Opinion on learning heritage languages

I was wondering y’all’s opinion on learning heritage languages.

Do you feel some sort of guilt for not learning it?
Do you feel it will help you feel more “in/fit in more” with certain parts/aspects of your family?
Do you think everyone should learn theirs?

Lately I’ve been having regrets on not learning mine completely(I say completely because I know some from childhood, but other than that, it’s pretty basic).

I was wondering if anyone has responses to these questions or if they have learned their heritage language and why?
Thanks for the response.

Gaelic is my heritage language. My dad as a child spoke it fluently but later on lost it. I know I should learn mine, and I will, but not at the moment.

By the way are you from Texas? Sorry, I live in Texas and everyone says y’all, so when you said it I thought you might be from there. Don’t worry being from Texas is a good thing.

I’m from North Carolina. I’m proud of my Souther Accent and saying “you guys” sounds unnatural for me. No offense taken. I would say 90 percent of the South uses “y’all/ya’ll”.

Thanks for your response.

that guilt and shame happens a lot in the latino community in america more than any other community there *your not latino if you can’t speak spanish * you hear that a lot and people look at you strange

your not alone many second and third generation people can’t speak their forefathers languages
my gf is of chinese descent and she can’t speak mandarin and it’s and issue for her

for me it’s french and creole i should have learned these two languages long time ago but now i have the opportunity to do it

Yeah, I understand that with Latinos, and it’s almost the exact way for me. My name/family is Russian, so almost anytime someone hears my name, they immediately ask if I can speak it.

I think I will start learning it soon, because this has bothered me since I learned my first foreign language.

No, I don’t feel guilty about that at all. Learning and maintaining language skills takes time and dedication, and I prefer to dedicate it to something I see in the future rather than the past.
My heritage language would be German, and since I have no interest in Germany, or any of the Germanic countries I don’t see myself spending any time on it.
I may feel a little guilty about ignoring this part of my heritage and not taking any interest in it, but language is a tool and I could travel through those countries with one of the other tools in my toolbox, so I’m not sweating it.

A generation or two post-immigration I think the concept of a “heritage language” becomes rare, though probably influenced by the degree to which one identifies with the old country and the old culture. In my own case I never felt any special pull or connection to German even though I recall my great-grandmother, who lived next door and with whom I had regular contact, had German reading material and whom I recall translating for me the speech of the German soldiers on the old Combat! show on TV.

My great-grandmother had German as a second language even though she was born in the US of German immigrant parents. In those days, however, this city had a large immigrant German population among whom German was widely spoken, and there were a large number of German-language newspapers. Her daughter, my grandmother, had no German, however.

The situation obviously has changed significantly insofar as German is concerned, but the situation with Spanish in certain other areas of the US today is similar.

Yes. I feel there’s a lot of expectation for people of Asian descent to speak the respective language. I’ll learn Korean one of these days. In the mean time, I’ll remain a gyopo. :S

Aww, bless your heart! :smiley: I’ve heard that a lot when I was in Georgia.