Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Response to “Mother Tongue”

The reason why I selected this article to write a response is because the article is indeed “so easy to read,” just like the author’s mother said about her book. Also, the description of her mother’s experience is some sort of related to our present life or the future.

She says, because of her mother’s “broken” or “fractured” English, she always be ignored, disrespected or even discriminated by people when she is talking imperfect English to them. When I had come here for the first few months, my English sounded really bad and awkward. Sometimes, I couldn’t speak a complete sentence to some native people or I was so nervous to say something clearly. Lots of native people just can’t stand for it and pretend not to listen to me. They make me feel like being disrespected from them and eventually they make me not willing to talk.

By the way, as for us, if a foreign guy speaks awkward Chinese to us, we may also act like them. Is it because we all have a superiority feeling about our mother language or just because we don’t like foreign people who are speaking our language even if they are really good at it? Maybe the answer for this question will be solved by people when we all become generous and honest to each other.

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