The Stand Still, Stay Silent Fan-Forum
General => Language Board => Topic started by: Tap10lan on June 06, 2015, 02:31:32 PM
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This is sort of a reaction to the thread about which language you think in.
When I was little, I learned Finnish, Croatian (archaic), and Swedish from my parents, so that's my starting point.
I can only recall ONE time when I've mixed up language use (unintentionally). In 3rd grade (maybe 2nd?), a classmate in school said my first name, apparently with exactly correct inflection, because I turned around, and said "Sto?" (well, it's a "sch" at the beginning, but I don't know the code for it), that is "What?".
My Swedish classmate was totally lost, and I quickly switched to Swedish.
It's quite possible I've done this sort of thing more times, but since it was a bit embarrassing, I remember that one clearly.
Another variant is the intentional mixing up. Since my Croatian vocab is crappy, I put in German where I know the missing word in that language (since my dad's family's from Austria), and if I'm talking to dad, I take final recourse in Swedish, when I just can't figure out a good word in German. It probably sounds a bit like that guy in Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" ...
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I can't profess to be anywhere near fluent in anything but English, but I've got a pretty good grasp of conversational Spanish from many years of Spanish classes. There have been times where after Spanish class, I'd have to consciously go back to English because otherwise I'd start to respond to people in Spanish in my next class. I got some weird looks. :P It was even weirder because my thoughts would usually start out in English in my head, then come out of my mouth in Spanish.
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Ohmygodyay!!! More linguistics!!!! *happy dance*
So I am unbelievably guilty of this. I do it all the time, and sometimes without realizing and then the person I am talking to is just like wut and I am confused because I don't know why they are confused.
Basically I use English the most every day, and a few years ago I was in Spain, and then later I went on tour in Italy with my choir, and both times I would go to talk to someone and my brain was like yay notenglish! Let's speak notenglish! And so I ended up telling a Spanish fisherman something about catching crabs for bait (we as kids would run around on the rocks by the beach at low tide catching crabs and giving them to fishermen) in French, and I asked an Italian street vendor if I could buy something also in French. They were both like, uuuh did you mean this instead?
Most commonly actually I mix things up in French class, like the time two years ago we were working on a group project in class and someone asked me how to say something in French, I forget what but it was something like "It will be..." and instead of telling them "Il sera..." I told them "Il mun vera..." (mun vera means will be in Icelandic) and then someone said "um I don't think that's French", and I was like "of course it's French what are you talking about?", and then I looked at it again and... "oh wait no that's Icelandic". Oooopsssss. (We had to redo that part of the poster)
But yeah, when I'm writing French essays I have switched into Icelandic without realizing it and then ending up writing stuff like Cette histoire er um un petit garçon qui était très þ- Waaaaaaait. Þ doesn't belong in French. And then having to backtrack to find and change all the Icelandic words. (The sentence says "this story is about a little boy who was very tired", er um means is about in Icelandic and tired is þreyttur) I have also answered my French teacher in Icelandic and my English teacher in French (note to self: don't schedule back to back language classes in different languages).
I also use Icelandic words to fill in what I don't know in Danish. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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I can't profess to be anywhere near fluent in anything but English, but I've got a pretty good grasp of conversational Spanish from many years of Spanish classes. There have been times where after Spanish class, I'd have to consciously go back to English because otherwise I'd start to respond to people in Spanish in my next class. I got some weird looks. :P It was even weirder because my thoughts would usually start out in English in my head, then come out of my mouth in Spanish.
This happened to me allll the time, and I would have to stop myself from speaking in Spanish to my innocent geometry teacher who does not speak Spanish at all. Except, actually, I do kind of think in very mixed-up Spanglish in my head when I'm trying to speak Spanish and for a while after? Weird, I never realized this
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Oooh yes, this thread sounds so very familiar.
:finland: Obviously the easiest to switch to, occasional Icelandic or English words can wedge themselves in but only if I've been speaking the other language right before.
:uk: Hard to switch to from both Finnish and Icelandic, both try to force themselves back in. I was talking about this with Viola earlier and figured it may have something to do with how different the pronunciation is, because aside of some utter insanity Icelandic and Finnish are pronounced somewhat similarly. That means that switching to English doesn't only switch the language but the entire pronunciation settings as well which means more work for my already bad-at-multitasking brain.
