I’ve taught my kids a little Cantonese, but not a lot, as there is no one to speak to unless we go pick up take out Chinese at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Many Chinese we know speak Mandarin.

Yes, Cantonese is my first language which my parents spoke to me more within the first few years of my life. None of my grandparents spoke English, so it was natural to speak Cantonese to communicate. My last grandparent died a few years ago.

However, we lived in a rural town and when I got more exposure to English speaking people, I quickly picked up English, which was before 5 yrs old.

I’ve lived in Arizona my whole life, so that’s why you do not hear any Chinese accent. I was also born in America, as I’m the first generation as well as the first one born in my family in America.

Yes, when I’m angry or stressed, I think in Cantonese usually. This could be quite often some days and I might be exceeding the 25%, which I’m sure I did last week.

Actually, now that I think of it, I don’t really use my Cantonese when I’m happy or excited. When I am sometimes in a contemplative mode, I use it, but it’s very interchangable, meaning I flip back and forth very quickly and probably don’t even realize I do it.

There was a period when I was deeply absorbed in Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin and let’s just say, all those languages were all jumbled in my mind, but somehow the right things came out with the right people at the right times. Looking back, it seemed quite comical.

In college, I would communicate with the brother closest in age to me and my sister in Cantonese as I didn’t want my friends to understand what I was saying. Yeah, that was rude. The 2 youngest know very little Cantonese. My brother speaks it the best because his wife is from China and they speak it all the time at home, but mine is still pretty good.

...but usually the reason that we speak in a foreign language around other people is not because it’s easier, it’s because we’re usually saying something that we don’t want them to know.