With dual nationality but only one language, do you feel inferior to bilinguals?
I have 2 nationalities but I don't speak the second language. I only speak English. It's frustrating to be in the other country because people, especially in the capital, try to discourage me from speaking their language and answer me in English. I put in work to converse with them, struggling with the limited resources (I'm sure the internet is way more helpful if your target language is, in fact, English) online, so I really feel afronted when I'm suddenly hit with English. It's not that I'm struggling to speak or that I seem uncomfortable in a second language - I think people often want to just use me for English practice. And they're usually clearly fluent in English which pisses me off, because in that case, they're not the ones who NEED the practice.

I feel so ashamed when I can't follow an intricate conversation in my target language and it seems like no matter the work I put in, I get left behind. There's always that factor of "oh but everyone wants to learn English, and you know that already, isn't that enough?" because English is not my whole identity, it's only one piece of my nationality and my second language is the other half, without which I feel incomplete. I meet other people of my exact nationality make-up who are fluent in both languages, accentless in both. And I feel so embarrassed that I haven't reached their level, that when someone tries to redirect me to English, I want to explode at them and scream "stop f*cking switching the conversation to English!"

When it comes to my target language, which I love, my overall emotion is shame. Am I the only one who feels like this?

Question

With dual nationality but only one language, do you feel inferior to bilinguals?
I have 2 nationalities but I don't speak the second language. I only speak English. It's frustrating to be in the other country because people, especially in the capital, try to discourage me from speaking their language and answer me in English. I put in work to converse with them, struggling with the limited resources (I'm sure the internet is way more helpful if your target language is, in fact, English) online, so I really feel afronted when I'm suddenly hit with English. It's not that I'm struggling to speak or that I seem uncomfortable in a second language - I think people often want to just use me for English practice. And they're usually clearly fluent in English which pisses me off, because in that case, they're not the ones who NEED the practice.

I feel so ashamed when I can't follow an intricate conversation in my target language and it seems like no matter the work I put in, I get left behind. There's always that factor of "oh but everyone wants to learn English, and you know that already, isn't that enough?" because English is not my whole identity, it's only one piece of my nationality and my second language is the other half, without which I feel incomplete. I meet other people of my exact nationality make-up who are fluent in both languages, accentless in both. And I feel so embarrassed that I haven't reached their level, that when someone tries to redirect me to English, I want to explode at them and scream "stop f*cking switching the conversation to English!"

When it comes to my target language, which I love, my overall emotion is shame. Am I the only one who feels like this?

Answer

Well, one option is to find people who don't speak English at all, only Turkish. :D  Or, kindly ask them to speak only in Turkish, as it would help you more.  Or if your kind request fails, pretend you don't understand their pronunciation when they speak English (a dirty tactic, but I have used it before in other places). ;)

I do know the demeaning feeling of being shunted back into English, and if I can help it I end the conversation quickly and make a mental note not to deal with that person again - that is, if the person is deliberately using English when he/she knows I want to use their language.

I read a couple of blogs on this topic some months ago, so maybe there's some food for thought for you as well:

http://www.fluentin3months.com/how-to-convince-natives-to-speak-to-you-in-their-language/
http://www.fluentin3months.com/battle/

Answer

(sorry, i'm going to use english for these sentences)

the people have become more selfish and english has become more obligatory. So they see you as if you don't need to learn a second language, it must be your hobby, and hobby isn't an obligation. You're maybe right about they don't respect your choices, because they don't know how much you want to learn a second language and speak it fluently.

Now you've proclaimed that how much you want it. So i hope that those people behave. Turkish is a very strong language, i think the hardest part of it is "suffixes". You can get over that part easily with practises, after that, you can become a fluent speaker, that's all. And i must say that i admired your ambitious about learning a second language. Keep going :]

Answer

Don't worry, you can soon learn the second language.