to that in another post soon… 😛

      Like you, I respond in English when someone talks to me in Mandarin – and I know what they are saying to me. And they will understand my English and either speak back in Mandarin or English. Nothing like being ourselves.

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  28. Some families I know teach their children to only speak the non-English mother tongue until about age 2 or 3, then start to teach the children to speak English. Children are very adaptable and learn language quickly. Then some extra formal lessons in the mother tongue after that. In the cases I know, it works well.

    It’s a shame you don’t speak your mother tongue fluently, as you may well want to pass it on to your children in the future, as a way of maintaining heritage. And particularly given the rise in influence of China. Have you considered taking Cantonese or Mandarin lessons?

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    • You might be getting onto something there. Sometimes what the brain learns from a young age, it will never forget.

      I have actually thought about taking Cantonese and Mandarin lessons. But working full time, working long hours, actually enjoying what I do professionally and leisurely and sleeping less than 6 hours each night, it is hard to find time for language learning. If I were to take up language lessons, I want to put 100% into it and actually learn.

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  29. My mum is from Catalonia and when I was little she would speak to me in Catalan. I never spoke it, but I can understand pretty much perfectly when someone else speaks it.

    It’s going to be interesting when (if) I have kids, I will speak to them in Spanish, my husband in Suzhou dialect and they will have to learn Mandarin and English at school. I read an article recently about the steep decline in the number of Suzhou dialect speakers, 30 years ago over 90% of children in Suzhou could speak it and now less than 10% do (because many families come from other cities, some locals think it’s better if they the child doesn’t “waste” time learning Suzhou dialect, etc).

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  30. Mabel, as usual, such a thoughtful and wide-ranging reflection on a topic – thank you! I had a couple of thoughts: 1) Language is most hard to learn, I’ve heard, when it’s not the immersion language around your daily life. I have tried learning French again and again, and I have some familiarity with it after many years of learning attempts (tourist tapes, Duolingo, etc.), but I also have that language self-consciousness you talked about. Is this really the way to say this word? What if they laugh at me for trying to say it?

    2) About the mother tongue, late last year I decided to try to learn Irish, which is an ethnicity that is part of my heritage (my mom’s maiden name was O’Neill). Wow. It was hard! I had underestimated what it would be like, especially as I took for granted the relative similarities among romance languages and English – similar grammar, some word borrowings, letters making the same sounds, etc. Completely different grammar, the vowels and consonants are often pronounced differently than in English – and then, to top it off, words change their spellings (and sound) depending on the situation! Argh! First letters change if it’s a feminine possessive, etc.

    While I felt overwhelmed by having to learn new letter sounds as well as new grammar and the special cases where words changed, though, I also reveled in the perceived connection I felt to great-grandparents of some generations back who had come from Ireland to the U.S. I also enjoyed the sense of strangeness or “otherliness” that comes from attempting to communicate in a language that is significantly different in grammar from my main language. As a writer, it felt like it opened doors into creativity just by attempting to saw what I was having for dinner. !!!

    And finally, about your last note – the conversation with the Asian woman in the store – something like happened to me in Paris when a Japanese tourist asked for instructions to the subway in French at Notre Dame, and I gestured and spoke in basic French toward the Metro, without really thinking about it. Afterward I thought, hmmm, I could have probably spoken in English and he may have understood me. But the French seemed to pop into my mouth. Why not? 🙂

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    • Such a spirited comment, Theresa. So many things to think about 🙂 “language self-consciousness” I think this is such a good way to put it. We may want to speak a language, but don’t want to come across silly doing so. Sounds like you are confident with French to a certain degree, yet there will be others who will always try to correct us. They may have good intentions, but at the end of the day, we speak a language how we speak a language. Uniquely.

      So humbling to hear you confess how hard learning Irish is! Good on you for persisting. Words changing their spelling according to situation sounds mind-boggling. So many kinds of situations, so many phrases to think through.

      It is interesting to hear you say you like the “othering” aspect of language learning 🙂 Nice to hear it helped connect to the previous generations, trying to bring a bit of the past back into the present. Over time, the past and what we learnt becomes a part of us – which may be the case with what happened with the Japanese tourist in the subway. So helpful and hope he found his way.

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      • Mabel, so interesting to hear you observe that others sometimes try to correct you … I did not think about that. I have to remind myself that it’s okay to take time, to repeat the lessons from Duolingo so that I really get it, that you don’t need to master a language on the first or second try, just get more of it into your brain. I took 4 years of Spanish in middle- and high-school, and then I decided I thought French was much more “romantic,” so I dropped the Spanish after school. But even now I still remember many words and phrases and can often understand a Spanish speaker well enough. That multi-year study really stuck in my brain! (Unfortunately, I’ve noticed now that I mix up French into the Spanish when I try to speak it. I actually started a new DuoLingo lesson in Spanish to try to recover that Spanish knowledge!) 🙂 Thank you!

