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Amy Tan Mother Tongue Analysis

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My Experience As a kid, I never thought I would end up learning to speak English nor go to a foreign country for college. During my first semester of college, I read Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” which I found to be such a compelling essay. I am not much of an avid reader, but this specific essay had a bond that specified what my life has been for the previous seven years. In her essay she writes about her experience with English as a second language and It’s a lot like mine. I would like to refer her mother to me in this essay.
For example, when Amy Tan wrote of how she would translate her mother's English to others, because she wasn't able to express herself to others through English. The response her mother would received was not to be taken serious. This I have experienced quite a lot when I would go to stores and ask for help. With the little English I knew at the time, I would get to stores and ask for a specific item. The workers at that store would take me to the aisle and show me the variety of items they had, but not the one I was searching for. Sometimes my family and I will go out to eat, we would order just like anybody and try to enjoy our meals. Sometimes an order will come out wrong and we couldn’t really explain the problem, so we would just eat it. …show more content…

As a kid, it was a big challenge to deal with because of the language barrier. Communicating was tough, I learned more sign language than English in the process. Another major issue I experience was the pronunciation of the English vocabulary. Naturally, as a non-native speaker, I have a slight accent. It's been seven years and still have an accent, it has its pro’s and con’s depending on the situation. What I notice as time passed was that people who spoke Spanish would understand my accent more than people who only spoke English. I still wonder why that

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Tan was raised in the English society and was already assimilated into society as she grew up. The language Tan was familiar with like Rodriguez was familiar to Spanish was her mother’s language, which she refers to as her “mother tongue” (Tan, 313). Tan writes about her experiences of her mother’s language as a child, and says, “…when I was growing up, my mother’s ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English” (314).

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He came home from school one day, his parents were talking. It wasn’t until after they had switched to English that he realized they had been speaking Spanish. Now you would think having been born to English speaking parents, here in the United States, that I wouldn’t understand a language barrier. Growing up I watched my cousin struggle to communicate with others. He lost his hearing when he was 5 years old.

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Being Respectful Costs Nothing Reading the article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan has made me thinking a lot these last days about “standard” and “broken” English. The writer gives a lot of ideas, but in my opinion the main idea is “RESPECT”. The bad respect that is shown to everyone only because of a “broken” English.

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For numerous amounts of people, with English being their second language, they have been described as having "Broken English". " Broken English" refers to a poorly spoken or ill-written version of the English language. One article called "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan discusses the effects of growing up with a Chinese mother who has "Broken English". In fact, Tan deliberates about the limitations and criticism of growing up with her mother. Although Tan speaks articulate English, she still can comprehend with her mother 's "Broken English".

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“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is the short story about the importance of language and how it is a key for communication. Tan emigrated from China to Oakland, California and she was a first generation of Asian-American. The author is very fascinated by the language and she believes that the language has the power of emotions, a visual image, a complex idea, and a simple truth. She also believes that there are many different types of “Englishes”.

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Some information about the author: She was born in China and studied in a local Chinese school for a few years before switching to an International school. It provided her the chance to experience first hand the real meaning behind "broken English", and understand how non-standard varieties of English have their own rules and shape a community 's sense of identity. In this article, she shares her views on Amy Tan 's "Mother Tongue" and talks about the power of language. I was reading Amy Tan 's "Mother Tongue" when I came across the idea of language being "fractured and broken". She gave examples of how her mother’s limited English caused her to be given poor service at department stores, banks and restaurants.

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There are two type of families. There is one family that speak only English and the other one that speak their home language and English in their household. Those type of families that speak two or more languages in their household are mostly immigrants that move to the United States. Their child or children will grow up speaking perfect English while their parents will speak poor English. In Amy Tan “Mother Tongue”, she talks about how without proper English it is sometimes difficult to get through daily life.

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In her writing, Tan often describes her experiences as the child of Chinese immigrants, growing up in northern California and living in American culture. Tan explains how she has learned to embrace the many Englishes her mother speaks and how her background has also caused her to have different Englishes. While others classify her mother's English as "broken" she finds no fault in it. In Tan's view, just because something is broken does not necessarily mean that it is in need of fixing. In her essay, author Amy Tan addresses the connections between languages and cultures in describing the different Englishes her mother uses.

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Summary of "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan In "Mother Tongue, Amy Tan writes about how her mother 's broken English affects her life. She begins this narrative essay by talking about the day she became aware of the different forms of English that she was using at home and during formal events. Amy says, "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" (Tan 1).

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“Ashamed of my mother”, she states, but as she matured,

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The article 'Mother Tongue ' by author Amy Tan is about the variations in the English language the author uses in her life. She describes her English when giving a speech to a other people, English she uses when speaking to her mother, and English she uses in her writing. She tells of difficulties faced by both her mother and herself from these many differences. Amy 's goal in this article is to show that a person does not have to speak proper English to be seen as smart or intelligent.

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In Mexico, my home country, I was able to successfully communicate with others and complete assignments just by the utilizing the Spanish language, but that was not the case on this side of the border. I had to learn a whole new language that seemed to be far different from my natal

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After reading Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, my perspective changed about the struggles for people who are not as good at English. All throughout this article Tan uses personal experience from her mom to show the readers the struggle while also using primary sources to back up her claim. All the evidence backs up her initial claim and as the reader your perspective changes after reading about how she personally was effected. The author 's main claim of Mother Tongue is to persuade people so respect people who struggle with English because she has serval personal connections, she has fact based proof, and she is an experienced writer on this topic and in general. All throughout the reading she uses many personal stories and personal experiences on how difficult it was for her mother to go through her everyday life.

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First of all, my experience of learning English was a great process which took fifteen years as a Turkish native speaker. When I was seven years old, I started to learn English and I am able to learn languages. When I was five years old, I was watching cartoons in English and in my opinion it was so helpful for me to learning a new language. I have been learning English for fifteen years including my college life. I studied American Culture and Literature in Bilkent University.

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