:iceland: Harder to switch to than Finnish but easier than English, Finnish is better at slipping over the Icelandic than English. Might actually also have something to do with the fact that I hear Icelandic all the time so it's written itself on my brain as "the norm".
:sweden: Quick switch to Swedish from any language at all? Well... I'll try to use more Swedish words than Icelandic ones but no promises.
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Well, I have a bad habit of just switching between languages in conversation (I have very basic knowledge of quite a few languages), so it's not particularly hard for just simple phrases or words.
Proper, fluent language-switching is super hard, though.
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Switch to English and keep talking in English is OK.
Switch to German is OK (?), keep talking in German is the real challenge. (Sooner or later it leads to the question 'do you speak in English?') :P
But I can get confused, when I have to switch back and forth between English and Hungarian (for example translating a conversation). If I'm not in the right mood for the translation, I can forget basic words and expressions even in my mother tongue...
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in norway I may or may not speak a horrid mix of norwegian and english... those are the languages that come easiest to me, and there are already more and more english words sneaking into Official Norwegian Language, and I have happened to switch completely to english on several occasions. But it's not like I can't speak Pure Norwegian if I need to keep up appearances or anything, or vice versa. So no switchy issues on these parts, apart from deliberate mixing.
Czech though, that's a language I only really speak for short-ish periods of time (some weeks usually), maybe twice or thrice a year. I can switch into it without problems, but in the beginning I keep forgetting a lot of words and phrases and do a lot of awkward hand-waving and describing things to have people help me out. I don't really switch to english or norwegian, unless I'm talking to someone who can help me remember a word.
We have guests from Czech or other countries pretty often in our house in Norway, which means there is suddenly a LOT of rapid language-swtiching going on, and that can cause some funny situations. My mother messes up a lot more than I do. One time she spoke several sentences in norwegian at my czech friend, who just looked more and more intimidated because mom did not realize she was speaking norwegian to him at all, heh.
but all three languages are more or less my native tongues - english isn't but I've been learning it since a very young age - and I haven't really put a lot of effort into learning any NEW languages, to be honest. I've had spanish, german and french at school for a few years each, but I've never gotten anywhere close to being fluent or conversional in any of them. I must admit I have no idea how to spanish at all anymore, it's all frenchified.
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Ok, so one of my friends (I'm looking at you, Viola) knows a bunch of languages that I don't and sometimes texts me in them because she can and I have Google translate. But late at night especially, she decides to stop differentiating between languages and it gets very confusing very quickly. One sentence might go like this: English English Icelandic French Danish Icelandic. This is when I tell her to go to bed.
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Ok, so one of my friends (I'm looking at you, Viola) knows a bunch of languages that I don't and sometimes texts me in them because she can and I have Google translate. But late at night especially, she decides to stop differentiating between languages and it gets very confusing very quickly. One sentence might go like this: English English Icelandic French Danish Icelandic. This is when I tell her to go to bed.
Det er ekki that mal. ;) Just think, you've gotten tones better at identifying strange languages, and sometimes you don't even need google translate to figure out what I'm saying anymore. :D
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Det er ekki that mal. ;) Just think, you've gotten tones better at identifying strange languages, and sometimes you don't even need google translate to figure out what I'm saying anymore. :D
Oh, of course it's not that bad. But it probably does mean you should get some sleep. :P
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Oooh code-switching!
I hardly switch between languages when I speak English as I'm comfortable with it. Arabic is another story. I can understand the language and its dialects a bit, but I cannot express myself well enough. I deliberately switch between English and Arabic which confuses the hell out of my friends. In the end, we've decided its best if I stick to English and they completely speak in Arabic.
I also tend to switch a lot with Spanish and French, especially with numbers. I'll start saying numbers in Spanish then I somehow end with French numbers; no, I don't realize it at all.
I know my mom does a lot of code switching too; from Tagalog to English and vice versa. Then again, there is something called Taglish.
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considering language switching, I can provide you with some theory.
Children growing up with two or more languages (either in bilingual way or in adding a second language after being three years old) learn in which situations a language will be appropriate, so they seldomly switch uninentionally. The reaction to the perfect pronounced name is a regular one, since the brain automatically expexted a native speaker there. Uninentional language switching mostly happens if the speaker knows that all people around him share the same vocab for fitting situation.
