Growing up, I was exposed to English, Mandarin and a few Chinese dialects. According to my mother, when I was about 2 years old, she told my grandmother in Hainanese that she was leaving the house and to their surprise, I brought my shoes to the door and assumed that I would be leaving too! They were amazed that I could understand Hainanese despite not being deliberately taught it.  

Till today, I can still understand the Hainanese conversations my mother has with my grandparents and relatives, although I cannot speak it. I guess you can call it receptive multilingualism, which is a term I had learnt recently! Similarly, as my parents also speak Hokkien, I have picked up some Hokkien phrases here and there and am able to understand most of their Hokkien conversations as well.   

Something amusing I remember too, about my childhood was memorizing (without understanding) and singing along to theme songs of Hong Kong and Korean dramas I would watch with my family. One particular theme song I remember singing to was the Korean drama 大长今(Dae Jang Geum). You can give it a listen if you have not already! Fun fact is that it is actually written in Old Korean, the first documented stage of the Korean language. I think it amuses me how I was able to memorize these songs in a foreign language effortlessly as a child, which is something I find harder to do at this age. 

I have always found languages and the process of acquiring one to be pretty interesting. Before you acquire that particular language, the written and spoken form does not seem to make sense. But once you begin the process of acquiring one, be it reading or speaking, it feels like you have unlocked a secret code or opened a door in your brain and somehow what you read and hear now seem to make so much sense! Fascinating, isn’t it?  

This piece was written by Jairia Lim, our #SGUnited Intern. Jairia is a fourth-year Linguistics student.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels