Learning My Ethnic Language in College

[Evinyatar]

Hey all,

I'm back; I finally got a new computer.

I wanted to ask you all about your experiences of learning your ethnic language in high school or college. I am English-, Chinese-, and Malaysian-American. This semester, I started learning Chinese at my college. I am in intro Chinese, and I didn't know any Chinese before signing up for the class.

I was abused as a child by my parents, and in my family, Chinese was used as a language of punishment. It was used to keep secrets and to cuss at me. It was actually to their benefit that I don't know Chinese so that they can protect their secrets. I didn't want to learn Chinese back then because it was connected with pain and hurt.

It hurt even more when many of the Asian Americans at my school would assume that I didn't have any Asian Pride because they didn't understand why I was afraid of Chinese.

Now that I am learning Chinese in a much more supportive environment - my class - I developed a greater appreciation for Chinese language and culture. Class is very exciting, and I am much more comfortable with people speaking Chinese. I would use Chinese to my Chinese professor and TA outside of class.

I was wondering if you all had any reflections, comments, personal stories, tips, etc. that you would like to share about learning your ethnic language.

Take care,
Evinyatar  

[Kuroi Kohhi]

the college where i go
University of Texas at San Antonio [UTSA]

the languages they offer are:

tagalog
japanese
french
cantonese
chinese
german
spanish

dunno i am half filipino with some chinese and hispanic/irish only bc of my last name how i hate it but yea i am in elementary japanese domokun  

[[~Dark Chocolate~]]

oh! That's awful crying ! I wish you luck in learning surprised !  

[d3f1n3h3r]

YAY! I'm so happy for you =] !
Good luck in your studies !!!  

[Rebirth Project]

ninja

One more night , I wanna be with you
Where I wanna hold you tight…

It's good to hear that you're actually enjoying learning your ethnic language. Try to speak it as much as you can, so you won't forget it later. Don't lose hope. :]

Well, I have to say my Vietnamese is deterioring. I don't spend that much time with my parents anymore since they are busy with their own life. That's why I'm thinking about taking Vietnamese school or class after I get a good job and get the money needed.

It feels so right
Tonight…

 

[envieous]

very interesting. I'm chinese, too but i was born speaking my language. Very proud that you dicided to learn your own language. Do you speak manderin or kantenise (i think i spelled them wrong. XD)  

[aznxxcharm]

What you wrote made me think about how living with my parents are like and I find myself going through somewhat of the same situations, but in different ways. I'm vietnamese and in my house I have to speak vietnamese in order to " not forget where I come from" yet whenever they please they start comparing me to other people and whenever I ask something I don't understand they critisize me or say that I won't understand it. I'm glad that you decided to learn Chinese since it a beautiful language and hard especially with the character so I hope you the best of luck!  

[Evinyatar]

Thanks for responding and listening.

I am learning Mandarin at school. At colleges in the U.S.. schools usually only teach Mandarin because it is the official dialect of China. My mom speaks Mandarin, though she can speak other dialects as well. My dad speaks only Hokkien (Minnan). It is not a very popular dialect in the U.S. but it is popular in Malaysia, the place where he is from. Hokkien is very similar to Taiwanese.

I am privileged that my ethnic language is offered at my school. Since I am interested in education, I tend to ask my classmates what they thought about the academic side of things at my school. Several people told me that they wished that there were Korean language classes at my school. I feel bad for them. The only Asian languages my school offers are Chinese and Japanese; they do not offer Tagalog, Malay, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.

Chinese is much easier to learn than I had thought. I already took three years of Greek and Latin, so by comparison Chinese was quite easy - I didn't have to memorize the hundred or so forms of one verb like I must do in Greek because Chinese verbs do not conjugate. Although the vocabulary isn't the same, skills such as making sentences on the fly, learning complex grammar, and learning new words are the same in Greek or Latin as they are in Chinese.

My professors like me because I like to do interesting things in Chinese class. I'm the oldest student in the class, and to be honest, I act like it. One day, during conversation practice, I took the words from our chapter - which was on buying things from an independent stationary store- and changed it up a little bit. In the conversation exercise, I made three conversations - one making fun of the school bookstore, one making fun of Staples, and one making fun on Wal-Mart. The fact that I could turn a simple vocabulary list into a socio-political commentary empowered me even further. Plus, the professors thought it was very interesting. smile

Take care,
Evinyatar  

[Euphoric Ghost]

I'm trying to re-learn my ethnic language because I usually only use it at home and mostly with my dad. I feel bad for forgetting, and I actually joined another guild so I can keep up with it and practice. Even though I'm a native speaker, I don't think I'm not one anymore. Why? Because my thoughts are in English, probably because I read and write a lot in English.  

[SDES]

I'm not yet out of high school, and the only language on offer in my school is German, which was once accompanied by Japanese.

I go to a Vietnamese school every Saturday from 9 - 12 pm, just to keep up with Vietnamese, so I don't forget.

The thing with most Asian languages though, is that words are phonetically pronounced/read - this way, reading is done easily, so I can read a lot of things in Vietnamese, but I wont understand 100% of it.

Since some of my family is from the Southern region of Vietnam, our dialect contains deviations from the proper pronouncement. (eg. some Vs are pronounced as Ys, etc.). That really gives me problems with spelling on the top of my head, since such pronunciations have been with me for almost all of my life.

I still think in English though