Communication problems have led to a rocky relationship with my parents. Please advise.

Hello all,

As the title said, I believe that I have a rocky relationship with my parents due to communication problems. English is not my first language - I was born in Taiwan and lived there for 7 years before moving to Canada. I have been in Canada ever since (this August will be my 14th year here), and as the years passed by my Mandarin has deteriorated to the point where I can only make small talk, since my vocabulary is not strong enough to carry a conversation.

My parents have learned English, but their primary language is still Mandarin. I noticed that I have begun speaking more English than Mandarin the older I have gotten, and my parents and I don't have any complaints about it since they understood the majority of the things that I am saying and they will usually respond back with Mandarin.

However, when it comes to dealing with conflicts and arguments, I have a VERY difficult time trying to express my viewpoints and how I am feeling to them because they will not understand what I am talking about if I am speaking English. I can't tell them by speaking Mandarin because I don't know how, and that often leaves me frustrated because I will not be able to speak up and tell them how I feel.

As an example, I was upset that my mom threw away two tshirts that I left out to dry in the laundry room. As I told her that I was annoyed, she begun raising her voice, saying how she does not like the tone of voice that I was using to talk to her - just completely averting the topic and started stating negative factors about me that didn't address the problem that I was trying to bring up.

I wanted to tell her that raising her voice doesn't make her right, and when dealing with a conflict it's best to address the conflict and not the person, but I did not know how to say that in Mandarin. I didn't say anything and just went upstairs, and I could hear her complaining to my dad on how wrong I was, etc.

In the end, I feel very suffocated that I cannot communicate my feelings and thoughts across to my parents in times when we disagree with each other, and that is why I am feeling very disconnected from them.

I love my parents, but this is one issue that's been on my mind for awhile and I just don't know how to deal with this any more. I would love to hear your thoughts on how I should approach this, as I am at a loss of what to do.

Edit: tl;dr - I do not know how to communicate with my parents to address my feelings and concerns due to the language barrier.