Mother Tongue

[The Interpreter]

I have a dilemma, what should I consider as my "mother tongue"? For the first three, four years of my life, I spoke French. When I grew up in Vietnam, I spoke Vietnamese and became familiar with it. I got to 5th grade in Vietnam and I still use Vietnamese daily, but I can't say I'm completely fluent. I'm more comfortable with English. What is my mother tongue?

[camtieu]

what language did your mother speak to you when you were a baby? It is normal that some one's second or third language is better than his/her first.

[fija]

French, perhaps?

[LtDra]

Here is some ideas from Wikipedia
However, You said that grown up in Vietnam until 11 yrs old, so it must be Vietnamese is your 1st language (I don't think French will be count in here because you were too "baby" there )and if your mom is a native Vietnamese then we can say your Mother Tongue is Vietnamese, thought.

Sometimes the term first language is used for the language that the speaker speaks best (his second language then being the language he speaks less well than his first language, etc).
Sometimes the term native language is used to indicate a language that a person is as proficient in as a natural-born inhabitant of that language's "base country", or as proficient as the average person who speaks no other language but that language.
Sometimes the term mother tongue or mother language is used for the language that a person learnt at home (usually from her parents). Children growing up in bilingual homes can according to this definition have more than one mother tongue.
In the context of population censuses conducted on the Canadian population, Statistics Canada defines mother tongue as "the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual at the time of the census."[3] It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer a speaker's dominant language. Young immigrant children, whose families have moved to a new linguistic environment may lose, in part or in totality, the language they first acquired (see language attrition).

Mother tongue
The term "mother tongue" should not be interpreted to mean that it is the language of one's mother. In some paternal societies, the wife moves in with the husband and thus may have a different first language than the husband. Mother in this context probably originated from the definition of mother as source, or origin; as in mother-country or -land.

[The Interpreter]

Here is some ideas from Wikipedia
However, You said that grown up in Vietnam until 11 yrs old, so it must be Vietnamese is your 1st language (I don't think French will be count in here because you were too "baby" there )and if your mom is a native Vietnamese then we can say your Mother Tongue is Vietnamese, thought.

Thank you LtDra, It doesn't matter what language, I love them all

[williamholt]

choose in english.

[danielpeterson]

its English.....

[thanhtuyen218a]

as for me, it's English

[AlienUFO]

No you are Vietnamese, speak it, make it your mother tongue, you decide it.

[thuythanphong]

what language did your mother speak to you when you were a baby? It is normal that some one's second or third language is better than his/her first.