Relearning One's Birth Language

[starshipcat]

For various reasons, a child may begin learning one language, then grow up learning another. It may be the result of immigration or international adoption, or some other reason. But for whatever reason, if the child is not continuously exposed to the first language, fluency in the second language tends to come at the expense of the first.

Yet something remains, as a woman who turned her back on Cantonese to assimilate in the US has discovered as she takes a course in Cantonese.