I am often asked, by well-meaning friends, “Are you going to teach your daughter how to speak [Hindi, Urdu]?” My answer, invariably, is “I’ll try.” So I’m trying. My efforts at teaching my daughter Hindi-Urdu consist primarily of speaking to her in it, with occasional lapses into English. These lapses have become more frequent. IContinue reading “On First and Second Languages-IV: Bringing Up Baby”
Tag Archives: language fluency
Language and Identity: The Case of Punjabi
My last name is a giveaway: I’m a Punjabi. But I’ve never lived in the Punjab and I have yet to master its language. The story of my attempts to do so reveals familiar struggles—by people like you and me—to fashion an identity, no matter where we live, whether in India or elsewhere. As aContinue reading “Language and Identity: The Case of Punjabi”
On First and Second Languages – III
In this ongoing series of posts on partially mastered languages and my frustrating relationships with them, I’ve written about German and Spanish. Today, I come to the most vexed alliance of all, the one with Punjabi. My last name is a giveaway: I’m a Punjabi. But I’ve never lived in the Punjab. I did, however,Continue reading “On First and Second Languages – III”
On First and Second Languages – III
In the first post of this series, I described my relationship with English and Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani; in the second, that with German. The story in today’s post–that of Spanish in my life–is similar to the German tale: partial fluency, a long-standing, constantly procastinated commitment to formal study. The distinctive contrast lies in the nature of theContinue reading “On First and Second Languages – III”
Samir Chopra 