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  31. I’m glad you picked the touchy topic. Out here in India too the younger generation is less inclined to learn local language. They would rather opt for Hindi or English which is what is taught formally in schools. So in a way kids are getting more global but losing their roots. Also they feel ashamed to speak in local language and dialect. Its important to link up yo your roots. Also unless you practice, you’ll never be inclined to learn. Excellent post Mabel.

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  32. What a fascinating post Mabel, and I was interested when I read this paragraph

    “Sometimes we don’t know what we are saying until we say it, and the past always has a habit of catching up with us. MRI scans and studies show that ‘lost’ first languages can be unconsciously retained: when we listen to tones of a language ingrained within our heritage despite not speaking the language, our brain has a higher level of activity. That is, we don’t ever really lose a language that we’ve been exposed to or never been exposed to at all – or, loosely putting it, we know a language by sixth sense if it runs in the family. Moreover, languages and the way we speak a language is constantly evolving.”

    That really ‘resonated’ as Tone, SOUND, is the Language of the Universe… 🙂
    I think your parents had foresight to teach you to speak English, the language which seems to more recognized around the world and spoken.

    I loved your dialog interlaced with the beautiful photos.. I was enthralled with them all too. 🙂

    Love and Peace to you and Have a wonderful weekend

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  33. This is a very interesting post. Every time I read your posts I think to myself that they are so well written, and well thought out. Your blog holds a very high standard thought your posts. My native language is Swedish. I lived in Sweden my 30 first years, and of course I’m fluid. My daughter…that’s another story. I’m a teacher by trade, and language is important to me. I made a great effort speaking to my daughter, and reading to her in my language, ever since she was in my womb. She understands, and speak some, but for the moment she is completely uninterested in learning it. My plan B is that when she gets older, I’ll send her to Sweden for her summer holidays, and she can play with her cousins. That should do the trick!

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  34. I never had too much contact with Finnish in my youth. My mother tried her best to teach me and talk with me in Finnish but as a kid I had zero interest. That disinterest was later rather troublesome for me when I decided to have something more to do with Finland and I had to study so much and still I never reach a fluent level. My main problem is also that I never have the confidence to talk with native speakers as I always feel like embarrasing myself.
    Through some unknown reason I do not have this restraint with English even with my German accent. Everyone I have met could easily guess from which country I am from after hearing me speak English but I have no problem with that. With Finnish on the other hand I never felt comfortable and the same applies also with Mandarin.
    Here in Europe it is pretty normal for High School students to be fluent in at least two languages (English + native language). In some countries such as Finland I have often met people who were fluent in Finnish, Swedish, English, Russian and German, just crazy (Swedish is a compulsory language to learn as there are like 2% Swedish speakers in the country, yeah stupid reason and many Finnish people are not so happy about it)

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    • It is interesting to hear you have no restraint when it comes to speaking English. Maybe it is the language that resonated with you, or the language that you heard first or the most while growing up. When you have zero interest in a language, then it is hard to find motivation to speak it.

      Maybe with Mandarin: if you know it fluently, you will be able to hear the schemes MIL speaks out loud all the time, and she might speak to you and recruit her for her crazy schemes…

      I also think to be fluent in so many languages is crazy. Somebody said in the comments earlier they knew someone like that because he liked to communicate with people. Or maybe these people are just very intelligent and gifted.

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  35. Well, my mother tongue is English. I was born and brought up here. Had I been born in my Dad’s native Poland it would be a whole other ball game. I certainly don’t find Polish easy, but in certain circumstances I do find the odd phrase slipping out, almost without thought. 🙂

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  36. Mabel, sometimes I find it hard to speak English but I don’t find it hard to speak mine because I grew up in my own lang, and for sure I’ll find it hard to speak yours 😀

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  37. Wonderful photos and what a great post, Mabel. I always feel guilty that I didn’t spend more time teaching my daughter speaking Mandarin. I can’t do anything now ;-(
    Have a wonderful day.

