Mother tongue essay example 1
In a fast-changing world, we are used to the idea of the society developing quickly and adapting to new environments and situations overnight. The people of different countries have the opportunity to travel around the globe and experience new cultures as well as have the possibility of moving to a foreign country in order to earn a living for them and their families. The racism themes seem to be out of the discussion as the cultural diversity of people in each country is huge, and you would not be surprised to see a Chinese woman buying some bread at the local supermarket where you usually buy your food.
Obviously, people do not even notice the difference in the looks of the people surrounding them on the streets or the color of skin they have and the cloth they wear. Well, that sounds quite convenient and might even be partly true until you start to enroll in a conversation with some Spanish man who can hardly correctly pronounce the word “simultaneously” or a Ukrainian woman which seems to speak “her own English.” Your attitude may change a little bit.
This not an attempt to call you rude or anything else but is a good example of how much depends on the language you use to communicate with people around you. Let’s take into consideration the essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan where she writes about the problems her mother had to overcome as an immigrant who spoke “broken English.” Here she comes up with personal stories of her life and shares with us her feelings about the treatment her mother had to receive when she opened her mouth in order to explain anything. How people pretended not to understand her and pass by. Amy Tan says she used to be ashamed of the English her mother used but finally, when she grew up and started to develop the writing skills she understood how much fortunate she is as the could blend all the Englishes around her, including her mothers spoken English, and find her own writing style which is “So easy to read!” – according to her mother’s review.
It does not matter how much you would not support this statement, but it is true that a native speaker will treat you differently if you express yourself badly in his mother tongue. Unfortunately, there is little we can do about such situations than just try to be nice and start changing the world from ourselves.
Mother tongue essay example 2
Amy Tan, an American writer from California, has experienced herself how difficult life can be for an immigrant in a foreign country. As rare as it may sound but she has come through a lot with her mother, a Chinese immigrant. In the essay “Mother tongue” she speaks openly about real-life situations that happened to her and her mother. Here she tells us stories about the attitude of people towards them and her life-long journey to who she finally became.
The author writes about her mother as a wise woman who understands English perfectly even though people use to call her spoken English “broken.” She describes situations, where her mother was treated quite badly by the people because of her wrong pronunciation and grammar as well as Amy, was steered by teachers at school to involve in maths instead of creative activities.
In the essay, we read about one situation regarding an appointment with a doctor her mother was roughly refused, and the staff did nothing to help her until her daughter came and spoke in her perfect English. It might seem like this things do not happen often but they are a reality people have to face on a daily basis. As long as the cultural diversity of people exists there will always be people who dislike other people just because of their “bad language skills.”
Mother tongue essay example 3
“Mother tongue” by Amy Tan is a good example of how much your language skills mean in your everyday life. As Chinese immigrants, Amy and her mother can support this idea with a bunch of real-life stories as examples.
It can be hard to believe how difficult it is for her mother sometimes to get a good quality customer service or receive a patient and nice treatment from somebody. Indeed the writer truly believes her mother’s English is perfect in its own way as it has become one of the many Englishes she uses in her books. We can take one very important lesson from this stories: Not to judge people by their language or appearance but by their actions.
Mother tongue Summary
I am an English writer who is deeply in love with the English language. In my daily life, I am always fascinated by importance and the power of the language, how it can evoke pictures in your head and make you feel good or bad, make you cry or yell. This is why I adore language which is the tool I work with during the writing process, and I use all of the English I grew up with.
Just a few days ago I was giving a speech to my readers about my book named “The Joy Luck Club” which was already given by me a lot of times before but this time it was different. My mother was present in the hall and was listening to the sentences I pronounced in the English I have never used at home with her. All the talk was composed of well-thought sentences with correctly used English grammar.
So it was far away from the English I used at home with my mother and even more different from the English my mother used with me. Most of my friends used to say they understand only 50 percent of what she says and others said they understand nothing at all. Usually, I would get ashamed of the way my mother spoke her so-called “broken English” and tried to help her as much as I could in the communication with other people.
It goes without saying that my mother´s English has influenced me a lot in the school years. It was hard for me to do well in literature tests where I could barely understand simple semantic structures like “sunset is to nightfall” which simply means “sunset precedes nightfall.” My teachers used to enroll me in Mathematics more that in creative activities.
Yet this did not stop me from trying, and I worked hard on my English skills as I wanted to write books so much. There were a few bad attempts of writing where I used sophisticated words introduced into grammatically complex sentences until I understood what a privilege I had of knowing so many Englishes, from the correct written form to my mothers “broken English”, and managed to mix all of them into a simple and convenient writing style which can now express a lot more than I could even imagine.
