When Your Native Tongue Becomes a Stranger

Language is memory, and memory is identity.

As an expat who has lived abroad for nearly three decades, I’ve immersed myself so deeply in the language of my adopted country that it has, in many ways, become my own. I think, dream, and argue in it. I shop, work, and socialise in it. Over the years, this second language has carved itself into my brain so firmly that my original mother tongue sometimes feels like an old photograph: familiar, yet fading at the edges.

I catch myself forgetting words, stumbling over idioms I once used effortlessly, or hesitating before completing a sentence in my native language. It’s as though a curtain has fallen over parts of my vocabulary, and the harder I reach for those lost phrases, the further away they seem.

How It Feels

There’s a strange grief in watching your own language slip away. My native tongue is tied to childhood, family, and the cultural roots that shaped me. Losing pieces of it feels like misplacing fragments of identity. It creates a quiet disconnection: when speaking with old friends or relatives back home, I sometimes feel clumsy, as if I were a guest in my own house.

A Life Devoted to Another Language

When you devote most of your life to functioning in another language, there comes a moment of reckoning: how much of yourself have you given away, and what do you want to reclaim? For years, the second language serves as a tool for survival, for building a career, for integrating into society. But at some point, the balance shifts. Instead of endlessly perfecting the borrowed language, the focus turns inward—towards preserving the roots of your linguistic identity. Letting go of the need to compete in someone else’s tongue opens space to safeguard your first language, the one that ultimately anchors who you are.

What Can Be Done

I remind myself that language is like a muscle—the less you use it, the weaker it gets. Preventing further loss means creating new habits of active practice:

• Reading in my native language daily—books, newspapers, even poetry to reawaken old rhythms.

• Writing regularly—whether it’s a journal entry, a blog, or even notes to myself in my first language.

• Speaking with native speakers—video calls with family, conversations with friends, or joining online groups where my mother tongue flows freely.

• Listening—podcasts, music, and films to restore those idioms and intonations that don’t always live on the page.

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Language maintenance doesn’t have to feel like study—it can be woven into daily pleasures.

Looking Ahead: Age and the First Language

Another thought has been lingering. Research suggests that as we age, especially if memory declines or dementia enters the picture, our brains often revert to the very first language we ever learned. It’s a kind of neurological homecoming. For expats like me, this could mean that one day, my adopted language—the one I now use so fluently—may slip away, while my native tongue re-emerges with surprising clarity.

But here lies the complication: if I have spent decades surrounded by people who don’t speak my native language, what happens then? Communication barriers could appear at a time when connection is most needed. That’s why nurturing both languages matters—not only for identity, but also for practical care in older age.

Final Thoughts

Living between languages is both a gift and a challenge. My adopted language has given me opportunities and belonging in a new country, but I don’t want to lose the foundation my native tongue provides. To forget it would be like losing the sound of my own heartbeat.

So I commit to reading, writing, speaking, and listening more in my first language—not out of nostalgia alone, but as an act of self-preservation. Language is memory, and memory is identity. And if old age one day strips away the newer layers of my speech, I want my original voice to be ready, strong, and waiting for me.