The Relative Advantages of Learning my Language by Amy Choi

The author makes us consider what it really means about understanding someone's language? What basic human skill/ability is the author highlighting that cuts across all cultures? The author highlights how important it is if you are in a family that speaks a different language to learn and be able to carry on the culture of our family.

 Describe a time when you were at fault for not communicating with someone because of your own selfishness or lack of compassion.
When a couple of years ago I was watching TV on a Sunday night and my mum came to ask me to help her with emails on her computer and I refused and becuase of this she wasn't able to contact a builder for renovations for our house.

1. The author opens the story with an anecdote. What is the anecdote and what effect does it have on the reader? The anecdote at the start of the story gives us the effect of sympathy for the grandfather who is trying to communicate to the Author but she is not letting him.

2. What is the author’s view of the Chinese language in the 2^nd paragraph? The author feels that there is no point bothering to learn Chinese becuase they live in Australia.

3. What is symbolic about the house that the Grandfather mistakes for his own? What does it say about the assimilation of his family into Australian culture? What does it say about his understanding of Australian culture? What is ironic about the inhabitants of this house? What is symbolic about the house is the description of the timber mailbox and the ford falcon out front makes it sound like it was a normal Australian home. This says the the family has become a normal Australian family despite Asian background. The grandfathers understanding of Australian culture in my opinion is very limited becuase he believes that Australians are Australians becuase of what their house looks like and what kind of things they own rather than the culture of the family. What is ironic about the people who live in the house is that they are not even Australian they are Pakistani.

4. What does the death of her grandfather inspire the author to do? The death or her grandfather inspires her to master the spoken language of Chinese.

5. Why is she motivated to know Chinese? What is it she wants to ensure she is able to, regretting that she couldn’t do it with her grandfather? She is motivated to learn Chinese becuase she now understands how she ignored her grandfather and how she feels bad about what she did. So time an elderly person or a Chinese only speaking person wants her to listen she is not only willing be able too.