Example: You have grown up with english and french. Let's say you grew up bilingual and have a vocab considering "family" in both languages, but "school" is reserved for english. If you do not have friends speaking french there with you, you won't slip into french there without little exceptions. If you have friends there from a french context you might slip into french with them if no one else is around and depending on the topic. Many bilingual grownups have a language they feel saver with if it comes to emotions. They can equally talk about them in both languages intentionally. If they meet someone of the language preferred by the brain in a context that would not require you to keep track which language to use, you will speak a vivid mix of french and english and talk about emotional topics mostly in french (if that is the preferred language) since you know your above can switsch fluently as well.
I know it from german-turkish and german-kurdish pupils mostly. Those never react in their native language to me except if it comes to swears (and that only if they lose controll). If you listen to them on the yard while none of their only german friends is around you will hear school vocab in german only mixed with a lot of stuff in the other languages. School vocab is seldomly referred to in their main tongue at home.
If you not only have gained knowledge about syntax and grammar but as well about what your partner in talks or surroundings are capable of understanding and which language is expected from you, you can intentionally switsch. Bi- and Multilingual grown-ups have advantages here. Those who added other languages later to their mother tongue can gain that fluency as well.
Haiz describes a situation where one of the main languages (norwegian) get's mixed unintentionally since they talk very often in english context. Main language gets pushed aside and mixed. According to literature this mostly happens if one is not able to pay attention to social surroudings (for example if one's mind is busy with planning, trouble...), or knows some words for a situation fitting in one language but not in the other and thus is in unconcious need of mixing.
Eh okay, lecture is over. I am able to switch from german to english and back but still am in need of a dictionary at times. If I expect someone to know bits of german or a language sharing some words, I try to sneak in german words in hope of the person being able to make a guess (I do that while trying to talk norwegian from time to time).
Edit: oha, code-switching describes something rather different, you do not need to speak different languages for that =)
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considering language switching, I can provide you with some theory.
Children growing up with two or more languages (either in bilingual way or in adding a second language after being three years old) learn in which situations a language will be appropriate, so they seldomly switch uninentionally. The reaction to the perfect pronounced name is a regular one, since the brain automatically expexted a native speaker there. Uninentional language switching mostly happens if the speaker knows that all people around him share the same vocab for fitting situation.
Example: You have grown up with english and french. Let's say you grew up bilingual and have a vocab considering "family" in both languages, but "school" is reserved for english. If you do not have friends speaking french there with you, you won't slip into french there without little exceptions. If you have friends there from a french context you might slip into french with them if no one else is around and depending on the topic. Many bilingual grownups have a language they feel saver with if it comes to emotions. They can equally talk about them in both languages intentionally. If they meet someone of the language preferred by the brain in a context that would not require you to keep track which language to use, you will speak a vivid mix of french and english and talk about emotional topics mostly in french (if that is the preferred language) since you know your above can switsch fluently as well.
I know it from german-turkish and german-kurdish pupils mostly. Those never react in their native language to me except if it comes to swears (and that only if they lose controll). If you listen to them on the yard while none of their only german friends is around you will hear school vocab in german only mixed with a lot of stuff in the other languages. School vocab is seldomly referred to in their main tongue at home.
If you not only have gained knowledge about syntax and grammar but as well about what your partner in talks or surroundings are capable of understanding and which language is expected from you, you can intentionally switsch. Bi- and Multilingual grown-ups have advantages here. Those who added other languages later to their mother tongue can gain that fluency as well.
Haiz describes a situation where one of the main languages (norwegian) get's mixed unintentionally since they talk very often in english context. Main language gets pushed aside and mixed. According to literature this mostly happens if one is not able to pay attention to social surroudings (for example if one's mind is busy with planning, trouble...), or knows some words for a situation fitting in one language but not in the other and thus is in unconcious need of mixing.
Eh okay, lecture is over. I am able to switch from german to english and back but still am in need of a dictionary at times. If I expect someone to know bits of german or a language sharing some words, I try to sneak in german words in hope of the person being able to make a guess (I do that while trying to talk norwegian from time to time).
Edit: oha, code-switching describes something rather different, you do not need to speak different languages for that =)
Eheh, for some reason my brain mixed up both code-switching with language switching. Oops. Code-switching is more of a thing for multilingual from a young age as their native language.
Aside from that, you pretty much described what some linguists, including my classmates back at uni, hypothesize about second language acquisition. It makes much sense and I can relate it. (I wanted to write a longer reply but I'm drowsy) .
