Limited English
Essay Preview: Limited English
Report this essay
Limited English
In Amy Tanss short store “Mother Tongue”, readers are introduced to Tan who is the
daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother. While in school, Tan always excelled in mathematics
and science, but felt she had a disadvantage with English and Literature. This disadvantage was
caused because her limited English she had to use with her mother. As a young girl growing up
Tan was embarrassed because of her mothers poor English “I know this for a fact, because when
I was growing up, my mothers limited English limited my perception of her” (Tan, pg#70). As
time went on Amy accepted her mothers “broken”English and grew to dislike the term “limited
English”. Do people judge others based on their inability to speak perfect English? Should one
be required to speak the dominate language of a certain country once they migrate to that
country?
Amy Tans perception of “limited” English is not a good perception. Tan feels that one
should not be judged because that person is not flaunt in English. Tan feels that the way one
speaks does not perceive ones educational status or how smart that person is. Tans mother is
able to read magazines such as Forbes, but she is still being perceived as someone with lesser
value “My mother has long realized the limitation of her English as wellI was forced to ask for
information or even complain and yell at people who had been rude to her.” (Tan,pg#70) People
should not be perceived as anything less due to the fact that their English is not as good as a
person who speaks fluently in English. Tan also feels that her mother was never taken seriously
due to her mothers “limited” English. Not even Tans mothers doctor took her seriously. Tans mother had a doctors appointment to get CAT scans back of her brain to see if there were any
tumors. Unfortunately, the CAT scans were lost. Tans mother was left without any help. Tans
mother demanded for the doctor to contact her daughter. Since Tan spoke in an English that was
more understandable to the doctor the doctor then was willing to help “When the doctor finally
called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect Englishwe had assurance the CAT scan would
be found promised that a conference call on Monday