Your native language- can you lose it?

Marianopolita

Former Spanish forum Mod 2010-2021
Dec 26, 2003
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Here is an interesting article posted in BBC Mundo yesterday about language.

Is it possible to lose your native language meaning lose the ability to speak your first language or mother tongue.


https://www.bbc.com/mundo/vert-fut-44959894


It is an interesting question and the article presents thought-provoking concepts about what many foreigners experience regarding language when they move away from their home country. The experience is different for everyone over a period of time as to what happens to their native German, Spanish, Arabic etc or whatever the language in question may be after years of living abroad. The article compares the experiences of groups of speakers of the same native language but in diferent countries and what has happened. For example, Spaniards in England and how their Spanish may have changed vs. Cubans in Miami and how their Spanish may have changed or actually becomes influenced by the other Spanish-speaking groups in Miami.

The article also touches on what happens with your brain as it has to make room for another language and up to what age a child who moves away from their native country can maintain their native language.


-MP.
 

chico bill

Dogs Better than People
May 6, 2016
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Post removed.


Post something sensible and you will be welcome to participate in the conversation.


This is the Spanish forum not the Clown bin.




Mod.
 
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Marianopolita

Former Spanish forum Mod 2010-2021
Dec 26, 2003
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Regarding this aspect of language there are so many factors that influence the possibility of losing your ability to speak your native language whether it is complete loss or partial loss meaning less fluency and vocabulary due to lack of practice and not being immersed in the language. However, if a person loses the ability to speak his native language it takes time certainly not overnight especially for adults.

In my observation, age is a factor. For example, a child of ten years old can lose the ability to speak his/ her native language overtime if removed completely from that environment whereas the language can be maintained if spoken at home on a regular basis. I have seen both sides of coin. Spanish is maintained at home as the child learns English in school and from speaking with friends. It takes time but the child/ student eventually grasps English and in my opinion it is an ideal scenario which is maintaining Spanish and learning English. The end result is bilingualism of which I am in favour.

However, the reverse scenario can occur due to age. People are challenged to learn a language the older they are (and some even challenged when they are young) and as a result even if they move away from their home country they maintain their native language and are challenged to learn the language of their new environment. There are many factors that influence this not just age but I have met many adults who fall into this category. For example, some find learning a new language difficult even with effort, there is too much of a difference between their native language and the new local language to be learned, they get by with the minimum so they do not strive for fluency, they interact only with people who speak their native language for the most part therefore they have limited interaction with the locals, their spouse speaks their native language so there is no push to learn the local language. These are some common reasons in my observation.

In general, the ability to speak a language is a privilege and if you don’t use it you lose it overtime. I know many who are shocked that they lost a lot of their Spanish after moving away from a Spanish-speaking country. Although they can still speak they feel it is not at the level of those who live in a Spanish-speaking country whether it’s an issue of vocabulary, fluency or both. However, it is about finding that balance. It does not have be like that. If they want to maintain their Spanish while learning to speak English in their new environment it is completely doable.


-MP.
 
Jun 18, 2007
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www.rentalmetrocountry.com
Since we moved to the Netherlands 4 years ago, my daughter has become fluent in Dutch and English while loosing some of her Spanish. When she chats with her cousins she asks me "daddy what is Wednesday again in Spanish?".
She lost some of her Spanish but that's no problem because it's stored on her harddisk the same as my German was when we moved to Holland. I was 2,5 years old and we switched to Dutch but I never lost it completely and was able to teach myself real quick.
 

Marianopolita

Former Spanish forum Mod 2010-2021
Dec 26, 2003
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Since we moved to the Netherlands 4 years ago, my daughter has become fluent in Dutch and English while loosing some of her Spanish. When she chats with her cousins she asks me "daddy what is Wednesday again in Spanish?".
She lost some of her Spanish but that's no problem because it's stored on her harddisk the same as my German was when we moved to Holland. I was 2,5 years old and we switched to Dutch but I never lost it completely and was able to teach myself real quick.


I think this is totally accurate and normal. I am sure you are helping but try to help her as much you can to maintain her Spanish. At least the fluency aspect which is done by speaking. Forgetting vocabulary from time to time is completely normal but a true loss overtime would be not being able to speak at all. As well, if she is interested in reading in Spanish that would be fantastic because it is an indirect way to practice fluency in the language which is by reading grammatical phrases in the form of a book/ story.


