To be Bilingual

Many of us were brought up in one language (birth to16 in my case) and yet lived abroad for the longest time (68 years in my case)to be conversant in another language. By “bilingual”, I mean one can speak, read, and write fluently in both languages. Literally, one has two different parts ofthe brain operating via SWITCHING and not by TRANSLATION. Of course, one still has to adopt one language over another in daily use and in dominant thought. In my case since 5/6 of my life was spent abroad, English has become my first language. I think and dream in English. Occasionally after months long stay in China I’ll dream in Chinese. At home, my wife and I converse in both Chinese and English whichever is more convenient for expressing our thought at the moment (she watches at lot more CCTV program such as “hundred scholar lectures” than I do.But she also had her undergraduate college study in the US). We also spoke nothing but Chinese to all three of our children during the first two years of their lives. As a result, all of them can converse and understand rudimentary Chinese Mandarin dialect even though none of them lived in China for long period. I’ll close this article with a quiz for my readers. Please guess what I do in Chinese to this date and never in English.