<p>While our brains are flexible and adaptable as children, we tend to start having more rigid learning and relearning skills as we grow old.</p><p>There have been some extreme cases when the mother tongue or the first language is completely forgotten in adults.</p>

Forgetting the First Language

<div><div><div><div><div></div></div></div></div></div><div><p>Our mother tongue is tied to our deeper identity, roots, and memories.</p><p><i>Native language attrition (t<span>he process of losing a native, or first, language)</span><span> is natural and reversible, as whatever allows us to learn languages also accommodates for making changes.</span></i></p></div>

Language as Identity

<p>One of the reasons for forgetting a language is the trauma associated with speaking a particular language: The mind recalls the bad experiences while the language is heard or spoken.</p>

Trauma associated with a Language

<p>Once a person is able to speak two or more languages, the mind has to create a mechanism to switch between those seamlessly.</p><p>Switching a language is not like forgetting, but if there is too much back and forth, the competition starts between the two languages.</p>

The Switch Mechanism

I'm sitting in my kitchen in London, trying to figure out a text message from my brother. He lives in our home country of Germany. We speak German to each other, a language that's rich in quirky words, but I've never heard this one before: fremdschämen. 'Stranger-ashamed'?

The Switch Mechanism

Similar ideas to The Switch Mechanism

Bilinguals

Mix It Up

Bilingualism comes in many shapes and forms