English is one of the hardest languages to learn and the fact that her mother can even speak "broken" english is amazing. Maybe her mother just had such a strong accent that it was hard to understand what she not only meant but also was trying to get across. Tan writes and speaks in the different forms of Englishes that she used growing up and throughout her life. Tan talks about never doing good on the English tests throughout her years of school because she couldn't comprehend what they were trying to ask for. She brings up the fact that most Chinese or Asian Americans are engineers because they understand the math and sciences better for the fact that there is only one answer and they can achieve the answer. Tan makes the point that her mother is in the audience and that she might not be able to understand her speech. She then came to realize that she speaks simple english with her mother for the fact that its easy to understand. Tan didn't realize until that moment that she uses two types of english when talking. Tan has given the speech a dozen other times but at that moment when she realized her mother was in the audience, she needed to change how she worded things and spoke so her mother could understand what she was saying. With English being a hard language to learn, we always say that non-Americans speak brokenly and they are hard to understand. Our interpretation of their language may not be good but they are trying their best to speak. They don't realize that they are hard to understand but when learning a new langugage you just have to try and try again. Amy Tan just had an advantage to her mother because she went to school and grew up with the language so it was a little easier for her and now she speaks fluent English while her mother still has a hard time learning. I think that all English tests are hard even if you speak fluent English so for Tan to not fully understand and want to write is simply amazing.