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Eheh, for some reason my brain mixed up both code-switching with language switching. Oops. Code-switching is more of a thing for multilingual from a young age as their native language.
Aside from that, you pretty much described what some linguists, including my classmates back at uni, hypothesize about second language acquisition. It makes much sense and I can relate it. (I wanted to write a longer reply but I'm drowsy) .
It is pretty early if I assume you are from the US ;).
Yeah young children see the languages they speak more as social codes indeed. Especially those who switch strictly between mum-language and dad-language. Then come the point when they realize one of the parents speaks the same language beign spoken at school as well. Or they realize school or kindergarten provides them with a new language. It takes some time before they realise that different situations in even one language only can require them to change codes (like talking to friends uses different vocab than talking to teachers/headmasters etc.)
But this goes for monolinguals as well. Some children are not able to adress people in school with propper vocab since they do not know that code. Especially the kids I teach often come from a rough background, so many techniques of successfull communication are not available for them (yet).
And yeah I am happy to put all the knowledge in here since I have a test about that topic upcomming at the moment ;)
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ehh... I don't usually switch languages because I don't have to; sometimes between portuguese/english though. But I sometimes do it for myself as practice, switching quickly between french/english/portuguese. Normally there's no switching back unintentionally unless i get frustrated by a word I'm missing. There's sometimes some phrasing or expression that will overflow from one language to the next, but AFAIK that's not too frequent ;)
As for other languages, I don't speak them nearly well enough to even try (jk, I tried while writing this), but I think there wouldn't be much trouble for me to switch. Staying in another might be a bit more complicated, though, because I have a hard time saying what I want, understanding what I'm asked, and thinking in that language...
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Mmm, my experience with language switching is not much. Usually I keep to the one language (or language-mix) where it's appropriate.
But I think the little of what I have experienced confirms what Kex is saying :)
My brain is like this: English for school, most of the internet, typing, and books. Afrikaans for people I'm comfortable with, half my family, my mother, and books. Dutch for formal things, half my family, my father, and books.
SO.
When I get really good friends with someone, and I feel really comfortable in a place, I will, at some point, switch to Afrikaans, and not notice at all until weird looks are had. In fact, not only will I tend to switch to Afrikaans, I'll tend to talk to them in ALL languages mixed up, because that's what I tend to speak at home, and that's what my brain's linked to "safe place". So they'll get sentences that are mostly in English, except for part of it, and then people do double-takes and ask me to repeat myself again, haha.
I also forget my English when I'm very nervous. This does differ, though, whether I'm communicating by speech or by text ... and what that text is in - typing, or writing? If it's typing, I'll have much less of a chance of forgetting things due to that link. If it's speech or writing, I'm sunk.
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considering language switching, I can provide you with some theory.
Children growing up with two or more languages (either in bilingual way or in adding a second language after being three years old) learn in which situations a language will be appropriate, so they seldomly switch uninentionally. The reaction to the perfect pronounced name is a regular one, since the brain automatically expexted a native speaker there. Uninentional language switching mostly happens if the speaker knows that all people around him share the same vocab for fitting situation.
Example: You have grown up with english and french. Let's say you grew up bilingual and have a vocab considering "family" in both languages, but "school" is reserved for english. If you do not have friends speaking french there with you, you won't slip into french there without little exceptions. If you have friends there from a french context you might slip into french with them if no one else is around and depending on the topic. Many bilingual grownups have a language they feel saver with if it comes to emotions. They can equally talk about them in both languages intentionally. If they meet someone of the language preferred by the brain in a context that would not require you to keep track which language to use, you will speak a vivid mix of french and english and talk about emotional topics mostly in french (if that is the preferred language) since you know your above can switsch fluently as well.
I know it from german-turkish and german-kurdish pupils mostly. Those never react in their native language to me except if it comes to swears (and that only if they lose controll). If you listen to them on the yard while none of their only german friends is around you will hear school vocab in german only mixed with a lot of stuff in the other languages. School vocab is seldomly referred to in their main tongue at home.
If you not only have gained knowledge about syntax and grammar but as well about what your partner in talks or surroundings are capable of understanding and which language is expected from you, you can intentionally switsch. Bi- and Multilingual grown-ups have advantages here. Those who added other languages later to their mother tongue can gain that fluency as well.
