Response to Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue":

I went to a high school with a lot of Chinese students. It was estimated that at least 50% of the population were Chinese, and because of this, communication with my classmates could be difficult at times, since few of them spoke what native English speakers would consider to be 'perfect English'. Like Amy Tan, I would also have to simplify what I was saying for a good portion of the time. I would have to break down sentences and find ways to explain a word or a phrase that would make sense. In this way, I can relate to what Tan describes as a separate form of English when she says, "It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with." However, since I did not always have to simplify my English, it would remain a challenge to communicate sometimes.
                  Many of the Chinese students would use simpler English the way that Tan's mother does, as shown in the conversation quoted in the reading.

"The local people call putong, the river east side, he belong to that side local people."

                  This is how a lot of conversations would be spoken. Sometimes I would understand perfectly what the students were trying to say, and sometimes I would have to ask them to repeat themselves several times. I would also sometimes forget to simplify my English, yet I found that many of the students that spoke in 'broken English' would not have much trouble understanding me. I think this is because they manage to pick through the sentences and put together the words and phrases that they did understand and determine a meaning from that form of translation.

The best way that I can relate to Tan's situation growing up would be to talk about my father. He was raised in England, and although he speaks English almost indistinguishable from our own, there are still certain barriers. Mainly these barriers lie in the meaning or pronunciation of a word, or it can be the lacking of entire phrases.

"...people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service..."

While my father's situation has never been as bad as that, there have been moments where I've had to resolve a situation quickly before it can turn into a mess. These situations however are usually comical. The best one I can think of at the moment was when my family went to the beach one day, and my father very loudly exclaimed something along the lines of, 'Next time we should take the kids water-boarding.' My father innocently meant boogie boarding in the water, without realizing that water-boarding is a form of torture, so it was easily shrugged off, and we now look at these little mistranslations as something funny that sometimes occurs.