Is it possible to forget a language gradually?

red dragon

red dragon

Justiceforall
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Please don't make fun of my situation, it's very real and scary.
I'm a Bengali with very poor hindi ( can understand it mostly, but can barely read and speak horribly) My English was not very bad, as it was the prime medium of studies.
Till 2014-15 Bangla (95 percent of time) and some English were the predominant language of communication.
Then I landed in a series of non English speaking countries where most of my colleagues and friends are/ were not fluent in English. For last 2-3 years except speaking in seminars, use of English language got smaller and smaller as I became fluent in Czech/ Slovak and reasonably good in French.
I taught in some medical colleges online last year and had to go through Czech textbooks and it was a cakewalk.
Now, we are in a city where many people can and do speak English and I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to maintain a communication in English, constantly forgetting very common words, but the reading skills are relatively intact. Can read for hours without any problem in comprehending.
The Bengali is completely intact, can read, write, speak fluently.
But I used to think in Bengali, now it's Czech.
We watch English movies, news, listen to music all the time and it's not a problem at all, but just can't speak fluently anymore.
My wife actually noticed this linguistic regression few days back and got very worried ( thought I'm having a stroke)
Now I'm also worried, as writing is also getting difficult!! Keep on forgetting words...
It's not a problem yet, I spoke to a neurologist, she thinks it's psychological after going through a lot of tests ( from simple MMSE to very complex linguistic tests)
It took me close to 30 minutes to write this, shouldn't take more than 5 ( wrote the entire thing in Czech in less than 7 minutes)
Copy pasting it from a medical forum post, hope there's nothing objectionable ( I'm not sure anymore)
 
It absolutely normal to gradually forget a language if you stop all forms of communcation with it.

Unlike you, I studied Bengali as a 3rd language during my school years and got fluent in all forms of communication with it. Could write, read and talk fluently but as days passed and there wasn't much I did with the language, I can hardly read anything, completely forgotten how to write but can still communicate vocally.

Vocal communication is probably deep rooted into our minds as even when people become mentally challenged, almost everyone forgets everything but still remember to communicate using language.

Have you tried relearning a little? Maybe it's just a little rusty after not using it at a constant basis for a while.
 
That's what I was advised. Problem is, it feels strange to speak to wife in English after so many years.
I could barely speak Czech when we first met, she doesn't speak much English either, but she's trying to help.
 
I have a similar experience too. Till my 10th, I was fluent in speaking English and fluent in mother tongue. Then in my Highers I had taken up Sanskrit. After those 2 years, when I stepped into college I had difficulties speaking in English for a few months and completely forgotten how to write in my mother tongue. It took me 4 weeks to become fluent. Now I have forgot Sanskrit.
 
?dOuBtFiRe? said:
I have a similar experience too. Till my 10th, I was fluent in speaking English and fluent in mother tongue. Then in my Highers I had taken up Sanskrit. After those 2 years, when I stepped into college I had difficulties speaking in English for a few months and completely forgotten how to write in my mother tongue. It took me 4 weeks to become fluent. Now I have forgot Sanskrit.
Click to expand...

Same - I used to be able to read/write/speak in Sanskrit but now know absolutely nothing. Can't speak it or understand it baring a few major words here and there. I know more Spanish now than Sanskrit aside from being fluent in English/Hindi.
 
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