Haiz describes a situation where one of the main languages (norwegian) get's mixed unintentionally since they talk very often in english context. Main language gets pushed aside and mixed. According to literature this mostly happens if one is not able to pay attention to social surroudings (for example if one's mind is busy with planning, trouble...), or knows some words for a situation fitting in one language but not in the other and thus is in unconcious need of mixing.
Eh okay, lecture is over. I am able to switch from german to english and back but still am in need of a dictionary at times. If I expect someone to know bits of german or a language sharing some words, I try to sneak in german words in hope of the person being able to make a guess (I do that while trying to talk norwegian from time to time).
Heh, yeah, this all matches my experience. Austrian (Croatian minority) dad, Finnish (Finnish-Finnish, but from mixed, near the coast area), grew up in Sweden. They started out using their respective languages with me, then decided that one should speak Swedish (my mother did), and in Sweden you get some schooling in one of your parents' native language, so I learned Finnish that way.
As I learned both the Croatian, and the Finnish from non-peers (?), I'm terrible at cursing in those languages. ;)
Anyway, I've always found it easy to keep the languages apart.
What I do need to improve is vocab, both when it comes to Croatian and Finnish. I tend to do like several others have written they do: use appropriate language (e.g. Croatian with my dad), then replace missing words with secondary language (e.g. German), and if that is missing, use Swedish. Hehe.
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This happens to me fairly often at home because my mother insist I speak to her in German (our native language), but at work I can only use English. It's gotten so bad that both my mom and I have started speaking "Denglish" to each other when we get deeply enough into a discussion! :P Also, suddenly having to speak German all the time on my last trip there two years ago was wonderful but very, very weird at first.
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I don't switch unintentionally very often (which probably has something to do with the fact that I'm only fluent in English). However, my friend and I have been known to shout "Tchüß" at our band teacher on more than one occasion - which is probably terrible on so many levels besides the wrong-language bit, but that's how our German teacher says goodbye to us everyday. I've taken to purposefully talking to my sister in German, because 1) it's good practice and 2) she hates it. Now, of course, it's become habit and I find myself doing it accidentally to every member of my family.
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I speak hungarian every day especially with my mum, or anyone who I meet here,but I also speak engloish every day especially afternoon/all night with friends online (skype calls or other calls) and when I talk in english and my mum came in and speak hungarian, I need to switch immediately, becuase my mother does not speak english at all.
and because of this switchings, sometimes I am using wrong words, like hungarian words in english or other way around. (without realizing I say hogy instead of how (kinda means same) and such not-so-important filling words.)
typical from me, that I say "ja" instead of "igen" or "yes/yeah", because everyone can understand it whatever language they speak. same with okay/oké.
once I got message in norwegian (norwegian/swedish mix), I understood it and answered swedish as I could and kept up a tiny conversation like that. but I barely speak other language then english or hungarian.
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I from time to time mess scripts when I write by hand (and I write by hand a lot). That is, being Russian among Russian speakers I use mostly Cyrillic, so it's no wonder I while writing something in Roman sometimes mess т and t, д and d and the like. But last time I wrote h instead of х while writing in Cyrillic!
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This is something I've noticed happening to me recently: on the Internet I'm set on English so the worst that can happen is that I remember a word only in Italian or German but that's rare. At school I speak Italian, repeat the worst case scenario. At home we all speak all three languages so I do weird things with grammar and words but everyone understands. Because I now have really nice classmates I get comfortable around then and my brain goes into family mode, so I start speaking Dengtalian (if you want a funny name for it) which obviously confuses them horribly.
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At home we speak a mixture of Dutch and German mostly. Outside of the home and at work I will speak either Welsh or English, with a little interference from the one on the other.
To get back to the title of the topic: once you get used to quickly switching a language (technical term: code-switching) it gets very easy. We used to have dinners at ours where one friend was Dutch, one German, and two Britons. Conversation would be English mostly, but sometimes you slip into either Dutch or German as you quickly throw out a question to them or something. It confused the hell out of the (non-Welsh) poor Britons...
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Ok so this is sort of about langauge switching, so I will put it here.
I live in an area that is on the border of Ontario and Quebec, so everything is bilingual. All the labels, the adds, the posters, the road signs (yes bilingual stop signs are a thing). In order to get a job one has to be bilingual. Most of the people who live here are bilingual. I was talking to Laufey the other day about people who work in shops and how they know what language to speak to someone in. Here it's considered really rude to assume someone speaks French or English right off the bat without knowing them. Our solution is the "hellobonjour". When you go into a shop and you need to talk with a sales person, before anything happens, before you say anything they say "hello bonjour" which is really more like a question "hellobonjour?" and you are supposed to answer hello or bonjour and based on your answer that is what language you will now use for primary conversation with that person. It's kind of like a secret code and an unwritten rule and it prevents language chaos.
