One thing I noticed since I’ve not been working is that there are days when I don’t speak English at all. I didn’t come to this realization immediately since I watch, read, and listen to a lot of English content – but otherwise I am always talking to my partner all day in French. My former workplace was mostly in English so I had a better language balance between English and French back then. If I don’t meet up with friends, my entire day is spent speaking to him in French (he does not speak a lot of English).
I also started realizing my English is becoming… well, a bit odd. English is my mother tongue. Hence it’s not that I can’t speak it anymore, it’s just that’s it’s becoming a bit sloppy and rusty. Case in point: the other day I wanted to tell a friend that I did a spring cleaning of my entire apartment and that it was …….. and then I couldn’t find a word to complete the sentence. The French word “nickel” immediately popped into my head instead. It gave me a good minute to come up with the English equivalent which is “spotless”.
Overall it’s not trivial. These things happen (I rather find it quite funny because I was not so good in French in my high school days).
But if this continues on for the next year and decades, would I actually forget my mother tongue?
I know many people around me who grew up listening and speaking one language as a child and forgot because they started going to school in another language or moved to another country. According to linguists, this is called “first language attrition,” and it’s pretty common.
However, I grew up using English as my mother language and in school as well. So I find myself wondering: Can you then really “forget” it if you don’t use it? They also say that language is part of your identify. Does this mean I am losing part of my identity?
If anyone has any similar (or not so similar) experiences, I would love to hear them. Have you ever felt your native language slipping away? What did you do about it?
