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Are you a TCK? Impact on your languages | ||
Tags: Third Culture Kid (TCK) | Living abroad | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 9 of 32 02 August 2009 at 11:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Liz, wow, you phrase this so well!
Much of what you are writing applies to me too. Well over half of my close friends both in Sweden and the UK are also TCK when I think about it (I never had until now, though). Am still so surprised that I never came across this expression until now -- it's really relevant for who I am. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 10 of 32 02 August 2009 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||
This speaks to me as well. When I'm in Germany I'm American, when I visit the US I feel anything BUT American. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 32 03 August 2009 at 10:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I'll chime in as another TCK. That said, I've lived a weird variation - I've lived in a few countries, but never the country of one parent, and only 2 years in the country of the other. I've also visited both - but I haven't seen the country of most of my childhood for over a decade.
I also basically lived in English-speaking bubbles until adulthood, regardless of the surrounding majority culture. Most of TCK descriptions fit nonetheless, but not all. Some of my friends are TCK; most aren't. Perhaps I'll chime in with something longer when I'm back from Hungary. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5677 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 12 of 32 04 August 2009 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I suppose I qualify as a TCK. I'm not sure if its had an impact on my language learning except for the fact that I was exposed to many different languages at a very early age. When I was younger most of my friends were other TCKs but now (after having to have settled down) it is much more difficult to come across other TCKs.
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 13 of 32 15 August 2009 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wanted to share an experience that I still remember vividly and which some might find interesting, or be able to relate to. Perhaps you've experienced something similar.
Because of my TCK situation, I went to a boarding school for six years in the countryside of Sweden, while my family was in Asia. This school was mainly for Swedish expat kids, many of whom had never lived in Sweden before and did not really consider themselves Swedish. That wasn't the case for me though -- I was a Viking girl through and through when I first came there. But the result of the international mix of children was that the school was FULL of native or near native speakers of all major languages; but particularly those that were taught as foreign languages to "normal" students -- e.g. English, German, French, Spanish and Russian. This had a very weird effect which has actually affected me a lot: In every foreign language class there was a clique of a few native speakers (half the class, for English). Every time a non-native made a silly mistake, this group would make funny faces, sigh, look unimpressed or giggle aloud... For a while it was a real trauma for me to say anything in the English class because mistakes were cruelly laughed at by this anglo/american/international clique. Sometimes particularly bad mistakes were even circulated after the class. My whole house found out about one particularly stupid thing that I accidentally said and it was laughed at for a long time. In a normal school nobody would even have noticed. (Adults would of course not behave like this, but these were kids, and many had all sorts of issues that caused them to behave unkindly towards others. Many spoke lousy Swedish, for starters.) The native speakers either HAD to attend these classes, or they cynically choose them since it virtually guaranteed a top mark, which in turn raised their overall GPA. The native born teachers seemed to believe it would benefit the regular students to interact with the native speakers, and they native speakers were just given some separate exercises to keep them challenged. The situation was not handled very well by the teachers and I am far from the only person with bad memories. French classes were also conducted in the shadow of a clique of French speakers -- including my best friend Zahra. She repeatedly told me that I was a completely hopeless case and needed to get out of French for my own good... Which I eventually did. There was a similar story in Spanish which I also studied for three years although the Spanish speakers were a little bit more open-minded and relaxed. This comparison of my own skills with those of native speakers in the same class has really put its marks on me. But it was only recently that this occurred to me as a result of a comment I read on this forum, and after discussing it with a friend. But to this day I still half-expect French people to burst into vicious laughter as I ask the price of something or pronounce a word wrongly. How these silly things which happen to us as children can affect us years to come! This situation was also partly what spurred me to really throw myself into English and get good at it --- sadly at the expense of writing off all other languages which at the time they seemed dispensible to me. I knew I could never excel compared with these bilingual friends, and I thought "I don't care if I'm useless at the other silly languages, at least I speak good English". ------------------- Similar experiences, anyone? Edited by cordelia0507 on 15 August 2009 at 5:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5597 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 32 20 August 2009 at 9:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I too attended a boarding school and had a somewhat similar experience, although mine was
in the US. So I identify with what you're talking about there. I guess I qualify as a TCK, but I never really think of myself as one. Edited by bouda on 23 August 2009 at 4:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 32 20 August 2009 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really feel part of that exclusive "TCK" group, as I grew up in my native country in what I consider to be just one culture, though it is a kind of a bubble that includes elements from the surrounding larger culture as well as having some of its own, and where native fluency in both languages is the norm. Maybe this means I have some elements in common with the TCK lot even though I am not completely of their ilk.
I am wondering a little about the term though. Why is it Third Culture Kids? I can only see two cultures involved in most of those cases: The native culture and the one of the country of residence. Which is the third one? (In a case like that of Volte "Third" would be right of course, each parent originating from a different country and growing up in a third one.) Edited by Hencke on 21 August 2009 at 4:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5909 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 16 of 32 20 August 2009 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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The idea behind it is that the culture that arises in these kinds of environments is different from both the first culture (native culture of each individual) and the second culture (culture of the host country), creating a third culture.
Wikipedia informs me that the term was coined by a sociologist named Ruth Hill Useem, though as a side note I might be inclined to question the wisdom of a person who names their children Flopsi, Penny, and Dipsi... (Penny is, of course, a completely normal name. 2/3!) Definitions vary and I would certainly be excluded from many of them, because I grew up in my first culture and went to an international school located in the same, but I can definitely identify with the features of TCKs that are given. Liz 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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