Everyone learns a native language. Many people also learn a foreign language to some extent. Do we ever lose these languages?

We often think of our native languages as fixed and unchanging --- once we learn them as children, we retain that knowledge and put it into practice every day. However, in this increasingly connected world, as people migrate for work, for love, for safety, they may find themselves in a situation where they no longer regularly use their native language, instead using a second language on a day-to-day basis.
In these cases, people can often become concerned that they are losing their knowledge of their native language.

In this talk, Professor Laura Domínguez, Dr Glyn Hicks, Dr E Jamieson and Lewis Baker from Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Southampton introduce the field of 'language attrition'. They present recent research showing how not using your native language as frequently can affect different aspects of your language to different degrees.