Losing Fluency in the Language of Childhood
Launch library · evergreen read
Fluency does not usually vanish all at once, however sudden it eventually feels to the person losing it. It thins gradually instead, over years spent mostly in a second language, until a person notices with some alarm that a word they once knew instantly now takes a moment to recall, or refuses to surface at all when needed.
This slow loss is rarely announced by any single moment, which makes it harder to properly mourn or even notice while it is happening. There is no clear day to point to when the childhood language stopped being the easiest one to think in, only a gradual reordering of which words arrive first in conversation.
Many adults respond by deliberately returning to that language, through calls home, old songs, or simply more effort in daily conversation with relatives. They remain aware that fluency, once lost, is harder to fully recover than it was to build the first time as a child, but not impossible with steady, patient practice.