Does English damage the learner's first language?

There was a short but very interesting piece in the most recent EL Gazette about how Chinese students learning English were losing fluency in their mother tongue.

Does anyone have any experiences or thoughts of this? Can learning a second language really make your mother tongue suffer?

Site Owner

My first reaction and reply to the statement above and without any deep thinking,would be a

total disagreement.

In fact,How much L1 could be affected by the acquisition of a second language may depend

on different factors:

Learner's age / How much is the learner exposed to this language? Does he use it more or

less than his L1? Do the parents promote the use of one or more languages at home?

And if by "damage" you mean losing fluency in one's own mother tongue because of the use

of another language ,I would say can any new learning damage already existing or acquired

knowledge or skill.How could we master two or three foreign language but don't miss a single

word in our L1?How about the polyglots who claim that they know and speak more than 100

languages ?

I think that humans posess an evident and great capacity to learn more than just their mother

tongue!

Thank you for this thought provoking topics ,Sir.