Pearl Low on Cantonese Connection and heritage language learning

NüVoices

Have you ever been laughed at by family or friends when you tried speaking a new language? It's particularly disheartening when it’s the language your family speaks.

In this episode, we speak to artist and illustrator Pearl Low on the difficulties of finding safe spaces for language learning, especially for heritage language learners. Heritage language learners are people who have a certain language in their family, can understand it to a basic degree, but cannot speak it fluently. Learning a heritage language can be especially difficult because of the immense cultural expectations, lack of resources, and the harmful legacy of assimilation and racism in many countries (where speaking a foreign language could bring great prejudice or harm.)
Pearl knows firsthand the difficulties in finding an inclusive environment to learn your heritage language. That’s why they founded Cantonese Connection, a learning platform with resources to learn Cantonese in a way that feels welcoming and open — no matter one's familiarity with the language.
Join host Megan Cattel and Pearl as they candidly address the delicate experiences of navigating heritage languages within one's family circle, discuss the do's and don'ts of heritage language learning, and also try to figure out why Chinese language textbooks always feature a guy named Dawei (the businessman) in all their examples.