Mastodawn

In many Chinese families it’s pretty common for people to talk to each other in completely different languages. My New York aunt speaks to me in Mandarin / Hokkien. She speaks to her husband in Toishanese. They speak Cantonese to other people. We all sort of understand each other when we are speaking different languages, but respond in our own language. From time to time we might dip into another language to illustrate a point.

My grandma used to call this ‘chicken and duck talk’

#Languages #Chinese

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·J Mopp 3d ago

@skinnylatte It's the same in my family: my father's side of the family is Afrikaans-speaking, and they will often speak in Afrikaans while we reply in English

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Nicolai von Neudeck

@jmopp @skinnylatte it is the same in the very multilingual area I grew up. Adults speak with children the language they speak best, so that the children learn the language correctly. Among adults it is considered polite to figure out someone’s most native language by their slight accent in other languages and to respond in that one. But of course only if one is fluent enough to do so