{"id":3335,"date":"2015-05-13T06:23:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T10:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/?p=3335"},"modified":"2020-10-01T14:53:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T18:53:42","slug":"losing-your-mother-tongue-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/2015\/05\/13\/losing-your-mother-tongue-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing Your Mother Tongue? Good!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Itchy<\/a><\/p>\n

When I first moved abroad, I\u2019d heard the tales, as I\u2019m sure you have: the stories of foreigners or expats so immersed, so integrated in their new home culture, so saturated by the foreign language that they actually began to forget<\/em> their native tongue. Now that<\/em>, I thought, is brilliant! Surely, these talented language learners must be operating on a level beyond mere fluency\u2014their adopted language has actually begun to displace their mother tongue, seeping into every corner of their subconscious brain like a glorious multilingual parasite.<\/p>\n

Oh, what I would give to play host to such a parasite myself, but alas! It could never happen to me. I\u2019m an English native speaker, after all, and it\u2019s simply not possible to escape English for long enough to start actually losing proficiency in it\u2014certainly not in Europe, and certainly certainly not in Berlin, where some days I hear more English on the streets than German. I\u2019d have to migrate to small Dorf<\/em> and rent a Zimmer <\/em>from an elderly Frau <\/em>and her dachshund before my English began to suffer.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

I recently took a C1 course in German, but I never took the test, so I\u2019d say I\u2019m at a comfortable B2 \/ uncomfortable C1-level. By some definitions, that\u2019s fluent, but I\u2019d call it borderline at best. It\u2019s certainly nowhere near mother tongue-level, which I believed it would have to be to displace my English. I speak plenty of English throughout my day, as a good portion of my friends are either English native speakers or I don\u2019t know their native language, so it\u2019s not like I\u2019m out of practice.<\/p>\n

And yet, recently, I\u2019ve been finding myself unable to produce certain English words.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not quite as bad as the comic above, but in several conversations recently I\u2019ve been at a loss. I know<\/em> the word I\u2019m thinking of exists, and I know<\/em> I used to know how to use it, but there\u2019s simply a glaring black hole in my brain where this word used to be. It\u2019s as though my English vocabulary occasionally puts up a \u201cGone Fishin\u2019\u201d sign, and I\u2019m left to grapple with rephrasing it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an experience I have all the time in the languages I\u2019m learning\u2014I learn a word, then don\u2019t use it for a while and forget it, and I have to relearn it, or at least be reminded of it. But in English? That\u2019s never happened before. This is scary, wonderful new territory for me. My only guess as to the cause is the aforementioned C1 course. I gorged myself on new vocabulary during that course, filling my flashcard app to the brim every evening and drilling them into my brain every morning. I guess my brain can only take so much. Or perhaps it\u2019s temporary, and in a few weeks my German and English vocabulary can learn to peacefully coexist. Wouldn\u2019t that be nice?<\/p>\n

How about you? Have you lost bits and pieces of your native tongue as you cram more interesting languages into your noggin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

When I first moved abroad, I\u2019d heard the tales, as I\u2019m sure you have: the stories of foreigners or expats so immersed, so integrated in their new home culture, so saturated by the foreign language that they actually began to forget their native tongue. Now that, I thought, is brilliant! Surely, these talented language learners…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":4461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[542801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3335","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived-posts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3335"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6697,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335\/revisions\/6697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}