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I mostly speak Norwegian, and reading is a mixture of bokmål Norwegian, dialect, English and German (latter only online, former a mixture of online and in reality). Main switch I need to do normally is between dialect and less-of-a-dialect when speaking with someone from outside of the area, although when I speak english I sometimes have a tendency to switch to Norwegian without realizing it. The opposite has never happened, and I tend to get annoyed with people who speak English when there's no English-speakers in the conversation.
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I speak English most of the time, but can switch back and forth with French in conversation.. I can also read in one and speak in the other, e.g. translating a text in one language aloud.
When I try to speak Danish, it ends up as some unholy crossbreed with French due to me padding my small vocabulary with words that do not belong. :P
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I usually speak English because in French class we don't speak a lot in there so it's fairly easy to switch languages, especially since I'm learning two languages in school (I'll also be taking another language next year) and need to make a quick transition. So since I don't speak it often, the transition is easy.
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I know enough French and German to be conversational in both languages. But what happens far too often is that I'll start a sentence in one language and finish in the other.
Je trouve que das sehr ärgerlich ist.
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I know enough French and German to be conversational in both languages. But what happens far too often is that I'll start a sentence in one language and finish in the other.
Je trouve que das sehr ärgerlich ist.
Me too! With French and Danish, but the same thing. Especially because my Danish vocab is terrible, so I backfill with French. :P
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I fill in my danish and swedish with icelandic and my german with danish and swedish. It's a real mess sometimes :P
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Ohh, this is a fun thread ;D
Handling just German and English is fine, although I tend to associate writing and reading with English more than with German (thanks be to the internets :P).
Adding one other language is okay. Like Japanese. No problem switching back and forth between those intentionally.
But if there is some background noise in yet another language I understand, like Chinese, my brain simply goes *ka-poof!* and I'll either end up jumbling everything together or going completely mute.
On one occasion I did a group project in Japanese with a Taiwanese girl and our Japanese tandem partner helped us out.
The tandem partner has a Canadian boyfriend so our common languages were garbled Japanese and correct English, but she also learned German and Chinese, and would keep throwing those in our respective directions and naturally I had to start answering as well when I understood the Chinese. Then, in some fit of humor our tandem partner decided it would be fun to teach the Taiwanese girl some French...
It lasted for about five minutes and afterwards we had to scrape our brains back together.
It's really difficult to handle that many different languages when they are all spoken by the same people, in the same surroundings, no less.
Something that always happened to me during Japanese oral exams was that I wanted to switch to Spanish (I always found Spanish has a lot of vowels) and to French in Chinese oral exams. French has some really similar sounds like en, un, an and so on.
And of course, as bad as I am in both of those languages, I'm still better in them than in Japanese and Chinese! ^-^
Ohhh. And whenever I swear, I unconsciously switch to English, mainly because there is enough swearing in written form on the internet and in books, but also because I was depressed when I did a two year exchange in GB. So, unfortunately, strong negative emotions have become a major connotation for me. *shrugs*
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It's fairly easy for me to switch between Mandarin and English (speaking only) or just go with outright Chinglish, but I've started to slip up occasionally; I'll have a sentence in my head and start babbling to someone and they'll look confused and I'll go "AHA OOPS IT'S ENGLISH TIME". Just a couple weeks ago I went to a pho place with a friend and when the waiter took our order, I was all ready to say "thank you" in English and it came out in Mandarin. I didn't notice what I'd done until the waiter was at the counter.
I've started reviewing my French much more frequently, and it's slowly starting to work its way into my lexicon without me thinking about it. A thing I've noticed is that I can't recall a time that I had thoughts in Mandarin without making a conscious effort despite the fact that I've been speaking it all my life, but I can switch fairly easily between English and French, given that I have the vocabulary for it. Also I can translate spoken Mandarin (at least the bit I know) easily, but with French I translate text much better; spoken French is too fast for me.
