YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE AND A SECOND ONE

Perhaps you have noticed that I tend to stress the need to care for one´s native tongue. You may exclaim that it is silly because, after all, you are a native speaker of, say, English and have been speaking it since birth. That settles it! But, no, that does not settle anything. I cannot tell you how often in my classes I have been asked to translate a word into the speaker's language only to meet perplexity on the part of the student because she did not know that word in Spanish or English, in her own tongue. If we do not study our own language, we will never be able to acquire a second one well. This may seem puzzling but in my experience it is true. Never overestimate the level of knowledge of your own language and be humble. You will never go broke underestimating the span of your vocabulary, grammar, and even syntax in your native tongue. You have nothing to lose improving it while mastering a second one. Thank you for your attention.