“MOTHER TONGUE” BY AMY TANG

Q1(page 1): ” I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade. ”

A1:I’ve sometimes myself take some time and realize how powerful languages really are like nowadays languages could even help you get a job, help you communicate with more people, and how knowing different languages could open doors that people that just know one language don’t.

Q2(page 1):”The talk was going along well enough, until I remembered one major difference that made the whole talk sound wrong. My mother was in the room. And it was perhaps the first time she had heard me give a lengthy speech, using the kind of English I have never used with her.”

A2:I feel identified with this quote because I’ve experienced a same type of scenario with my mother while speaking In Spanish, I was speaking in Spanish with a group of friends that were from Spain and had an accent and talk, and when I went up to talk to my mom my Spain accent was still on and she asked why I was speaking to her like that since people from our country has a different accent and way to speak and felt very disoriented since I was trying to switch accents on the spot.

Q3(page 1):”She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine’s books with ease–all kinds of things I can’t begin to understand. Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese.”

A3:This quote reflects on new comers and people from outside the country that are learning English, because from what I’ve seen they seem to understand English when you speak to them or when they read an article in English but struggle to speak the language or they are speaking it properly, but can’t be understandable since they have a heavy accent when they speak English and when I see that they are making errors I go help them and correct them and help them improve.

Q4(page 4):”I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.”

A4:this small portion of the article is a strong message because, I personally seen people that truly understand English and could write and read it but some things like accent or speaking challenges are the ones that mess them up making them miss out many important opportunities which is very unfair because some people just judge their English but they way they speak but not by how they try to display their message and emotions