Response to “Mother Tongue”

Something that I found interesting in the text “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan was her relationship and experience with her mother’s “broken” English. Throughout the text, Tan mentions how she had grown up around her mother’s “broken” English and had assimilated it into her own life and was accustomed to it. I had the opposite experience, which is why I found her relationship and experience so interesting. In my family, my father speaks near to “fluent” English while my mother speaks “broken” English. From a young age I’ve always spoken to my father, as well my siblings, in English, and I’ve always spoken Urdu with my mother, but not just any Urdu, I spoke “broken” Urdu. Throughout my life, my mother relates to Tan a lot more than I do. My mother has learned and has been accustomed to my “broken” Urdu rather than me learning her “broken” English.

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