So it's been 5 months since I wrote up this post, and despite the bleak tone of the response, since then I have been using my heritage language (French) instead of my native language (English) for everyday communication with my family 24/7, and I'd like to write up what finally worked for me.
A quick recap of my situation: My parents both are fluent French speakers but ever since we’ve moved permanently to an English speaking country, all of us have spoken in English. I’ve tried in the past to get everyone to speak in French to retain the language, and failed, but this time I’ve gotten French to stick with me. So here are the quick steps for kids of immigrants to start speaking your heritage language at home.
1) Realize that Your Actions are the Only One you can Control.
I had thought that the only way to do this was to get EVERYONE in my household to speak French and only French, and all the times I’ve tried this it’s led to guarantee failure. It’s a pleasant game that lasts for a day and a half which then gets immediately dropped because it is inconvenient. You need to make it so that no matter what language is spoken to you – respond in the heritage language. I had thought my parents would be more willing to switch completely to French (It’s their native language after all!) but even with them, five months in, they STILL default to English.
2) Your Family Won’t React Violently to Change, I Promise
Breaking your family’s social norms is nerve wracking, I get it! but It’s not like you’re doing drugs. There are clear and obvious benefits to knowing your heritage language better. And people are surprisingly quick to adjust to change. A couple of days in, they’ll start to realize you’re serious and will adjust expectations.
If you feel awkward making the complete transition out of the blue, do what I did, and go through each family member and ask, “would it be cool if I only spoke [insert heritage language]?“ they will say yes, and then you can run with it.
3) Don’t Make Exceptions with Members of your Family Who are Not as Fluent
There might be members of your household who really REALLY do not know or understand the heritage language in question, they tend to be younger siblings who grew up in a completely English speaking household and don’t have as much foundations as you. They’ll push back a bit, because you still need to speak with them, so what to do?
My solution to this is speak the sentence/phrase in your heritage language first and use gestures! If they still don’t understand, then you can translate. They will pick up on repeated phrases quickly and they might know more than you think. My little sister is anglophone to the core, but now she can firmly recognize “ferme la porte” and “sors de ma chambre” without needing a translation.
4) Messing up and Speaking in your Native Language is OK, just Switch back ASAP.
When starting you will mess up. Trying to shed off your native language at home is like voluntarily switching which hand you write with. It feels awkward and unintuitive.
When you bump into someone, you’re going to automatically say “sorry”, when you lose your temper, or get excited, or miserable, you will start to, what I like to call, ‘default’ back to your native language. You’ll find that it’s hard to be as clever, or charming, or quick-witted as you usually are, but if you keep at it, you will be able to start injecting personality back into your conversations. It just takes a little time.
When I first started, I found that It was difficult to speak French right when I got up, when my brain was still foggy from sleep, and late at night when my brain was starting to shut down. It was difficult to multi-task, if I was concentrating on something, and someone asked me a question, I’d default. This is normal, as soon as you realize it, just switch back to your heritage language. Think of it as trying to rebuild (or build up completely from scratch) muscle memory.
5) Ask about Unknown Words, use Synonyms, and Guess on your Grammar.
One of the biggest things that prevented me doing this a long time ago is the feeling that my French wasn’t ‘good enough’ to use 24/7. Neither is a 3 month old learning to use their native language for the first time. You are good enough NOW; all you really need is to figure out how to say, “how do I say __ in [heritage language]?” and try to use synonyms/descriptions when you forget a word. Forgot how to say library? Well then, you’re now going to the “place where you borrow books”
Just guess on nitty gritty grammar stuff, and when you are wrong, adjust. If you are in the same situation as me, you are lucky enough to have at least one native speaker living with you 24/7, so use them as a touchstone.
One of the trickiest things for me was trying to get around masculine and feminine nouns. My parents had an absolute field day with this and informed me that I’m eating “une mûre” (a blackberry) and not “un mur” (a wall), and trust me, I now know the difference. Which leads me to the next tip,
6) Swallow your Pride, you’re Going to Sound Dumb for a While.
There is no way around this, you’re gonna sound stupid, and if you come from an Immigrant background, chances are your parents are going to broadcast funny mistakes you made to your entire extended family, their friends, and then their friends’ extended family. Keep your head up, remember the time you might have made fun of your parents’ accent when you were 10, realize this is karma, and accept hand you were dealt. Suffer for education’s sake, you will get better. And for what it’s worth, I’ve heard nothing but encouragement from both sides of my extended family.
Throughout this exercise you’re going to find that words come quicker to you, and it will be easier and easier to hold a conversation, which is the goal, but let me tell you what it will not improve as much: your vocabulary.
Yes, you will pick up more things here and there, but you will also find that you tend to use the same words over and over, and especially in quarantine when we hardly get out, your surroundings won’t change as much.
You’re going to have to get your expanded vocab by consuming media in your target language and integrating it into your speech. One way I’ve found is by leveraging Disney. Yes, you read that right, Disney, the corporate giant that has copyrighted all of our childhoods. Disney songs and movies are probably only secondly widely translated to the bible, and as the melody to many Disney songs already live rent free in my head, listening to the French versions isn’t as much of a hassle.
--So, you’ve started speaking your heritage language, what now? --
The next clear step (for me at least): reading and writing in French. Jamming to C'est la fête over and over can only take your vocabulary so far.
I’m dragging my feet on this, because to me reading and writing in French is infinitely harder than speaking it. It’s also incredibly demoralizing, because I LOVE reading and writing in my native language.
The skill gap is almost laughable too. Being able to breeze through ‘Name of the Wind’ to needing a Rosetta Stone to struggle through ‘Le Petit Prince’ starts to wear on your soul, but I suppose we all need to start somewhere.
[link] [comments]
from Ẹ káàbọ̀ https://ift.tt/382pmaK
via Learn Online English Speaking
Comments
Post a Comment