I totally feel you!
I grew up with german and czech as my mother tongues, learned english and using it all the time (obviously) and started to learn russian last year.
While using german and english on daily basis and learning russian (also on daily basis) I noticed how bad my czech became due to using it only with my parents from time to time.
Since russian and czech are quite similar in many cases I often stumble across russian words where I think "Hm... isn't this the same in czech?" And at this point I have no idea how I would say in my (actual) mother tounge any more. Weird.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
How old were you when you stopped speaking Czech and German regularly?
I also don't know what I'm saying when there are both Japanese and Mandarin speakers in the same room. Mix in English and I become only semi-functional.
I am living in Austria where people speak German, so no deal on that.
I moved put of my parents home in my early 20s (don't know exactly) so it's 10-15 years ago. As a solution I force myself to speak Czech with them on the phone. It's only a few minutes per week, but hey... It's something :D
But at the end, speaking a language is like any other skill. You get better using it and you forget it when you stop using it.