Losing Your Mother Tongue

Jung Hyun Lee
Aug 28, 2017 · 5 min read

Whenever I finish much missed Korean food with Kimchi, my Dad says this, “Yes, You are Korean without doubt”, as if it is something that needs to be validated. Besides a simple parental joy, I sense relief in his words. It is as if my finishing Korean food is a testament proving something he’s been nervously waiting for. I belong here, despite all those feelings of inadequacy and ineptness.

Preference for a certain taste, smell and food is such an animalistic, instinctive aspect of life. You don’t need to educate yourself about what feels good in your mouth or not. You just know it instinctively. You do not need to justify your preference for certain taste or smell. You never doubt yourself about whether this is indeed your favorite food. Your body responds to it and you simply admit it. No need for complicated thinking process, logical justification or defense of your preference.

It would have been really great, only if other aspects of life could be as simple as this. I always wonder. Why can’t the other aspect of life be this simple? I do not feel guilty admitting I like Korean food. And my friend probably does not feel guilt or shame in saying she likes Japanese food or Lebanese food. But answering a question “Which language do you feel more comfortable, English or Korean?” is not the same. My response to this question cannot be as straightforward or honest as the one about food preference. I pause for a second before I give an answer.

How should I answer this question? If I say that I feel more comfortable speaking in English than in Korean, would that make me look distant? If I say that I am more comfortable speaking in Korean, would that jeopardize my chance of employment? Do I look too foreign, too Western, or too Korean? My answer to this question usually depends on situations and the questioner. If this person is simply asking whether I would like to continue the conversation in Korean or English, I usually say I don’t mind, and he can choose whichever he likes. On other occasions, I try to fit myself to whichever personality they are looking for. Preference for certain language often works to create either a barrier or bondage. I want a bondage, not a barrier.

My desire for integration and acceptance is probably what holds me back from answering this question in a careless way I did for talking about my favorite food. Or more likely, it stems from insecurity deep within.

There’s a certain pain in admitting not feel comfortable with one’s mother tongue. As I left my first job which did not require me to use much Korean and started interning at a government organization, I realized l was a lot behind in terms of my Korean language skills compared to my peers. I felt like an inadequate little kid. I thought I had plenty of experience of getting frustrated with a language barrier, like when I had to call my friend who spoke Arabic because a driver couldn’t understand what I was saying. But realizing my Korean was lot behind that of my peers gave me a different type of frustration. It wasn’t just annoying. It hurt deep inside. It made me feel inadequate and worthless. It made me doubt all of the life choices I made. Some of these choices were more of a product of my parents than my own.

Being a third culture kid was emotionally confusing, but it was tolerable when I was surrounded by people like me in high school and college. Once I left my student life behind, practical aspect of it fell upon me. My boss did not care how much time I spent pondering on my identity. Instead, she got annoyed when she noticed mistakes in a paper I wrote, or when I couldn’t understand the words coming out of her mouth. There were so many Korean words I did not know. I spoke Korean with my Korean friends and family, but kind of words I had to use at work was at a different level than the ones I was familiar with.

Why do you have so many different words for ‘checking’ or ‘attending the meeting’? Sometime I hated the situation where white screen was staring at me and I am expected to write an email or an official document in Korean. Other times, I either hated myself or my educational background. Writing well requires constant practice and training, and focused guidance. As I buried myself at Georgetown Library, going through tons of assigned reading and obsessed myself with writing a flawless paper, I missed the chance to write anything in my own language.

I believe a person’s comfort with any language and his or her proficiency is simply a matter of exposure and training. No one’s inherently dumb or smart with a language. If you are not good at speaking a certain language or can’t write well, it just means you need more exposure to it or more training. But there’s also an emotional aspect of this ‘issue’. Unlike giving up learning a foreign language, there’s peculiar guilt and shame associated with not really knowing a mother tongue. I felt like I betrayed a part of me. It constantly reminded me that there’s a certain part of me which I should have kept and fostered, but I lost it.

When I first moved to New Zealand at age thirteen, my tutor once said this to me. “If you write this word without an article ‘the’, it’s like you are waving a big red flag that you are not a native speaker.” As I spent years obsessed with hiding that scarlet letter ‘non native speaker’, part of me got lost, and it wasn’t coming back. Now I’m struggling every day to find it back.

To go back to the very question, “Which language do you feel more comfortable, English or Korean?” I do not feel comfortable at all when I have to answer this question. I feel like I would be judged and criticized if I do not answer this question right. And I know there’s no right or wrong answer to this question. How can there be a right or wrong answer when I’m being asked about my preference? It’s not the questioner who’s doing the judging. It’s me. I’m the one who’s judging myself. I judge all my life decisions and measure my ability against a standard I set for myself, the one seemingly impossible to reach.

Most ideally, I would be perfectly comfortable writing and speaking in both languages at any setting. But I am not. There are still many Korean words I do not know. I still feel awkward speaking in formal Korean sometimes. Writing official document is a torment and I feel like I’m merely copying everything from others’. I get terribly insecure about my English as well. No matter how much I try, it will always be my second language.

It’s not really a matter of satisfying this standard, but more of having someone who’s been in my shoes and who understands me. Maybe one day, I would be able to answer the question “Which language do you feel more comfortable, English or Korean?” with ease and confidence. As for now, it looks like a very distant possibility.

)
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade