Name: Losing your mother tongue ⏲️ 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2025-11-30T03:42:34.000Z
Duration: 6 min 19 s
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Six Minute English from BBCLearningEnglish.com hello, this is Six Minute English from BBC Learning English.

In this program we'll be hearing about an issue experienced by many child refugees who are forced to leave their home.

The loss of their first native language or mother tongue as they start a new life learning to speak a new language in a new country.

Julie Tedivi and her family left their home in what was then Czechoslovakia and is now the Czech Republic during the Cold War when Julie was a small child.

After several years traveling through Europe, they arrived in Canada as political refugees with no English.

We'll be hearing about Julie's childhood when learning English started to replace her native language, Czech.

And as usual, we'll be learning some new vocabulary as well.

Julie's family left their home as political refugees, but

every year millions of people are also displaced because of war, persecution or the damaging effects of climate change.

So according to the United nations, how many people around the world are currently living as displaced refugees?

Is it A, 3 million, B 53 million, or, or C 103 million?

I'll reveal the answer later in the program.

Like many child refugees, Julie spoke only her mother tongue, Czech, at home with her brothers, sisters and parents, who in the beginning spoke no English at all.

Here she describes to Michael Rosen, presenter of BBC Radio 4 programme Word of Mouth.

Going to an English speaking school for, for the first time.

So you went into school not to start off with really understanding what was going on, is that right?

I just kind of interpreted things as best I could and my memory of that is that that was not particularly difficult or traumatic.

I think by then I'd had the experience of being dunked into various unfamiliar languages numerous times.

And I had faith that it would sort itself out and that everything would be just fine.

Of course, at school Julie was dunked into unfamiliar situations, a bit like a biscuit being dunked into a cup of tea.

Often dunk means to dip something into a liquid, but

here the meaning is that Julie was suddenly dropped into a new situation for a while, then taken out as her family travelled through Europe.

By the time she arrived in Canada, Julie had been exposed to several other languages, including Italian and French.

She had experienced many difficulties but never given up of finding a new home.

Julie had faith, in other words, trust or confidence that everything would sort itself out.

A phrase meaning to stop being A problem automatically without having to do anything.

Over the following years, Julie faced many challenges.

Going to school and making friends, helping her parents as they struggled in the English speaking world and grieving for her native language which which she slowly forgot.

And with it the chance to speak Czech with her dad before he passed away.

Julie shares her thoughts on losing and refining her mother tongue in her book Memory Speaks Through It All, Julie kept alive her belief that by speaking two, three or even more languages, we don't forget who we are, but

An idea which she talked about with BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth.

The idea that you can be both of Mexican ancestry, for example, and

speak Spanish and be a full fledged American, or in my case, come from a country like the Czech Republic, continue to speak my language and be Canadian, and

very proudly so and very invested in Canada as a society.

There's a number of studies that suggest that the very presence of people with blended ideas in a society seem to lead to greater acceptance between groups.

It creates the sense that this is not an either or, that we can coexist, perhaps precisely because we have evidence that these cultures can coexist within a single person.

For Julie, there's no contradiction in being a Canadian refugee speaking Czech or a Spanish speaking immigrant who's a full fledged or fully developed American.

Cases where there is only a choice between two options with no third possibility.

Instead, a peaceful coexistence can develop, as shown in the life of Julie Sadivi herself.

Right, it's time to reveal the answer to my question.

How many people around the world like Julie are living as displaced refugees?

A number which, according to the UN is only going to grow.

Now it's time to recap the vocabulary we've learned from this program about losing our mother tongue, the native language we were brought up speaking by our parents.

If something is dunked, it's dipped into a liquid like a biscuit and a cup of tea.

But if someone is dunked into a situation, they're suddenly placed into a new and unfamiliar setting before being removed again after a short time.

If you have faith in something or someone, you have trust or confidence in them.

The phrasal verb to sort itself out means to stop being a problem without having to do anything.

The adjective full fledged means completely developed.

And finally, an either or is a situation where only a choice between two options is possible with no third alternative.

And that brings us to the end of this program.