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Losing fluency in your native language | ||
Tags: Native Language | Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6104 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 3 14 July 2014 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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Came across this BBC article documenting the experiences of 20 people. I was intrigued by the Czech guy whose thought and speech processes segregate between the mundane (e,g buying milk - in which using English is an effort) and the scientific / philosophical (e.g discussing geology - in which his English is fluent).
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| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 2 of 3 14 July 2014 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
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There are a number of factors involved where a person can potentially lose fluency in his/her mother-
tongue. For those who kept their native language at a high level: 1. People who live outside of their native country in places with a large ethnic population from their homeland. 2. People who make the effort to use their mother-tongue at home or on a regular basis. 3. People who are married to others who also speak the same mother-tongue. 4. People who travel and/or communicate between countries where their mother-tongue is spoken. I know Chinese people who emigrated to English-speaking countries and are able to maintain their fluency in spoken Chinese but have virtually lost their ability to read the characters (including restaurant menus). This applies to languages that have writing systems that are not easy to master. If you travel back to your home country frequently and watch TV shows & movies, you'd have no trouble maintaing a high fluency in the spoken language. A number of years ago I went to a summer exchange program in Taiwan with a travelling companion from the US. For many years he insisted that we write to each other in Chinese. We would write letters a few times a year by hand until I decided to type the characters on a computer. 2 years ago he switched to typing his letters as well. When we started, we learned different characters phonetically with Zhuyin (BPMF) still in use in Taiwan and many years later switched to using Pinyin. Last year ago he came for a visit. Although he still prefers to communicate in English, but his Chinese writing has improved over the years considering that we both live in English-speaking countries. Consider the case of the polyglot Moses McCormick who lives in the US. He picked up half-dozen languages without leaving the country. Even after marrying a wife from Taiwan, he had not travelled there until a few years later. By then his Chinese was already at an intermediate level. With the Internet, you can find all sorts of broadcasts online including TV programs, news, movies, radio programs. Personally I'm spending some of my time viewing Chinese and French videos although videos in English tend to dominate. You can maintain a high fluency if you spend enough time on a language including watching videos, going to chatrooms online to interact with native-speakers. The Japanese singer "JERO" is an example of someone who emigrated to Japan from the US and adopted the country as his homeland. He travels between the 2 countries and maintains a high level of fluency in both languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| holly heels Groupie United States Joined 3885 days ago 47 posts - 107 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 3 15 July 2014 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
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Sometimes even people who don't speak a major language can remain fluent in it even after moving overseas permanently, provided they make a conscious effort.
When I was on vacation I was invited by a friend of mine to a house that is owned by a woman, who emigrated to the USA from Belgium after marrying an American. Her native language is Flemish and apparently didn't want to forget it, so she was able to find a Flemish club of native speakers which has a monthly dinner where the only language you are allowed to speak is Flemish, so this has been very helpful. I have the exact same problem that was mentioned, if it is a problem, of speech segregation between the mundane and the philosophical. Maybe it's the difference between depth of knowledge and breadth of knowledge. In Mandarin I can prattle on for quite awhile on general subjects without using English, but when it comes to specifics, it's extremely difficult for me sometimes. For example I am able to talk in Mandarin about the automobile and its impact on society and the world, not because I'm a great philosopher, but because the vocabulary I have so far just fits more comfortably with that subject, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know the Mandarin word for "steering wheel". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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