Dialects

I'm an Indonesian born Chinese. Great great grandparents are from Fujian Province, China. We speak dialect at home. When I was little, I was kind of embarrassed when my folks talked to me in dialect. It wasn't cool at all, I thought. In fact, I don't speak the dialect 100% correctly. As I grew up in Indonesia, I understand more Indonesian. I have no idea how to say "potato" in dialect. We call it "ma ling shu" in Mandarin which sounds like "maling", a thief, in Indonesian.

As a kid, I interacted with other kids in neighborhood. Most of them spoke Hakka (客家话).
That's why I can speak Hakka, more or less. I feel darn lucky! Speaking a little dialects is better than none. At least they really helped when I decided to learn Mandarin 13 years ago. Hakka takes a lot of Mandarin pronunciation. If you know how to say "papaya" in Hakka then you'll remember how to say it in Mandarin "木瓜" (mu gua) . Another example, they both say 有用 ( you yong ) when you want to describe something/someone is "useful". It's easy,isn't it? :)