Have you lost your mother-tongue?

[Dilbertian]

I'm losing mine. I rarely have the opportunity to speak it, other than with my parents, and they are finding that, after living in the UK for 60 years, they slip back into English rather like the way they used to slip back into our mother-tongue when we were children.

And my dc just understand a few words here and there. Greetings, words of affection, some foods.

It feels such a loss. Weirdly, I think I feel sadder about it than my parents do.

It's happened to a couple of people I know where they made the decision not to speak to their DV in their mother tongue from the beginning, for various reasons.

If you want to carry it on, could you read and watch TV in your mother tongue? Is it on Duolingo? Could you do 10 mins a day on there ?

@Dilbertian wouldn't something on youtube be useful for you?

Mother tongue or any language- use it or lose it. You will have to make more conscious effort to find opportunities to speak your language, watch films, read books, and visit- if you don't want to lose it.

Strangely enough, some people who more or less lose their MT- revert to it in mid stage Alzheimers or dementia.

My father hasn't lost his mother tongue but after 65 years of living in the UK other native speakers comment on how his spoken language hasn't adapted to modern usage. He still speaks in the formal old-fashioned way that was used 70 years ago and uses many words and phrases that are no longer in regular use.

@TotteringByRosie What language is your father’s mother tongue?

It's interesting that his language has survived in isolation @TotteringByRosie but I suppose it would be frozen in time if he's not been exposed to younger people speaking it or watched much tv.

@Berlinlover @CadyEastman

My father is Ukrainian. It's interesting that his mother tongue is frozen in the olden times as he's only ever spoken it to friends and family of a similar age to him who also emigrated.

His English is technically excellent but he's never lost the strong Ukrainian accent. It's sad that he's ended up speaking two languages but neither flawlessly.

How old were you when you came to the UK @Dilbertian? Can you understand more than you can speak?

My dad came to the UK at 21 and is now in his mid-70s. He still speaks his original language fluently (he says he could never forget it), but relatives have said his accent sounds English now, maybe some English grammatical constructions being used, and he doesn't know modern expressions and slang.

Sorry misread OP, were you born here and brought up bilingual?

Me too. I have to actively learn modern expressions and vocabulary. Our cousins 'back home' find our speech old-fashioned, and therefore somewhat formal.

How old are you when you stop using it and how proficient are you in your native tongue? I left 30 years ago and without any one to speak with except my parents on the phone. I can still speak it fluently and I can understand it on videos on YouTube. I’m very fluent and was at school there until the equivalent of year 9 however.

I don’t believe I will ever forget.

I came to the UK when I was two. Although our parents spoke almost fluent English, albeit accented, we spoke our mother-tongue at home for the next five years. When I was seven, the teachers at school told my parents to stop, because my siblings and I were being 'confused'. My parents respected the teachers, so they tried to stop.

My children doesn’t speak my mother tongue either.

That's such a shame the teachers told your parents to stop speaking their mother tongue to you Dilbertian.

I'm starting to lose it due to lack of practice. It's not massively obvious yet, but I forget words here and there , especially words that might be a bit niche and I haven't used them in years and years. Or I'll remember "toddler names" for things rather than their actual names.

I dream in English and my inner voice is also in English, so bar talking to my mum, there's very little exposure.

Can't say I'm necessarily sad or bothered about it. Maybe once the loss of vocabulary is more severe I'll feel differently.

I live in my mother tongue speaking country, but whole my work life happens in English and majority of content I consume in my free time as well (books, audio, movies, forums) - both as a tool to get better in English, and because only a small subset is available in my language.

I use my language talking with my family and majority of friends, plus everyday operations, but it's painful to see how I am loosing precision and speed, deteriorating from brilliant to average. So instead of one great language I have one good and one somehow ok.

I tried coming up to speed with a third language, building on school knowledge, but it was going against my English practically immediately, so I gave up.

I quite envy people who have unlimited capacity for languages, it seems that mine quota is around 1,5 language.

I don't see sources like Duolingo particularly useful for keeping mother tongue. Yes, it might have some "better than nothing" value, but generally it focuses on learners' needs, not native speakers. See Duolingo course of English for speakers of some language you have learnt.

I quite envy people who have unlimited capacity for languages, it seems that mine quota is around 1,5 language

At the moment I don't think my capacity is that much