The problem with language(s)
The problems with having more than one language. Click this.
I found this interesting and thought you might too.
Encontré este interesante y pensé que podría también.
7 Answers
I have read the article Ian, very interesting, If you stay for many years in another country its very likely and otherwise, if you don't practice, you will probably forget everything.
This is a great article.
You have to use a language to acquire it, and if you stop using it you lose it, as the saying goes. This is why we hear people say "I used to be fluent in....". And after spending years of not or barely speaking your native language, it's no surprise people lose their proficiency.
Culture and language are unseparable. Without a good grasp of the traditions, history, music and pop culture you will always find yourself lost in conversations, wondering where words and expressions come from and why people use them. It's something new language learners rarely think about and not enough focus is put on the cultural aspects of language learning.
Anyway, this was a good read.
Thank you. I find myself missing English words all the time. The Spanish word is right there but the English one just won't come to me. Believe me it is very frustrating to not be able to put together a proper English sentence. Vive Spanglish!
Indeed, it was very interesting. It goes along with the adage, "Use it or lose it."
I found this article How do people lose their native language while reading your article, Ian. Actually, it is a link within your original article. It offers some explanation.
I'm curious to know how this affects those that are bilingual, trilingual or even multilingual.
After searching further, I found this explanation interesting. Language Attrition
I have found this quite revealing because my very early years were spent with
grandparents that conversed with me in three languages , I remember replying
in the language of whom I loved the most . I now have 4 badly learned languages
rattling around my feeble brain , I need to fall in love with someone Spanish in order
to make that my preeminent language.
After having read many of the testimonies of people who have experienced some degree of difficulty in retaining and remembering their native language, it would seem to me that one of the key factors in helping people to remember their native language or mother tongue is continued exposure to the language.
We humans need to continue to be in environments where the language/s we want to learn, speak, remember or retain is/are being spoken around us. We are immersed in the language! After all, isn't that just how we learnt or native languge in the first place when we were babies?!
I'm not saying that the key factor mentioned above in the first paragraph is the only important one but I am convinced that it is significant. As Rac and Rodneye have rightly said: We need to use it or lose it! This is advice I have often given in response to newbies here asking about how quickly they can learn Spanish or how they can retain what they have learnt!
I have had a quick look at the article posted in the link provided by Rac and I found this quote interesting:
The difficulties in recalling your first language are greater the more immersed you are in a second language, says Dr Aneta Pavlenko at Temple University in Philadelphia, because cognitive resources are limited.
It made me wonder how extremely gifted linguists manage to learn and remember 5 or more languages considering the opportunities for practising with other people, especially in the UK, would be limited! Although I'm not normally interested in, or moved (influenced) by, statisitcs, I would be interested to read (or in reading) an article which gave the statistics for the number of people around the world who are bilingual, trlingual, multilingual; 5 or more languages, or are just gifted polyglots who can speak in excess of 7 different recognised world languages.
Alhough I would consider myself multilingual: speaking Spanish, French, a little Brazilian Portuguese and learning some Italian besides speaking my mother tongue: English, I am not fluently multilingual. Although I would love to speak these langues fluently, like many others here I suspect, I cannot afford to just go and live in another country in order to to immerse myself in their culture and language, so I have to be content to use other resources like Spanish clases with native speakers, speaking with natives on Skype, using online resources, going on holiday to the countries whose languages I love and using every momento practise and refine my linguistic skills. ...and hopefeully help other people in the process! 
While we are on the subject of languages, how would you (one) define a native language/mother tongue? Is it the one your mother speaks, the one both your parents speak, or the language spoken in the country of your birth if different from that of your parents' country of birth? For example, in my case, is my mother tongue English because it is the primary language spoken by my mother and both my parents, or is my mother tongue Spanish because I was born in a Spanish speaking country: Peru?
I enjoyed reading through this article and was glad Ian shared it.
What has happened often enough to me is that when trying to remember a word in a language being learned - the word that has that meaning pops into my head from a language studied earlier. In high school and college I studied German. Those words popped into my brain the year I studied Greek in a graduate school. It has also happened on many occasions over the last 15 years when I have studied Spanish; off and on. Now the more Spanish I learn - the more often I can't quite remember an English word I sometimes use. It's agonizingly on the tip of my tongue. Then when I try to remember it - crazy as this sounds - it's not too uncommon for a German word to pop into my brain.
