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I have a weird language history, so let me chime in. I was born in Brazil to Japanese parents. My first language as a young child was japanese. As I entered sch
by lhorie 5y ago
I have a weird language history, so let me chime in. I was born in Brazil to Japanese parents. My first language as a young child was japanese. As I entered school, portuguese became the predominant language in my life and both my parents decided to focus on that, speaking portuguese at home. Once I grew up, I went to college in Canada and have lived in North America ever since.
I have lost all fluency in Japanese. Japanese culture had always been a part of my life as a child, but despite my family (cousins, etc) growing up on misoshiru and jpop and anime, we all spoke portuguese, so Japanese-the-language never felt like "home".
These days, I also occasionally forget portuguese vocabulary. I do still "speak" with family, but mostly by text via WhatsApp, and conversations are usually pretty casual and don't involve nearly as much eloquence as, say, a good book. The vast majority of my life now revolves around english-speaking culture: my job is full of english technical jargon that I've no idea how to translate, english is the language I share w/ my wife, and it's the language I use to consume information and entertainment. English is now my "home", so to speak.
I think the author has a similar experience: she learned english in primary school and lived a primarily english-oriented life, so english became "home". The phenomenon of wanting to reconnect with one's roots later in life doesn't strike me as particularly unusual either. In retrospect, I did unintentionally distance myself from my own parents during my 20s (partly because that's sorta the whole point of becoming an independent adult and discovering new things) and only really started to regain that level of touch after having kids.
My point is: loss of language can have a lot to do with prioritizing things one feels are impactful in their lives (though those things may not necessarily be important - parents are certainly important, but it's the sort of thing that one can easily take for granted). Having had such a weird life experience wrt "first language", I'm keenly aware that the first-ness or even the familial aspect don't necessarily correlate with the cultural surface area that a person interfaces with the most. In some rare cases, your second - or third - language is what feels like home.
- cycomanic 5y agoJust a comment on your parents adopting Portuguese at home, because they thought it was important. I know this was (and still is) common among immigrants, and in some countries it was very strongly discouraged by schools etc to speak your native language. However there's now significant research showing to not do that. Here in Sweden immigrant parents are actively encouraged to speak their mother tongue at home and not try to help their children by speaking Swedish, because it's counterproductive. Essentially knowing another language helps children more than listening to their parents speak in imperfect Swedish. So if you are an immigrant, speak in your native language with your children, they will pick up the new language better by themselves and know another language.
- ezequiel-garzon 5y agoI think that neglects how much children can help their parents learn the host country’s language. There are several variables involved, as the parents doing well economically will also help their children in a different way.
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoFirst, this somehow assumes that immigrants aren't doing well enough. And what - poor people should speak the local language at home just in case it improves their economic standing, even though it would lead to missing a lifelong benefit for the children. But if you are already doing well, don't? If you don't keep poor people suffering like folks do in the US, being poor isn't as big of a detriment and the adults are perfectly able to improve on their own time. And it isn't like being an immigrant means you are poor.
- FredPret 5y agoPoor people in the US are remarkably well-off. According to [0], if you’re in the 20th percentile in the states ($25k income), you’d be in the 80th percentile of Germany. 20th percentile and lower is the OECD definition of working/lower class. Personally I found the 80% figure hard to believe. According to something else I saw online, it was 20th percentile in the US = 50th percentile in Europe. Which still shows how dominant the US is! [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/global-income-calculator/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/global...
- lebuffon 5y agoI can't prove this but I suspect this comparison is reflecting the relative price of goods and services which is a hyper-competitive market in the USA. Other differences between the USA 20th percentile group and the Euro 50th percentile group is that one of them has healthcare and a longer lifespan.
- 5y ago
- peterburkimsher 5y ago"There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors." - Phil Karlton Forgetting is cache invalidation! Especially forgetting the names for things. This is why it's so important to make our priorities part of our routine, so they stay in cache. Do you love someone? Talk to them regularly (whether that's chatting to parents, spending time in a romantic relationship, or prayer). Thank you lhorie for reminding me to message my parents more often!
- Aerroon 5y agoCan you still read and listen to Japanese though? I learned German as a child and was (probably) fluent in it. However, after not using it almost at all for more than a decade I find it difficult to speak or write it. Reading and listening aren't a problem though. Is it the same for you?
- RyJones 5y agoI visited Londrina a few years ago and was impressed at how much Japanese culture there still is.