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Six Moments Of Code-Switching In Popular Culture

All this week, pegged to our launch, we've been doing stories of code-switching, the practice of mixing languages or ways of expressing yourself in conversation. In popular culture, celebrities and others have shown us all sorts of motivations of why someone might employ code-switching. Here are some of them:

1. You don't want to sound like an outsider.

2. You shift between two languages and two dialects in the same sentence, because that's the way your family rolls.

(The rapid-fire switch from English --> Cantonese --> Mandarin starts around 0:16.)

3. Because, really, that's the way your family rolls.

4. You hate it when others try way too hard.

5. You know that translating isn't always easy.

6. You just want to "bro hug" Kevin Durant.


What are your favorite code-switching moments in popular culture? Share with us in the comments below, or tweet at us and use #codeswitching.

Kat Chow is a social media journalist and blogger for Code Switch. Follow her at @katchow, and the team at @NPRCodeSwitch.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Kat Chow is a reporter with NPR and a founding member of the Code Switch team. She is currently on sabbatical, working on her first book (forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing/Hachette). It's a memoir that digs into the questions about grief, race and identity that her mother's sudden death triggered when Kat was young.