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  38. Mother-tongue, as generally perceived, is language of the heart, it being the first sound one listens to and grows up in, till the toddler stage at the least. Being a multi-lingual country with over eighteen official languages across 29 states and several union territories, most Indians are conversant with at least three languages, their mother tongue, a smattering of English if not proficiency, and a working knowledge of an additional language out of many existing. I have been steeped in English through my school and university, and working career. So is my wife and two sons; thus at home it is mostly English that is spoken, though I make it a point while at home to liberally intersperse the conversation with my mother tongue lest we totally alienate ourselves from our culture over a period of time. My mother tongue is a language called Malayalam, which I can speak, read and even write to some extent. If only to retain these skills, I keep reading the daily newspaper and some books in Malayalam. I cannot fault your situation, Mabel, since you belong to a generation whose parents and grandparents left homeland over a hundred years ago. Probably they did not converse to you in Cantonese as it was their way of delinking you from cultural mores of a land they had to move away from and induct you in newer environs in which they saw a future for themselves and the next generation. Nonetheless, it is desirable to maintain some connect with one’s mother tongue for due appreciation of one’s roots. This is the time of the year when new year is celebratingly ushered in many Asian countries, so here is wishing you gung hei fat choii…🤗

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    • It never ceases to amaze me how Indians can be proficient in quite a few languages. All Indians I have met here in Australia, and in Singapore and Malaysia, speak English very well.

      Sounds like you have interesting conversations at home with your wife and sons. I am sure sometimes you will use different languages in a single sentence 😀

      I agree with your thought. My parents probably really wanted me to have the best possible life in Australia through assimilation…and well, English sparked my love writing and today, this blog 🙂 Wishing you a good day and good week, Raj. Always a pleasure to chat with you 🙂

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  39. it’s a very interesting subject to delve into. jeff and i find ourselves discussing about it a lot.

    growing up in australia from the age of 9 years old, he pretty much “forgot” how to speak our local dialect. sure, he could barely speak english when he arrived here but through constant interactions with his friends and classmates, he said by the end of his first year, he couldn’t really speak the language anymore. he could understand a little bit but speaking it was then already starting to become a struggle.

    he got it all back after he met me. maybe because he had no choice but to re-learn our language as i suck at talking to him in english. hahahaha.

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    • Hahaha. It sounds like you conned Jeff in to learning his dialect. What a coincidence that is the same for the two of you (unless there aren’t that many Filo dialects, I don’t know lol). Well, learning the language, he won our heart 😀

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      • there’s actually heaps of filipino dialects. some internet sources claim that there are more than a hundred. it sounds like a lot but i wouldn’t be surprised if that is true, as there are 7,107 islands in the philippines and it being an archipelago, different islands have their own different dialects.

        yeah, i’m really glad jeff and i share the same dialect too. i’m not very fluent in english so having a second language really helps a lot in explaining what i wanna say. otherwise, sometimes when talking to people who are native english speakers, i have this tendency to sound really dumb because either i cannot translate my thoughts fast enough, or my translation comes out wrong. lol.

        i much prefer writing in english. at least i can edit, think, edit, re-think, edit. haha.

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        • Haha, that is so many islands and so many dialects in the Philippines! Lol, from how you write your blog, it seems like English is your first language 😀 Also your blogs posts are very well written. Maybe those people you were talking to have a tendency to speak fast. Sometimes fast speakers intimidate me too.

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          • let’s just say i express myself better in writing. but that’s with a lot of edits too!

            it’s hard for me to imagine you being intimidated by fast speakers as i feel like you’re both good in verbal and written communication. you seem like a very intelligent young lady. (saying that makes me feel so old! lol)

            but, yeah, i’m still kind of learning the whole verbal communication thing, especially with the different accents and the slangs used, etc.

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            • LOL. I don’t think I am that much younger than you 😀 I think it helps that I have done quite a bit of customer service work, to speak out loud but it still is not easy for me. You are a natural at English is always seems. Hard to believe it is not your first language 😀

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  40. Though I can fluently speak/write/read my mother tongue, I think it’s not right to single out someone only because she/he doesn’t have a mastery of the mother tongue. It depends on the circumstances, schooling, country one live in…it’s not someone’s “fault”, it’s just they might not have gotten enough chance to learn it.

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    • And you speak and write English very well too, Mani 😀 It must be natural for you to switch between your mother tongue and English, and maybe you do it all the time. Timing is everything and there may be a better time to learn a language than now.

