Mother tongue

In response to Tan’s article, the importance of a person’s mother tongue stood out for me the most. In my personal experience, my mother tongue—Dutch, still has a major impact on my daily life. Despite the fact that I spend most of my time speaking and listening to English I appreciate my mother tongue as it is another way to express myself. When I came to Abu Dhabi my English wasn’t too strong, since I had only been thought English six months prior to my arrival, once a week. My Dutch on the other hand was very strong, especially spelling words and having written dictations. However after a couple of years my English was clearly overpowering my Dutch as I had put my focus on improving my English rather than maintaining my Dutch. It was either keeping my mother tongue strong, or my English. I chose the English with no doubt as English was the best way to communicate with my friends as well as doing well in school. The moment I flew home to see my friends, I surprisingly struggled to fluently talk with them in Dutch. I started noticing that I easily forgot words and conjugations that I didn’t use too often when speaking to my family. When I was in a conversation in Dutch, I would often stop talking in the middle of the conversation to search for a word. This was very—I can tell you, very frustrating. After wasting hours to find a certain word I would give up and say the word in English. On top of that I partly lost my beloved dialect (which appeared to be pretty strong when looking back at videos of mini me). I wanted to stop making stupid grammar and spelling mistakes (which I was thought not to make in grade 4). There were three options to solve this awkward dilemma.

1.      To only speak Dutch, even to my English speaking peers and teachers.

2.      Give up my mother tongue and pretend like I never even knew Dutch in the first place.

3.      Some other alternative.

After countless hours, days, and even nights of “wikken en wegen” the pros and cons with my family we came up with an alternative! *cheering crowd*. I figured that the first option might have seemed like a great solution in theory, but in reality I would probably stay grade and-friendless. The second option was enthusiastically thrown out of the window by my family, no further explanation necessary. Option three, the other alternative, seemed like the most decent option of all. Choosing between English and my mother tongue was a tough call, so why not choose both? The alternative was to take Dutch lessons after school so that I could maintain my English, as well as keeping my mother tongue on track (win win situation). I believe that by trying to maintain my mother tongue, which I have spoken for the majority of my life, I can keep the connection to my roots strong as it is part of my identity. Up to this day I still try to embrace my mother tongue, as well as my English. I have started to appreciate my slight Belgian accent which can be heard when I speak English, because after-all it is not my native language, and I shouldn’t be shy of my accent which comes from my mother tongue as this is a part of me.