I am supposed to be multilingual, but I forgot my native tongue

This is not a joke.

I've been scrolling through Reddit a lot lately, and at some point I decided to join the Belgian subreddits. For someone like me, that shouldn't feel like visiting a foreign place, but it kinda did.

It started when I fired up my Life in Taiwan blog, which is separate from this journal. Writing about where I live now made me think about where I came from. And somewhere in that process I realized something odd. I became a polyglot who isn't really native in any of his languages anymore.

Read also: I Don't Know If I'm an Expat or Just Someone Who Never Went Home

I know that sounds weird. Let me explain.

Where I started

I was born in Asia (Indonesia) but raised in Brussels, right in the center, on the Flemish side. So Dutch was the obvious native tongue. But I was raised bilingual from the start, which means my roots are Dutch and French. Both native. Both mine.

Around the age of 12, I started learning German and English on top of that. In the 90s, English wasn't the must-have it is today. The internet wasn't everywhere yet, and its reach was nothing like now. It was just another subject at school.

So back then my lineup looked like this. Two native tongues, then fluent German, then English somewhere behind it.

When English took over

That order didn't last. About 25 years ago I left Belgium, and English overtook everything. It became my main driver, and it's been that way ever since.

My English is deffo C2, the highest level on the Common European Framework. For a long time, native speakers told me it was extremely close to native. I was way ahead of most people learning it.

What I never stopped to think about was what it was costing me.

How you lose a language you were born with

A native language can fade. You assume it's locked in. You learned it before you could even think about learning, so it should be permanent.

It's fucking not.

It doesn't go in one dramatic moment. There's no morning where you wake up, and the Dutch is gone. It happens by not being needed. Every day English does the job, and every day Dutch and French sit on the bench. After a few years you don't notice. After 25, you do.

The strange part is that English stopped being foreign to me a long time ago. It's what I think in. It's what I type, talk, and write in from the moment I wake up. When a "foreign" language runs your entire day, it isn't foreign anymore. And the languages you were raised in quietly take their old place. They become the ones that feel slightly off.

That's what makes it so sneaky. I wasn't neglecting my native tongues on purpose. I was just living. The language you use most wins, and the ones you don't slowly get squashed away like they never existed.

What it feels like now

Once in a while I read a Dutch or French article, or hear someone speaking it. My understanding is still close to great. But it's not native anymore. At least it doesn't feel like it.

Speaking is worse. When I try French, it's ridiculously hard. The last time I had a conversation in Dutch, my brain just blocked. I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I could feel the English word sitting right there, ready to go, and the Dutch one just wouldn't come.

That's because I think in English now. So when I hear Dutch sentences, they don't sound natural to me anymore. My own language sounds slightly translated.

Taiwan made it messier

Then I moved to Taiwan, and my brain started mixing everything. I'm learning Traditional Chinese while still thinking, talking, typing, and writing in English 24/7. Somewhere in there, Dutch, French, and German are fighting for whatever space is left.

They're not winning. I watch far more J-dramas, K-dramas, and Chinese dramas than anything in Dutch or French, and my ears have followed. My listening comprehension feels 100x more comfortable with those than with the languages I grew up with.

So where does that leave me?

I'm still multilingual. But I don't master any of it. I'm not a native speaker in any language anymore, and I think that's a bit of a pity.

I've been trying to figure out why this is bugging me now, after all these years. Maybe it's because I've been so comfortable living in Taiwan, and English has been what I consider native for so long, that I never questioned it.

Maybe it's because my second SaaS is a note-taking app for language learners. Building it made me realize how passionate I am about learning languages in general. And my conscience keeps telling me to use my own app to refresh my French, Dutch, and German. It would be a bit strange to build a tool for language learners and not be one myself.

Read also: I underused my own SaaS app, until now

Or maybe I'm just having a small identity crisis and I don't know where I'm supposed to be.

I don't think I'm the only one this has happened to. But I do think my version is pretty rare. Born in Asia, raised bilingual in Brussels, 25 years abroad running on English, now living in Taiwan and learning Chinese. That's a hyper-specific mix.

What I'm going to try

The more I think about it, the more I feel I shouldn't ignore the roots of where I was raised. I'm not trying to undo 25 years of English. I just don't want Dutch and French to turn into languages I used to speak.

So I think I should read or listen to a bit of news in my native tongues every week, just to get used to them again. Or maybe find some Belgian friends online who are also building things solo. Who knows.

A final note

Joining those subreddits was a small thing. But scrolling through threads in Dutch and French, understanding nearly everything while still reading it like a visitor, felt like walking into the house I grew up in after someone rearranged the furniture.

Everything's still there. I just have to move through it more carefully now. The words haven't gone anywhere. I stopped using them. Maybe I can still dig them back out.