forgetting one's language, has this happened to anybody else?

[赫杰]

Hi there,

Talking with my parents using Skype the other day and I could not figure out how to express 纱窗，白话，阳台，书面语 in English, I was just like uhhhhh uhhhh and then there was silence for a minute or so as I tried to think of how to say it....I had to use the dictionary...lol

This is the first time I have completely forgot some English words, I remember after living here for three months, I was talking with my parents and it took me awhile to remember how to say 冰箱 in English, but I remembered it after a few minutes. I guess it's understandable if you go for months without really using ones mother language.

Has anyone else had these kinds of interesting experiences? I am just curious.

Thanks

J

[xiaojiang216]

Yes, this happens to me all the time!

I forgot, and still don't know how to say 蒲公英 in English. I looked it up once, but I forgot. Also just recently, I found myself picking up a meter stick during a lab experiment in Biology class and asking my lab partner what it was called. I also sometimes say words like 要求 instead of requirement during conversations.

It may just be a sign that you're studying well! My friend studies very hard, speaks wonderful Chinese, and loves studying the language! When coming back home from his first trip to China, he found himself saying things like:

"Would you like some more 吗?"

"Wow, that's great啦!"

"I think you should eat more吧!"

呵呵呵... 很有意思! Well, you're not the only one out there! I think you're just studying very well, and learning a ton!

Congratulations, and best wishes!

--Xiaojiang

[md1101]

be proud of yourselves! when i first got back to australia from china i did things like that.. throw in chinese words in sentences subcontiously... and wanting to use 随便 all the time. but now... i regret to say that my english has all come back.

luckily im visiting china this july!

[Lu]

I have it too, the dropping in of Chinese words wears of after a few months, but I lost some grammar as well, and some more complicated and less everyday words, and that doesn't come back so easily. Seems that it's inevitable to loose a bit of your own language if you want to learn good Chinese.

[carlo]

Me too. It's much worse with foreign languages though, it takes longer to get back to normal. Sometimes it also happens that I say entire sentences in the 'wrong' language and people think that they misheard a sentence in their own language (so I'll be like, "sorry Granma, that was Chinese"). However this only seems to affect active skills not passive ones (I may not recall a word, but I can always understand it when I hear it spoken). The loss of passive skills, rather than active ones, seems to be the one connected with 'forgetting' one's mother tongue.

[mystico_tala]

I'm heading back to the states soon and I noticed when I had a friend visiting last week that I throw in random chinese words and don't even realise that they might have no idea what I'm talking about. 味精，等一下，可爱，etc. Even with numbers. Someone would tell me what something cost and I would just repeat it in Chinese. I'm not use to people not knowing at least basic Chinese phrases. *sigh* It's going to be rough.

[889]

Some would say this is classic pretentiousness of the returned expatriate . . . .

[gougou]

Getting worse in one language because of studying another I experienced before as well.

Another, more pleasant, thing I experienced is that I am not aware of which language is spoken anymore. E.g. I have some Chinese friends with whom I speak using English and Chinese. Sometimes, these friends would ask me a question in English and I would find myself replying in Chinese, subconsciously.

A more interesting instance of linguistic confusion occured back when watching L'auberge espagnol with a Chinese friend. The movie is a wonderful mix of many European languages, of which my friend unfortunately only understood English. As there were only Dutch subtitles, I translated all the languages my friend couldn't point out. In the middle of the movie, she interrupted me because I had been "translating" from English to English for ten minutes without noticing it - not only repeating what had been said, but actually using my own words to express the same meaning!

[in_lab]

Gougou, I wish I could have been there to hear you interpreting English. That's great.

I forgot, and still don't know how to say 蒲公英 in English.

When I see 蒲公英, I instantly think "tanpopo." That would be understandable if I could speak Japanese, but I don't speak Japanese at all! It took me a few seconds to remember that it is "dandelion."

[Quest]

I do that all the time, the other way. When I speak Chinese here in the states with my friends, I mix in English words, so much so that I find it hard to speak entirely in Chinese. When I went back to China, I had to consciously translate my Chinglish into Chinese so my relatives could understand me. This over accomodation sometimes made me sound funny. That's OK, what's been bothering me is my "accent". My pronunciation of Chinese has definitely been corrupted by my English, and it's been so long that I've forgotten how to "correctly" pronounce some of the Chinese sounds.

[gougou]

My pronunciation of Chinese has definitely been corrupted by my English

Interesting. How long since you left China?

[geraldc]

I have problems switching between dialects, I have massive problems with 因为, where I actually have to stop and think which is the canto, and which is the mando pronunciation.