foreign-born parents in the U.S. overemphasize learning English and neglect their native language

captainbrass

GMH - Well, this is interesting. I'd never have guessed you were of Chinese descent. Although on the internet, you never know these things anyway unless people say.

As my ethnic language is English anyway, I think all I can add is that my experience with learning foreign languages is that you have to practice them all the time to avoid losing them, and that's hard. I was pretty good at French when I was 18, after 9 years of doing it at school. I wouldn't be at all confident speaking French now.

In London, it's hard to walk down the street without hearing one or other non-native language being spoken, and I sometimes wish I had an alternative to English. It allows for some privacy. I mean for all I know, all the people on the train speaking Punjabi/Urdu/Polish/whatever could be discussing their sex lives in great detail or saying "These English people are a total pain, eh?"

ninjaclown

I can't believe Abyss Worm just called me a white person, I feel SO much better now. XD

RedEyedAbyss

Sorry. I meant that in reference to myself, but I just realized how bad that sounded.