Educator since 2018. 287 answers. In "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan, "different Englishes" are the various forms of English languages and the different circumstances in which the author utilizes them. Every form of English represents something different to her.

What does Tan mean when she writes that she uses different Englishes give an example?

What Tan means when she says she uses different Englishes in her story is that, depending who she is speaking to her sentence structures change. For example, when she speaks to her mother she says, “Not waste money that way”(Tan 1).

What are the different Englishes Tan describes?

Tan describes the four different types of English she would use at home and outside her home. She would use “simple”, “broken”, “limited”, and “proper” English, but didn't like to use the word broken because broken means there is something that needed to be fixed. ... Tan” (Tan 465).