Do you find your mother language easier than your second?

[MrFreshh]

I actually find my mother tongue a little bit more difficult than my second language. My mother tongue is Finnish, but my English is the stronger of the two. The reason for this is that I moved away from Finland at a young age and had to learn English in school. We still spoke Finnish at home, but I had to use English everywhere else. Nowadays I am back in Finland and have no problems communicating with people.I do still find myself thinking in English for the most part though.

[linguaholic]

Dear MrFreshh

I am really happy to see another Finnish native speaker here on www.linguaholic.com. We probably got around 3 or 4 Finnish native speakers now here in the forums.

I am really interested in the Finnish language, as I regulary go on holidays there. I started some threads in the Finnish section. Maybe you could have a look at them, that would be great. The links are:

http://linguaholic.com/study-finnish/finnish-for-beginners-countries-and-nationalities/

http://linguaholic.com/study-finnish/how-to-introduce-yourself-in-finnish/

Kiitos!

[LindaKay]

I definitely think that the first language that you learn will always be the easiest. I know some people who are pretty fluent in multiple languages and who don't seem to have a problem. Yet, they all say that their first language is definitely the easiest.

[marmunmrhundun]

Of course my mother language is easier than my second. I mean it is the language I have been accustomed to my whole life. I have been around English since I was a baby, it was the first language I have ever heard lol.

[Baburra]

I agree. I think it really takes a certain kind of educator, one who is passionate about his or her craft enough to teach the same thing year after year to hundreds of different students to really instill a sense of wonder and curiosity because they are the ones who should be teaching you why their subject is a wonderful thing to know.

As for me, as much as I hate to admit it, I have a way easier time with English which is only my second language. I think it's because English just has rules that are way more standardized than my own native language, but I still love it completely nonetheless.

[Bonyi]

Of course my mother tongue is much easier than my second language.

[tintiano]

Actually, in my case, my second language comes more naturally to me than my mother tongue. My mother tongue is Tamil and my second language is English, but I've used way more English in my life than Tamil. Even as a kid in middle school, I used to speak more in English than in Tamil!

[pipps]

Surely your mother language is easier than your second. Mine is definitely! I was raised with everyone around me speaking english. So of course I can read, write and speak English without any problem what so ever! On the other hand, I have only been learning Portuguese for a few months and I struggle so much with that!

[mikka254]

Actually, I am more acquainted to my second language than my mother tongue. This is only because I use my second language more than I use my mother tongue when I converse or even when I read and write. It's normally just a matter of preference.

[basmae]

For me, my mother tongue should have been Arabic.  But after moving to New Zealand I became more comfortable in speaking English.  So English became my first language and Arabic my second.  To this day I find it much easier to speak in English than in Arabic.

[FatesWing]

I absolutely do find my mother language easier than my second. I would think that this would be the case with most people actually. I think the reason for this is mainly because you're a child when you first learn how to speak and communicate with those around you. You are in a very receptive and impressionable state as a young child so you not only learn a word, but you then associate words with feelings and actions that you're experiencing at the time. If you were to learn a secondary language in this same raw way then maybe it would come easily as well.

[diprod]

My mother language is definitely way easier than my second language because I grew up with it. But either way, I'm also not having a hard time dealing with my 2nd language. They are all just fine to me.

[Rosyrain]

It's much harder to learn a second language that it was the first one you learned.  When you learned your mother language you were a baby and it was part of your development.  The second language is something that was not familiar to you since you were an infant so it will be new and strange to you to learn.  It helps though if you learn your second language in a country where your second language is the spoken language so that you are submerged in it all of the time.