dazzlingblue Posted November 20, 2013 Report Share Posted November 20, 2013 Does anyone have experience in having to relearn your mother tongue language? I moved from Japan to a rural part of Tennessee at the age of ten with my family, so while I was well-immersed into the English language, I never kept up with the Japanese. (I actually am a freelance copy editor---in English, of course.) I can speak in an informal, family manner, and I can make out stuff that may be on a packaging. But I really need to get back to studying kanji and other parts that I actually never studied. It's been hard for me to find some sort of a formalized plan to study a language that you kind of know, but don't. It's just not easy to find lessons that aren't trying to teach you customs while teaching words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limon Posted November 20, 2013 Report Share Posted November 20, 2013 Yeah, I've had the same experience with Spanish, having moved to the US as a teen.My comprehension and readion are fluent, and I can get by in basic conversation since my overall structure and grammar are fine, but my vocabulary has taken a beating, making complex discussions much more difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mareebaybay Posted November 21, 2013 Report Share Posted November 21, 2013 Yes, I have experienced this before. For me it was fairly simple, learning my native language again. I was getting it all back in bits and pieces, but it did not really affect my comprehension in a negative way. I think it would probably differ person to person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trellum Posted November 21, 2013 Report Share Posted November 21, 2013 Nope, not yet. I might after living 20 or 30 years in Holland and speak dutch the whole day; both at home and at work. I think this is quite normal, specially if you stay in a place for a really long time, but I don't think you will ever forget your mother language, unless you move from your country at a really young age. Then yeah you can forget, but not an adult. You might get a bit rusty tho, but after a bit you should remember everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbepp Posted November 21, 2013 Report Share Posted November 21, 2013 The same thing happened to my aunt. She's been living in Austria for almost 15 years now, and since she only calls every month or so, her Spanish gets kinda rusty. Just talk your native language for a bit and I'm sure you'll be fine in just a few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baburra Posted November 22, 2013 Report Share Posted November 22, 2013 I think if you stop practicing it, you start to forget. All of our family members speak our native language at home, so it's not that hard to pick up on it when we return to the motherland. Still, it's easy to lose the accent so that part is a little hard to get used to when whenever we goo back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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