Ventura

Michael L. Ventura

English composition 1

Professor Monroe

January 1/26/2020

Mother tongue reflection

The article mother tongue by Amy tan is about her talking about how her mother and

her so called “broken English” affected her life and her mother’s life. Amy first talks about how

she sees language and how much she loves and is fascinated by language. Then, goes on to

introduce her mother and explains how they lived in a Chinese household and how her mother

had broken English. Next, she goes on and says how her mother realizes the limitations of her

English. Amy gives us examples of how she would have to call people on the phone and pretend

to be her mother so that they would be able to understand what she was trying to tell the other

person on the phone. Then, goes on to talk about how people at restaurants and other services

would be rude or pretend not to understand her English. Also, Amy tells us that she would

advance in math more then English in standardized test like the SAT but, she liked the challenge

of not being good at English and wanted to break the stereotype and how she would get b+

English. So, no she writes books in normal English also including her mother’s broken English so

that her mother can read book easily.

One thing that Amy said in the article that sticks out to me is when she talks about her

calling other people for her mother because just today, I did that for my mom. This because she

is very embarrassed of how broken her English is and she also thinks I can do it much faster

than her if I call so she is limited like Amy says. So, I have been doing this my whole life I can

relate to this topic and article a lot because my mom is Asian, and Amy hit the dots pretty head
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on with what a broken English household goes through daily. Like for example my sister and I

had to go to each other’s teacher parent conferences in elementary school because both my

mom and my dad could not communicate with the teachers that well, so we translated for

them. Which made both me and my sister have to mature very quickly to be able to handle a

lot of things on our own so we wouldn’t have to stress out our parents.

Another thing that stood out to me about this article is when she talks about her mother

yelling at her boss and how embarrassed she felt. This feeling is like no other because I was 12

when this happened in front of me for the first time my mom was yelling at a insurance

company because they would not let us renew our insurance. So, my mom proceeded to yell at

them in broken English because she was so mad, they clearly tried to calm the situation down

and fix anything they did wrong and I would just stand there and watch at my mother yell in

broken English and after all that I would have to apologize to them because my mother told me

to translate her very poor English to them. But Amy also says she thinks her mother’s language

is perfect and I agree I think that my mother’s tongue I can understand perfectly fine and I

wouldn’t change it for the world but my mom has gotten better at English and can actually

speak it pretty decently now but is still embarrassed to mess something up in a phone call so

she still has me do it time to time.

The last thing that stood out to me in this article is that she is writing book so her

mother can easily read them. I think that is the sweetest thing she is doing it is also probably

helping her mother’s English slowly improve. Which makes me want to find more and show my

mom so she can read it because my mom would love to be able to read an English book and

find it easy to read. There was a time in 1st grade that we had parents come in and read books,
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but I was there without a parent, but my mom told me ahead if time and told me to tell the

school. This was because she was embarrassed, she wouldn’t have read well enough for the

other kids to understand and id have to explain to my teacher that she couldn’t make it

because her English was not too good. Luckily, I had awesome teachers and they understood

my situations and let it be, but I did come home that day and made my mom read me a story

even though it was not the best English and took her a while it enjoyed the family time and her

trying so hard for me to have a good life. Even though the Asian households that broken English

is their normal English it is the same amount of love and even more obstacles to overcome

which just makes the love stronger and respect for my parents’ grow even more.