I read an article and I wanted to share my opinion. You can find the article here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27690891

About 5 years ago, I was hit by a car on my way to my last lesson of the year. It was finals week. I hit my head and blacked out. That’s pretty much all I remember about that day, but I remember a few issues that arose after that.

Not too long after my accident, I couldn’t speak for three months. I couldn’t speak English, Japanese, or Spanish (the languages I knew at the time). After three months of not speaking at all, I was able to speak again with a slight speech impediment. I can’t remember how long that lasted.

When I was able to talk again, I can remember meeting a foreign exchange student from Korea. Her name was Soyeon Shin, or Kate; I hope that she doesn’t mind that I put her name out there. She couldn’t speak English very well at the time and I couldn’t speak Korean. However, I couldn’t speak English as well as I used to, either. So, we were kind of in the same situation.

We tried to communicate with hand motions so that we could at least understand each other 50%, but I remember hearing Korean all the time. Whenever she brought friends over, they all spoke Korean and broken English. After a few months, she left with her friends to go back to Korea and a new group of foreign exchange students arrived.

After that year (and graduation), I came back home and waited for work. I sent many applications and no one would call back. Then, I got an offer to teach in Korea for a year. I thought, “Great! Kate lives there. Maybe I can see her again.”

I went through training and flew to Korea for a week of more training. Then, I went to my destined school. There, I met my co-teacher (and now best friend) Mrs. Yu. She showed me around. I lived in 강화도, the island off of Incheon (인천) near the border. There, the only people who spoke English were Mrs. Yu, Mr. K, Mrs. Grace (my co-teachers) and the few foreigners that lived there.

Three months after living in Korea, I acquired the language, fluently. Then, I lived without constant English for 3 years, aside from the English I taught in class (elementary).

When I came back to America, my mom noted that I spoke in a very Korean way. She didn’t know exactly why, but she sensed something different about the way I spoke. Until now, I never really thought about it.

After reading the article about losing your native language, I’m almost certain that I am undergoing the same process. I don’t want to say that I’m losing English completely, but I am losing a few things very slowly. My memory isn’t as strong as it used to be. I can’t remember anything from before my accident or right after my accident. What’s more is that some events that occurred in Korea are slowly fading away.

But, this blog isn’t about my memory loss; it’s about my native language loss. I told my mom, the other day, that I’ve noticed that when I study a new language, I feel like that language takes over my brain. When I speak Korean, I don’t feel like I’m in America anymore. Everything that I listen to (even if it’s not in Korean) sounds Korean in my brain. I’m studying French right now, and as I type this passage in English, I’m hearing it in French.

Today, someone pointed it out to me: I commented in a discussion about English and my English comment sounded strange to another English speaker. He wrote me about it and I thought, “That’s exactly what I was trying to figure out.” What happens is that, when I try to write something in English with English grammar, I sometimes write English words with the grammar of another language. When I wrote my comment on that discussion, I wrote in English, but with French grammar. This phenomena has occurred since my accident, from what I can remember. However, it has intensified since I’ve returned from Korea.

So, what am I getting at with this post? I firmly believe that, even though rare, it’s possible to lose your native language. I’m slowly losing mine.

<em>What do you think?</em>