[jenn]

How do you guys feel about this?
Are you forgetting how to speak in your ancestral language? And are you ok with forgetting your ancestral language?
Would you want your kids to grow up knowing how to speak in your family's ancestral language?

When I say 'ancestral language,' i mean the language your parents, grandparents, relatives, or ancestors speak in.



These questions are spurred by a class i'm taking.

For my class project, I need to gather some data about people's language use.

I'm trying to gather data from people who came to live in America and also people born in America.

PLEASE take the time to do a quick survey because i took time to create this survey! :]

>>SURVEY HERE<<

[JuneeJi]

I'll gladly fill out your survey. :]

[sandy.s2.yu]

I've filled it! Though, I'm not sure I got #11 right cuz I didn't quite understand it.

What does our grandparents/parents/etc. have to do with how fluent I think I am? >.^a

[little mixed girl]

When I say 'native language,' i mean the language your parents, grandparents, relatives, and ancestors speak in.

this is not a "native language", it's an "ancestral language".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_language

if you are not taught a language, then it's not "yours" per se.

not to put a damper on this language party, but i really REALLY wish that people would learn the difference between native language and everything.
being korean, mexican, french, whatever by ethnicity or race does NOT mean that you are automatically BORN speaking a language.
a language is passed on from a parent to a child, and to a child via the schools they go to and the community that they are in.

if a person's great-grandparents came to america from, say, china, chances are that that person's native language is ENGLISH and NOT chinese...

if you're taking a linguistics class, i don't think that a teacher will easily accept your work unless you have some strong and compelling reason for setting it up the way that you did (ie- after how many generations does a minority language fade out?)
but even that does not assume that the person in the survey is a native speaker of a minority language...

[Joo.Se.Fii.N.]

No.
Prolly `cause my parents still speak it to me at home. :3

And I filled out the survey. ^_______________________^

[royalpirate.]

My mom and dad always made me speak in my native language at home.
They would yell at me when I spoke English with my cousins.
So, it's more than likely that I won't forget my native language.

[jenn]

Thanks for everyone who have filled out the survey! :]

being korean, mexican, french, whatever by ethnicity or race does NOT mean that you are automatically BORN speaking a language.
a language is passed on from a parent to a child, and to a child via the schools they go to and the community that they are in.

if a person's great-grandparents came to america from, say, china, chances are that that person's native language is ENGLISH and NOT chinese...

err.. when did i ever say people were born into their native language?
if i had assumed then i wouldn't have asked in my survey for them to fill what language they use more often... or what language they first learned...
did you look at or fill out the whole survey?

if you're taking a linguistics class, i don't think that a teacher will easily accept your work unless you have some strong and compelling reason for setting it up the way that you did (ie- after how many generations does a minority language fade out?)
but even that does not assume that the person in the survey is a native speaker of a minority language...

thanks for the concern, but that is the format my teacher wanted if we were doing a survey.
if you want to know the details of my project, feel free to pm me.

My mom and dad always made me speak in my native language at home.
They would yell at me when I spoke English with my cousins.
So, it's more than likely that I won't forget my native language.

my parents were the same way. they used to not respond if i spoke english to them, but as a child i thought it was funny how anal they were. Now they changed and might even respond to me in english, i realize why they were so insistent because my chinese is not so good now. :]

[karafan109]

This almost happened to me.

My mom and dad used to give me heavy continuous repetitive lectures i had to connect with my roots, and practice my korean and what not.
I totally ignored this and now i'm regretting it because Korea was paradise when i went there last summer, and picking up the girls and making friends
was not an easy task due to language barrier. So now I'm practicing korean by speaking with my relatives/parents in korean... lawlll

It's full proof. Just practice it .

[yeonhee.]

I took the survey. I'm starting to loose my language. I'm getting worse at speaking it.

[love*beat]

EDIT: I realized just now this survey was from WAYY back haha. XD; God I feel like such a tard~

Wow this is perfect for me LOL. I finished it~
Not like I'm white-washed or anything but yeah due to my childhood I grew to dislike being in my Japanese school.
Although now I actually WANT to learn T_T haha.
Pretty much most of my family speaks in English :/ except for my grandma and dad lol.
So I guess that could by why too =__= haha.
I mean, I can understand people talking but I can't actually say anything lol.
So it's like a one-sided conversation for me and Japanese people. XD
But I can pronounce correctly :B haha.

[rawwwr]

Just took your survey and on the last question about how fluent people were, I don't have an older sibling, so I just put "not fluent at all" for that option. Hopefully that doesn't mess up your results or anything :]

[Mikuru-Kojima]

This was difficult, mainly because English IS my native language...
For Questions like #6 (What language will your PARENTS more likely use as source of media?), I just put not applicable for all of them ""

[lokkita]

Even though my parents still speak it at home, I'm forgetting my old language. It's just so much easier and faster to respond to them in English, so I hardly ever get practice. This is something I'm not okay with, it makes me very sad, also it's hard to communicate with other family members that don't know english, like my uncles/aunts and cousins.

I wish I was more fluent in Spanish, I'd love to be able to pass it down to my children, but sadly, I don't think that'll happen

[iitzjesss]

i speak chinglish to my grandparents haha...and sometimes they reply to me back in english lol

[am747]

Yeah, I spoke only my native language for the first 5 years of my life, but when I moved to America, I stopped speaking it entirely in order to rapidly improve my English. Now, I relearn a bit of it every time I go back home, but of course, I'm definitely no longer fluent.