How do people lose their native language? (Sgt Bowe Bergdahl spoke English for 23 years...)

BBC News ^ | 3 June 2014 Last updated at 19:07 ET | no byline

[bergmeid]

Baloney. I have lived in this country for well over 30 years and am still fluent in my native language. Total hogwash.

[ustheliving]

English is my third language, and has been my primary language for the last 50 years, but I can still understand and speak Portuguese and Ukrainian.

When I am speaking those other two languages, I compose my thoughts in English.

It is just a convenient excuse.

[WildHighlander57]

So the “signal” was being sent to those whose primary language IS Arabic.

Unless its standard practice to recite the “bismillah” in Arabic.

[Kenny Bunk]

Do many Ukrainians speak Portuguese? Are there Portuguese rebels in the Ukraine who are demanding territory?

Just what is going on in your family that the Obama authorities should know about?

[21twelve]

That was my thought too. I guess that is why Perot didn’t win the presidency - Stockdale did all of his debates in Vietnamese. (Hmm - maybe he would have done better if he had!)

[Kenny Bunk]

Bergdahl is damn lucky to have forgotten English. While he was gallivanting about Afghanistan with his goat-and-boy-buggering buddies on his bomb-making lecture tour, our nation's language became Spanish. Now he won't have any English to un-learn.

Allah Bismallah alraham alraheem works in mysterious ways, O infidel dog.