nguages.While we are doing house chores, Amy and I often question each other on how to translate a sentence, a phrase, or an idiom from L1 into L2, or vice versa, and what the difference is. One day she remarked: I find some ambiguity in Chinese if I say wo ai ni ma ma which can mean both I love you, mom, or I love your mom. But in English there is no such ambiguity. When she has problems with English grammar, Amy would ask me in Chinese. Early in October there was a conversation between us:A: ma ma, zai often hou mian I yin gai use to plus a verb ma? (Mom, should I use to plus a verb after often?)M: bu! (No!)A: But why after have hou mian why yong to jia dong ci ne? (But why do we use to plus a verb after have?)M: Have he to yi qi gou cheng zhu dong ci, xiang dang yu must, er often shi ge fu ci, xiu shi dong ci. (Have together with to functions as an auxiliary verb, equal to must, while often is an adverb, modifying a verb.)Amys utterance here is a mix of English and Chinese. She was trying to practice L2 by using L1 to fill in the gaps where she was not yet proficient.Considering her limited L2 vocabulary, I answered her question in L1, which was helpful in promoting her metalinguistic awareness...
