I found myself writing an email to a Norwegian recipient the other day. I wrote in English, despite Danish and Norwegian bokmål being >95% the same.
It waters out our native languages when we do this, and it is, as you say, in favour of bad English. I find even the most English proficient Danish teens lacking in their vocabulary. Pronunciation is good, but they can express themselves.
I’ve given it a fair bit of thought. I think that the kids choose English, because it’s emotionally distancing. Saying something in English doesn’t carry the same weight, as using their mother’s tongue. Simply because they don’t feel the words the same. Occasionally I will catch myself using English for my internal dialogue, especially when I’m thinking about something that causes me emotional distress.
I found myself writing an email to a Norwegian recipient the other day. I wrote in English, despite Danish and Norwegian bokmål being >95% the same.
It waters out our native languages when we do this, and it is, as you say, in favour of bad English. I find even the most English proficient Danish teens lacking in their vocabulary. Pronunciation is good, but they can express themselves.
I’ve given it a fair bit of thought. I think that the kids choose English, because it’s emotionally distancing. Saying something in English doesn’t carry the same weight, as using their mother’s tongue. Simply because they don’t feel the words the same. Occasionally I will catch myself using English for my internal dialogue, especially when I’m thinking about something that causes me emotional distress.