What Mother's Tounge reminds me

After reading the Mother's Tounge, a piece of memory comes to my mind that I haven't spoken Cantonese with my friends for more than half a month since I came to America. I miss that kind of language, and I miss the special way of communication with my family and the distintion of our tounge.
My hometown is Canton, a metropolis of China, located in the southern region. The people living there are customed to speak Cantonese, so do me.Nevertheless, my whole family speak mandarin, for they immigrated from the north of China twenty years ago, consiquetly, it's a bit difficult for me to translate Cantonese into Mandarin while describing a object. For instance, when talking about "vanilla", as influenced by the accent of Hong Kong, we always say vanilla in Cantonese, which is similar to pure English. On the contrary, my family will never understand or remember the way I speak, so I have to change it into Mandarin. Just as the situation that Tan had met in her childhood, what my family said served as a huge obstacle for me to master Cantonese, for such two kind of languages are almost opposite.As a result, I spoke Cantonese so poor that I once hated Mandarin at the first period of learning Cantonese.
Another huge difference is that way between formal expression and informal expression. In Cantonese, we will simplify our sentence as much as we can while using informal expression, however, our sentence will be perfectly decorated and will be extended by using literary word on it. For examly, we will say "I try to do something" as an informal way, while saying "I spare no effort on doing somehing".It seems to be a bit complex, right? But at least, both of that expression is readity for everybody to accept.Unlike the tounge of Tan's mother, the sentance is vivid for Tan but incomprehensible for the other. After all, the sentence of pure Cantonese has wonderfully grammatical constructed.
Last of all, after reading that artical, it reminds me a lot about the generation gap between my family and me and the diffence kind construction of my mother language.When comparing the distinction, it will be a terrific method to achieve better understanding of my language, so as to learn English.Thanks for Ammy Tan and her Mother's Tounge.