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"Part of being a good communicator is knowing what it is to be a bad communicator."

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"Part of being a good communicator is knowing what it is to be a bad communicator."

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-Native Language by Alison J. Elliot

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Two cultures, two languages, and two identities can be difficult to manage. Often, children prefer to assimilate into the dominant culture.

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Another aspect would be when giving up speaking a language for a long duration of time, it becomes more difficult to use it because the language becomes “passive.” An active language is one that is used in everyday life consistently among friends, family, and peers who also speak the same language. Children who move away from one of their languages, do so typically due to real or perceived social pressures and in an effort to cope with the complicated process of finding one’s own identity. Difficult family relationships can play a role as well, but usually it is societal pressures. Sometimes the prejudices and stereotypes within one’s own heritage or culture allows for the language of that culture to be perceived as unappealing and non-desirable.

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If a child notices that society at large does not approve of bilingualism, and/or if one of the child’s languages is discriminated against, the child will retreat from it.

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The reason why most adults have a tough time grasping a language is because they actually have to engage their brains to think about the correct sentence structure, word choice, etc. Adults no longer possess the subconscious ability to acquire a language with such perfection as when they were children.

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Although children do make mistakes in their language development, it is completely normal. These mistakes are not meant to be corrected. In fact, children learn to correct their own mistakes as they gradually get older.

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Noam Chomsky, a famous linguistic states, “We are designed to walk… That we are taught to walk is impossible. And pretty much the same is true of language. Nobody is taught language; in fact you can’t prevent the child from learning it.”

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Once I began kindergarten, I started to favor English more over Hindi as I became more exposed to it in my everyday life. Although I perfectly understood Hindi, i was no longer able to speak it with such ease. I can still string some sentences together, but I am not a perfect native speaker.

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Children who do not grow up in accepting environments of the language being spoken tend to feel discouraged from speaking the language at all.

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The critical period for a child to acquire a language is from birth to puberty.

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Research conducted by: Priyanka Chand