I have the same problem as you. My cantonese is rather poor so I often use english words mixed with it. Then again I only speak cantonese with my father and mother. I usually use French with my brothers and sister.

And there aren't any classes nearby. >_< (Well there are sone but I'm not going to pay $60 bucks for an hour. That's overkill.)

I'm worse than all of you put together. I can't speak my native language at all. I only speak/write English, which is annoying sometimes strangers speak to me and I have no clue what they're saying, especially when I'm in an Asian supermarket and I can't see the price from the monitor. I usually end up giving more than I should.

I understand the Hakaa dialect, but people rarely uses it. I can't respond back to them in Hakaa anyway though.

I got this problem too, i don't speak swahili fluently anymore.

chalk another tally up for another guy who can't really speak my native tongue very well. My chinese is quite poor and I often just use mostly english when talking to my parents to get the point across. (they do understand usually). personally I take this to be one of my greatest shames, not being able to speak my native lanugage perfectly.

I'm in a similar situation. I'm born to Taiwanese parents, and while they are from Taiwan, I'm born in America. Sadly (or if you think otherwise), they never pushed me to speak, which I think was a huge detriment to my knowledge of Chinese/Taiwanese currently. The only thing I'm thankful of is that my mom speaks to me in both Mandarin and Taiwanese (mostly Taiwanese), and I would reply back in English. I went to Chinese school weekly up until college, and in college took a few intermediate Chinese courses that I placed in.

I can safely say that I understand Mandarin/Taiwanese if one speaks to me, but that is only my passive skill. Action skills (like speaking) is harder for me because I feel like my only barrier is my accent, which is embarassing and prevents me from speaking/practicing.

If anything, I wish my skill was better. Being afraid of a language because of its difficulty or embarassment is not going to get you anywhere - you are just running away. Are you just going to hide in a closet whenever you encounter a difficult situation? I find this as one of my lifelong struggles, and I have learned to accept it as such. One more obstacle to conquer, I suppose. I have no one to blame but myself.

I know what you mean, my native language or original language is Bengali. But my parents know English, along with everyone I come in contact with so I just result in speaking English. I can understand bengali perfectly, but when I say it I can't think of many words and it just becomes hard for me. The reasoning behind it makes sense, the fact that I don't have to use it results in me NOT using it.

However, I've realized that it's really cool to know another language. I took French in HS and never understood it, but I still know Bengali in a way in which I don't have to make a direct translation in my head. Whenever I speak with my parents now, I try to speak in Bengali as much as possible. It's tough because I often speak a lot, and very fast and articulated [I'm awesome] so I have to simplify myself immensely for bangla-speaking, but I'll work it out gradually.

Yeah, speaking is actually my stronger point of Chinese/Taiwanese than everything else. Like, I can't read Chinese worth shit. Maybe the occasional words and simple ones to get me by, but I definitely can't read a chinese newspaper. My writing of chinese is possibly even worse. I would probably write at like a 2nd grade level, if even that. But as far as speaking goes, I'm not that bad, but it does make some people feel strange if I mix and match words of different languages.

Chingrish. My mom understand fragmented English phrases and words so when I speak to her, I pepper my dialogue with Chinese and English. I didn't realize how bad it was until I started talking to Chinese who didn't understand any English and thus, my talking was crazy speak to them.

Perfect example is here in Ireland...loads of people can't actually speak Irish (our constitutional language). I went to secondary school (12 - 18) through Irish so I speak it fluently but you end up speaking a weird hybrid which is called 'Bearlachais' - roughly translating as Englishish.
It's even quite common on the official Irish language television channel to mishmash English and Irish, chiefly owing to the fact that Irish is really old and doesn't have a translation for stuff like 'speed-dating'.

Though it should be a crime for my saying so, I'm actally fluent in my native tongue. My mom was the only one that taught me Spanish growing up in the states. Thank God too, or else I'd be completely miserable in this country. My tongue is far too used to English though, and therefore I have a massive accent, which mostly girls here are way too eager to tease me for.