Jess,
It's always a regret to me that I can't speak my native dialect, Hokkien. I can't recall anything about my language acquisition during childhood except for once when my father was sending my neighbour and my elder sister to school. The neighbour was talking something about being late for school and she asked me,'ni3 bu4 pa4 chi2 dao4 ah?' and I asked her 'What's chi2 dao4?'.
My mother said that she spoke to us in hokkien when we were young, but when we started schooling, we came home and spoke to her in Mandarin. That sounds so bizarre and cute to me.
Yeah, I had 'Speak English' campaigns in school during my time too. But these campaigns were not successful in my school at least becos it was primarily a very Chinese primary school. My Chinese was never a problem naturally, coupled with the fact that I love to read Chinese books, and write too during my leisure time.
My English was forced to become better only when I was doing my A levels. All my classmates were either from girls' schools or Malay and Indians. It forced me to speak English. Personal pride also compelled me to be grammatical. And I had a critical and witchy GP teacher who demanded us to write 1000 word essays. She would repeat what we said shrilly, with a very incredulous look, when we said a wrong thing, used the wrong word or presented wrong info at our presentations. She also demanded that every one of us go find at least one joke to tell the class as and when she called upon us if the class needed a break from the lesson. Every day, my heart beat many times faster when she was about to walk into the classroom, and the heartbeat remained at the same beating rate throughout the lesson. She was the most stressful teacher I ever had. Yet strangely, on hindsight, if it wasn't for her, I'm not sure if I could have mastered English, beyond the acquisition level.
I thought Chinese is easier precisely becos there's no fixed rules to apply. One word you learn can be used anywhere and any way you like, as long as it's correctly used. Very fluid and flexible.
English, on the other hand, altho has guiding rules, always has exceptions to the rules. Although the acquisition itself is rarely a problem, mastering it is not easy given the wide range of vocabulary. And very often, one word can only be used in a certain manner. It's less fluid compared to Chinese. And there's formal and informal English to grapple with ie. cannot use this and that word becos they are verbal, not formal. Even pronunciation is ambiguous sometimes since it's a rojak language eg. 'tho' has a different sound in different words - 'though', 'thought', 'thorough'. There's no consistency in the pronunciation although the words are spelt using the same three beginning letters.
And for some reason, I find Chinese characters a beauty to behold. Each is unique and tells a story or picture while English letters are somewhat cold and robotic. Up till now, English remains a language of convenience for me while Chinese is a passion.
This is a funny thread. Everytime I thought it's dead, it's revived again. 
