Mother Tongue by Amy Tan - Summary

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan

 Amy Tan starts her essay clarifying she is not a scholar of English or literature, but a writer. She also explains how fascinating the language is for her. Later she talks about a lecture she had some time ago ─ Tan was talking about her writing, her life, and one of her books. Then she realies her mother was hearing her. She begins to reflect on the English she used to speak with her mother ─ it is important to emphasie that they both come from !hina.

Tan"s mother spoke !hinese as her mother tongue, but she also spoke English ─ a #ery !hinese$English. Tan reflects on the way her mother used to speak, and the experiences she had to li#e because of her %broken& or %fractured& English. She also thinks o#er how this situation situation influenced in her life goals and in how she was treated treated in real life ─ when her mother attended a restaurant restaurant or a hospital, hospital, she was not treated as another another English speaker. 'er daughter daughter was the responsible responsible of assuring assuring a good ser#ice ser#ice when she was in the middle ─ (ust because she has always had a perfect English. The author makes a reflection on her experiences with English language. She confirms she did it better with English language than in )ath. 'owe#er, she did not get the best grades on her English tests because she had sort of different language skills ─ as an example, example, she suggested there would be a lot of possible answers answers when filling filling up blank spaces in a sentence.

 After learning her thoughts on the different kinds of English she used whether her mother mother and outside outside her house, house, Tan tell tell us about about the stereoty stereotypica picall idea idea about about the a#erage Asian ─ s*he does it better in )ath. Later she talks about how bad she was at writing, but then she started to write fiction. +or that work, Tan decided to use all the Englishes she grew up with. She saw those moments, those attempts as her mother"s intent, her passion, her imagery, and the nature of her thoughts ─ pointing out the most rele#ant ones.