I am a Chinese young adult living in the U.S. who has preserved the Mandarin language to fluency due to my mother's prodding. I feel like it's a big part of who I am, and it gives me the ability to talk to Chinese on a personal level, as well as expresses my value on this culture that is in my past. I think it's an admirable trait in anyone else who has also taken the initiative to re-learn Chinese as their "mother tongue".
My boyfriend is also Chinese, but is very very Americanized and knows almost no Chinese. As such, he is not able to communicate with my parents (not much English). All his life, his friends and family have told him to learn Chinese, to learn more about his own culture. I have started to want him to consider putting learning Chinese into a part of his life. He is very lazy about it, since it's a very painful language to learn, no instant gratification.
How can I convey to him that it's important (to him and to me)? Is this the wrong thing to do? Thoughts?
2006-11-03
00:21:08
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19 answers
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asked by
reba
1
in
Family