Friday, March 18, 2011
parents speak in their mother tongue and me responding in English?
For Asian Americans, do you think learning your ethinic language and your parents' using the language at home ultimately helps you to be more competitive or makes you confused and less competitive by not being able to focus on English?
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'm not too sure what you mean by competitive. Maybe it's the fact that I'm 4th generation and nobody in my family speaks Japanese that I don't understand. However when I've gone to my Vietnamese friend's house I've notice that his parents only speak Vietnamese. And when they talk to my friend he will always answer in English. I've asked him numerous times why he speaks to his parents in English and he simply says that it's easier. And he said that his parents don't necessarily understand fully what he says at times but he puts emphasis on body motions to better communicate.
ReplyDeleteIt's totally a good thing, learnignanother language is nother u lost but to gain!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd i love Chinese, its my mother language, I embrace my culture language and passed to my later childresn as well.
It is not a much, but some kids may think, I am American why I have to learn that? but think about it, you get advantages in the future when you find a job or soemthing liek that, to read soemthing, you born with this language, why not learn it?~
I'm hundred percent Vietnamese. However, I see a lot of my Vietnamese friends who speak English at home, but their parents speak Vietnamese. It's a little hard to understand each other if the parents don't speak English much. They only understand basic question and answer that they need to know. Most the time, parents and children don't usually have normal talk or joking just because the different between language.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if their parents force them to speak only their native language from beginning, then it could change a lot .
I don't think it's about being competitive or losing focus on English. I just think that if your family is from another country, it just would be nice to know the language and speak it at home. It's just a little something to know about in your race.
ReplyDeletePersonally I spoke Chinese first and then I learned English at school it was really confused at first when i got into kindergarten when no one spoke my language I got used to it and learned English and was fine in 1st grade. I think all in all it really brings more competitive than other people because we start off bilingual and don't have to study to learn another language.
ReplyDeleteI admit, I'm one of the people that respond back to my parents in English. I think it's beneficial to learn the mother tongue of your parents and be able to speak it when necessary. It's beneficial in a way where being bilingual you can enter in certain jobs that require translators. By doing so, you're helping others and knowing more than one language is definitely a plus!
ReplyDeleteThe first language that I learned was Chinese. I didn't even really know how to speak English until I started pre-school. I never had any problems with learning English or having an accent, although English writing is one of my weakest subjects haha. When I was young, I was always embarrassed to speak Chinese in front of my classmates or friends, but I am so glad that my parents forced me to speak it. I love being bilingual because I can always travel back to China and live there if I wanted and I feel like speaking Chinese helps me get back to my roots.
ReplyDeleteI think it does affect my speech when I have to respond to my parents in their native language, for this reason I respond to them in English. It's not because it's hard for me to speak tagalog or anything, I can understand and speak quite fluently, but I feel like the languages unconsciously mix sometimes and it messes up my grammar.
ReplyDeleteI think by being bilingual it can help you in the workplace when you a customer needs help translating or interpret something. So in that regard I think it definitely gives you a competitive edge in the job market.
ReplyDeleteI learned it the hard way that it really pays off to know your own language, especially with so many Vietnamese people in our community. I have been in situations where speaking fluent Vietnamese would have helped me a lot. While growing up I think it is more important to use English since we are surrounded by English living in the U.S and being in school but we should also try to keep a balance and still keep in touch with our language at home.
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