-MP.
 

malko

Campesino !! :)
Jan 12, 2013
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I have never lived in an english speaking country. Still, there is no mistaken that one of my mother tongues is english.
It leads me to believe that you cannot "lose" a language. A bit like riding a bike,,it can get a bit rusty but comes back fast.
One does not think of a word in order to use it. Thats the fluency point. In my opinion.

The article ( i only rushed through it, mind you ) kind of tells us people have to " think" in one language or another and/or translate from one to the other.
When in fact, brain-wise, its more of a simultaneous process.
I dont read dr1 in english and then have to translate it to french to assimilate the post. Its a natural process.
Perhaps its the diffrence between a bilingual person,,and a monolingual person who is polyglot. Couldnt say for sure.

What is sure is that acquiring a mother tongue is still a very uncharted process.
As a child I went through the " but surely one language is dominant ? " no. By so called specialists.
If we understood how a language is aquired informally during the first years of a child's life, then we would all speak 5+ languages fluently.
 

dv8

Gold
Sep 27, 2006
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i think it's normal that the new "pushes out" the old, to an extend. i keep forgetting polish words and expressions because the languages i use more often are replacing some of my vocabulary. in addition to this while living abroad i learnt entire new segments of the vocabulary in the new language only.

for example, i rarely used a computer in poland. i did not have one and i had limited access to computers (i wrote my degree thesis in a space of few days using friend's computer and going by my written notes). the first OS i properly familiarized myself with was in english. as a result i cannot really operate a computer with OS in polish, i do not recognize and i do not even understand the commands. it's a struggle. here in DR i worked in a pharmacy. i read spanish language leaflets from the boxes of medicine and i read medical encyclopedia in spanish. later on i continued to read medical articles in english.

so yes, the new information replaced the old. it is easy to lose some ability of using your native language. a trauma or a complete isolation from it can make matters even worse.

having said that, while living in london - lots of foreigners from many different countries - i have noticed that no matter what their currently dominant language was nearly all of the people automatically switched to their native languages while counting (not only numbers but also such things as days of the week or months of the year).
 

AlterEgo

Administrator
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Jan 9, 2009
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I have a couple of examples to share.

Mr AE, born in DR and learned English there, and has lived in USA for over 42 years. We never watch Spanish TV and there are no Spanish radio stations here. We speak English only in our home. I tease him because sometimes when he speaks to his brothers on the phone, he uses English words and doesn’t even realize it. Sometimes he can’t remember a word in Spanish when I ask. We spend months at a time in DR, and a few times he’s accidentally spoken English to people there who don’t understand it. But.....when we come back to USA, his English suffers for the first month, as his brain readjusts. We never speak English in DR except to each other. I think he’s retained much of his Spanish because he reads Dominican newspapers online every day, and constantly complains about the spelling and grammar, in both the articles and comments. He’s teaching our grandkids Spanish, which he never did with our kids.

Alternatively, my mother’s first language was Sicilian (not Italian). When she started school, she couldn’t speak a word of English. She stayed bilingual until her mother died in 1964, the last person she conversed with regularly in Sicilian. We were not a bilingual household, because my paternal grandparents were from Puglia, where their dialect resembled Greek. By the time mom passed in 2009, most of her Sicilian was gone. The many Sicilian born friends and acquaintances I had no longer spoke the old language, they spoke Italian.

All four grandparents learned English, but never stopped speaking their first language at home. That’s the key. Use it or lose it. Not even one of my first cousins, on either side, learned to speak their grandparents’ tongue. There are about 40 of us. It died with them.

Our son is fluent in Spanish and Italian, has teaching certifications for both. His great grandparents would be proud.
 

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
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My first degree was in Linguistics, French and German and I spent a year at universities in both countries. My French especially was fluent. Although I didn't use the languages much over the next 20 years, I did sometimes. When I became a diving instructor, some 20 years ago I taught diving theory and practise in English, French and German. When I moved here, I had to learn Spanish and fast so Haitians taught me from French to Spanish and given my background it was not that hard to learn as I understand grammar. In addition I learned Creole. Now my life is 100% Spanish all day long and I often find I forget the English word so have to check in a dictionary when I am doing translation work. However, English is still the language I use most for reading for pleasure - Spanish for the Dominican news - and for watching television, again for pleasure as I watch Dominican news most nights. I don't think I have lost my mother tongue - yet.

Matilda