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Forgetting Native Language | ||
Tags: Forgetting a language | Native Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Mai Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4519 days ago 3 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English*, Cantonese*, German Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 3 24 December 2011 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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My parents, who are native speakers, first taught me to speak Cantonese, but I seem to have forgot a lot of words, especially after going to school where only English was spoken. My parents speak it a little at home, but more so English. I also never learned how to write and read in Cantonese. I can still understand conversations, but if I were to say something, it would be missing some words. My brother is still fluent in it, but that is the only other language he speaks whereas I study Spanish and German. I have also noticed that when I am trying to write in Spanish, the German word often comes to mind first, being the most recent language I have learned. I might experience language interference in Spanish, but never the other way in German. I use German more often than Spanish; Spanish I use almost exclusively in the classroom. Like my Cantonese, Spanish is probably a language I would forget in the future if I did not use it.
How would I approach relearning Cantonese and learning how to read and write? Would it be possible if I continued studying foreign languages to forget Cantonese completely? Can someone like my brother who can speak and listen natively, but not know how to read or write have "native fluency"? Other thoughts on language acquisition and forgetting previous ones? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6397 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 3 25 December 2011 at 1:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think studying other languages makes a difference here. If anything, it would be an advantage for you if you studied a language where you could draw parallels with it.
You just need to use it. Watch movies, listen to songs? It all depends on your interests. edit: didn't notice you also want to read/write it, hmmm... you could use songs too, among other things. and you could use it to study other languages to avoid forgetting it (especially the vocabulary/common characters) there's been a discussion recently about how native is native:) also, were you in exactly the same situation as your brother? were you both born in the US/what age were you two when you moved? perhaps you're more visual. perhaps he's more talkative. various reasons are possible here. Edited by Serpent on 25 December 2011 at 1:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4930 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 3 of 3 25 December 2011 at 1:36am | IP Logged | ||
I don't have any advice on learning to read/write, but for speaking you have to, well, speak. Find opportunities to do so. You don't have the opportunity to speak it in school, and it sounds like it's not spoken much at home. There are gaps in what you can produce because you're receiving your education in English. It happens. You can certainly have fluency without literacy. They are two different things. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
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