Mrs. Ho (French)

 

Birth place:

Belgium

Native language (L1): 

French

Status of L1: 

High in Belgium

Language(s) spoken other than L1: 

Cantonese (L2)

English (L3)

Duration of residence in Hong Kong: 

29 years

Time spent learning Cantonese: 

1 year to achieve the proficiency for daily communication

Occasions of using the languages: 

French (with family and relatives in Belgium, French-speaking expatriates in Hong Kong)

Cantonese (with husband, son, Hongkongers)

English (with other expatriates in Hong Kong)

Number of children: 

1 son (28 years old)

 

The only French speaker at home

 

When you first encounter Mrs. Ho, you will be surprised at her high proficiency in Cantonese, thanks to the surrounding environment. In her family in Hong Kong, she is the only one who speaks French. She did attempt to teach her son French but her son was reluctant in learning it. Despite the fact that Mrs. Ho started to speak French with him when he was a toddler, he refused to respond in French when he started to speak. Her son thought that French does not have practical use for him in his daily life. As she says, “knowing an additional language is always advantageous”, she and her husband wanted their son to be able to speak French, but the language environment in Hong Kong is a large obstacle to them.

 

Forced to learn Cantonese

 

To Mrs. Ho, French is a beautiful language and it sounds much nicer than Cantonese. She thinks that even Putonghua sounds better than Cantonese as the latter sounds rude. However, the environment in Hong Kong forced her to learn Cantonese. She did face surmount difficulties when she learned Cantonese since Chinese uses a very complex writing system and the tones in Cantonese are extremely challenging for people speaking French, which is a non-tonal language. Also, she thinks that French is popular among the better-off second generation of French descent in Hong Kong. But neither the difficulty in learning Cantonese nor the seemingly privileged status of French deter her from learning Cantonese, which is necessary for her live in Hong Kong.

 

The son regrets not having learned French

 

Mrs. Ho’s son used to work as a nurse at the hospital and French was not useful for his work. But now he is working at the Customs Department and starts to find French useful. Since most French people he encounters cannot speak English, he regrets not having learned it during his childhood. Therefore, he bought some language-learning books two years ago and wanted to learn the language, but he had no spare time to learn it because of his busy work.