Hello to all the beautiful confused people on this sub !
I'm mixed with Levantine heritage (father from Lebanon) and white European (French Mother)
My dad got very obsessed with "integrating" when my sister and I grew up and stopped speaking to us in arabic very early.
We used to visit Lebanon during the summer holidays but it stopped, then life happened etc.
I used to be very detached from my lebanese heritage.
in 2019 I spent a few month there and took some arabic classes.
Kept learning by myself for a few more months and now I'm barely practicing. my level is A2+ I'd say.
everytime I meet someone who speaks levantine Arabic i get super nervous (like today, new colleague is from Syria) and it's like my brain freezes and I forget everything and mix all the languages I know (french/english/spanish/German and Arabic lol) and my brain turns into mush and I feel super ashamed to not be able to hold an actual adult conversation in the language of my second country.
I hold the litteral nationality of this country and can't speak the language. that makes me feel so embarrassed and so sad. I feel like a fraud and I feel incomplete and I feel like ill never belong anywhere.
anyone else relating in any sort of way ?
please make me feel better or normal lol
thank you