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  41. I look forward to your posts Mabel, not just because they are written in my ‘Mother tongue’ 😉 but because you always make me think – and that is a good thing. When I was quite a bit younger (a long time ago haha) I lived in Singapore and made a lot of friends who are local Singaporean. We eventually started speaking a language which I believe is still spoken in Singas – “Singlish” – a mixture of mainly English bi=ut interspersed with Malay and Cantonese phases and words. While I was happy to use this language at the time, over the years, and although I still travel to Singapore on occasion and have friends from Singapore- we only use English so the other “language” is gone. Also a lot of our communication is done via email and we just type away in English all the time. Love this post Mabel – So shiok lah 🙂

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    • Glad I made you think, Andy. I think so much before I write each post 😞 It sounds like you did pick up quite a bit of Singlish. Very clever and you must have felt shiok speaking it 😂 This version of English must still be on the tip of the tongue – I still get people asking me where did that bit of accent come from now and again 😒 Good to know you have a common ground language between your friends from all over the world. Must always be a fun time together in person and over the internet 😃

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  42. Pingback: wolf4915

  43. Hi Mabel, You have so thoughtfully and articulately presented the dilemma of not being able to converse or converse fluently in one’s mother tongue. In these times, when people often live away from their native place or hometown (as we say in India), children do not get a chance to study their own mother tongue at school , and end up not using the language much.
    Though it may not appear to be a necessity, I guess it is good to know your mother tongue because as you have said it is one of those ties that connect us with our roots. My mother tongue is Bengali, though I did not study the language at school, but it was the language spoken at home. Though I also learnt to read and write the language, but with the passing time and lack of touch, I am not very confident about writing without making errors. However, now I do realise the importance of knowing your own language as it helps you to identify with your people and appreciate your culture better.
    Thank you for bringing out such a thought provoking and relatable topic.

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    • So true, Somali. Not everyone will get the chance to study their mother tongue. “one of those ties that connect us with our roots” Such a good way of describing it. Language ties us to our roots and culture more than we will ever know. Even if we don’t speak it and just hear it, there is a sense of connection, even if we feel awkward or uncomfortable with hearing a ‘foreign’ language. It is lovely to hear that you speak Bengali, like how your some of your fellow Indians in India speak the language. A lot of Indians I have met proudly tell me of the mother tongue they speak 🙂 If we do ever get the chance to meet, I will ask you some Bengali phrases – and I am sure you will confidently teach me quite a few 😀

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  46. I’d classify mother tongue as the main language my parents (mother) speaks. It is supposed to be a language you pick up at home, not through formal training. Since I am living in Malaysia instead of, say, Australia or the US, it comes easy to me, of course. 😀

    If we define mother tongue as the language of our ancestors, I think all 7 billion people in the world can trace back to the same mother tongue, which is some African language, if we are to trust the archaeologists. 🙄

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    • It depends on the language you think in your head too. Like you’re in Malaysia. You’d have to think in Chinese to understand how Malaysia works, so it would come naturally to you.

      History does have its basis and is believable. Then again, you never really know anything anymore and no one can be trusted 😀

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  47. Hi Mabel! I think you present such an interesting discussion here. And good for you for pointing out the misconception many people have that just because a person looks a certain way they are expected to speak a specific language. Not so! You challenge it with the example of your own life. I think the most important thing is to keep the family culture alive but that doesn’t necessarily have to be done with language, although that is certainly one method. Another thoughtful post from you ♥

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    • Thank you so much, Christy. Such a valid point you bring up. Family culture can be kept alive outside of language. It might be more challenging since language can connect us to those who lived in a certain part of a world and a certain era. Language makes the world go round, but so does an open mind ❤

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  48. I do wish the world was more formally multi-lingual, and I’m very jealous of people raised that way. It’s all advantage, no disadvantage. I don’t even speak my own mother’s language, for some reason just the way I was raised, and it’s certainly one issue I have in resenting my parents!

    That’s very interesting that you subconsciously know Chinese, apparently. If you ever want to study the characters, that would be great, but if you don’t it’s still good for your brain to know more ways of communication.

    Hey, may I ask do you find the term ‘banana’ offensive?

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    • “It’s all advantage, no disadvantage” You summed up being bilingual very well. Yeah. I do want to learn Chinese and Cantonese better. But the timing hasn’t really been right and I’m the kind who likes to do things right, on point.

      No, I don’t usually find the term ‘banana’ offensive. It really is an accurate depiction of me to an extent.

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  49. Great post… I was thinking of Chomsky. He argues that language acquisition is an innate structure, or function, of the human brain. He believes that as long there are people available to speak to the child, the child’s biological endowments will do the rest. Years after his theory of Language became a trend it began to be criticized. It was proved that many kids who listened two languages as they were growing up, could understand both maybe but didn´t speak those two languages, but one.
    I guess the degree of difficulty could be a factor, but to be honest I don´t know which are the factors that led the kid in question to pick up one over the other.
    Thank you for sharing, my lovely… Wishing you an amazing weekend ⭐

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    • Chomsky! Yes! Excellent point from you as always. He is a smart one, and for so many of us, indeed a language sticks with us when we heard it a long, long time ago. For this blog post I tried searching something that showed why we’d pick a language to speak over the other…but couldn’t find anything. Still a mystery 😛 You have a lovely, lovely day, lovely x

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