Article: Learning Your Native Language Is Tricky, Say Adult Offspring of Immigrants

From http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1133451--learning-your-native-language-is-tricky-say-adult-offspring-of-immigrants

Learning your native language is tricky, say adult offspring of immigrants
By Oakland Ross
February 17, 2012

Behold the sometimes tongue-tied world of the language-deprived.

That, at least, is how they see themselves — the offspring of immigrants who now must struggle to hold their own in the language of their parents, one that should have been theirs as a birthright.

To make things up, more often than not, they have to go back to school and start all over again, practically from scratch.

“We notice it a lot,” says Maria Figueredo at the department of languages, literature and linguistics at York University. “They still maintain a link with their background. It’s a matter of maintaining a sense of identity.”

Anne-Marie Vettorel’s is an oft-told tale — a chronicle of betrayal, remorse and at least partial vindication that is shared, probably, by millions.

Read the full article at http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1133451--learning-your-native-language-is-tricky-say-adult-offspring-of-immigrants