I know only a bit of Norwegian and Swedish, but once this summer I got a mix of Swedish and French o__o "HJÄLP MIG QUELQU'UN!!" (Help me someone!) I didn't realize that I'd said a sentence in two languages that weren't English for a couple of seconds. And I completely mix up the bits of Norwegian and Swedish that I know XD
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The other day I was typing a sentence and ended up with ich drikker inte (german, norweigian, swedish) which is a pretty good representation of how things in my head work. Just whatever language gets there first.
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The other day I was typing a sentence and ended up with ich drikker inte (german, norweigian, swedish) which is a pretty good representation of how things in my head work. Just whatever language gets there first.
Das är drole :)
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I am fluent in English as it is my first language, and I live in America (please don't hold it against me, all you beautiful multilinguals!). Even worse, I live in the American south where speaking other languages is by many people looked down upon, which is pretty unfortunate. But: there are beautiful rays of multilingual sunshine even here, so there is hope for even American Southerners yet!
So French is my second language, and though I'm not yet fluent I'm fairly conversational (working on fluency, and am in my third year of study). I know bits and pieces of spoken Korean, but I don't read it at all. So, whenever I see something written in a language that I don't read/speak, I just think, "Comme je peux comprendre!" ("Like I can understand!") and scoff at myself. I also help at an ESL (English as a second language) class, but unfortunately there are no other French speakers currently in attendance. So, whenever people switch into their native languages and I don't understand, my brain is like, "You'd better speak French now."
Most often my language switching occurs when I am surprised or really confused, and I'll just be like, "QUOI?" and whatever poor English speaker is there at the time will just look at me like, "What is wrong with you and who do you think you are?" Also I feel kind of terrible about accidentally switching with English-only people because usually they just think I'm stuck up or trying to show off (since most Southern Americans don't encounter language switching very often at all).
Anyway, in reading about all of your impressive language escapades, oh you lovely multilingual people, I commend you for being wonderful. America needs to get with the language program. Though, when I go to a big city like New York, it's easy to find Francophones and all other kinds of language speakers, which is fantastic.
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To be honest, in my 10+ years of being bilingual, I don't think I've ever had this problem.
I do switch to English when I'm talking to family and I don't know how to say something in Korean, but that's pretty rare and very intentional, so I don't think it really fits. Writing is almost never a problem.
Mostly I think it's because English/Chinese (the two languages I most commonly write in) are so different that they're difficult to confuse. Maybe when I learn another alphabetic language, I'll have problems writing.
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I am fluent in English as it is my first language, and I live in America (please don't hold it against me, all you beautiful multilinguals!). Even worse, I live in the American south where speaking other languages is by many people looked down upon, which is pretty unfortunate. But: there are beautiful rays of multilingual sunshine even here, so there is hope for even American Southerners yet!
I'm an American as well (and I'm no more than basic conversational in French or German, so I don't know that I count as multilingual). But you can do it!
Anyway, in reading about all of your impressive language escapades, oh you lovely multilingual people, I commend you for being wonderful. America needs to get with the language program. Though, when I go to a big city like New York, it's easy to find Francophones and all other kinds of language speakers, which is fantastic.
So, speaking as a New Yorker, of whom we have a few, when's your next trip up this way? We could totally do a Minnion Meetup in the Big Apple.
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So, speaking as a New Yorker, of whom we have a few, when's your next trip up this way? We could totally do a Minnion Meetup in the Big Apple.
April, but my time will not be my own as I'll be there to perform chorally! :/ But YAY FOR CHORAL MUSIC!
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I am fluent in English as it is my first language, and I live in America (please don't hold it against me, all you beautiful multilinguals!). Even worse, I live in the American south where speaking other languages is by many people looked down upon, which is pretty unfortunate. But: there are beautiful rays of multilingual sunshine even here, so there is hope for even American Southerners yet!
More of us down here than you think. I'm from Tennessee ... learned some Spanish when in college, lot a lot of it, but have been refreshing it through Duolingo, and at work, when a customer is having problems talking to me in English, I will often switch to Spanish to take their order! They really appreciate it too!
I have been learning Swedish too (lots of music friends from there on my Facebook, and I have always loved the language) and a lot of times, the words stick in my head. Like if I get frustrated and drop something at work, I will come out with "Helvete!" and it gets a few grins from my coworkers. That word needs no translation. :)
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(I know this topic is pretty old, but I felt the need to post)
:spain: Generally, my brain only has trouble switching between English and Spanish after heavy "use" of Spanish--such as after a class or conversation with a native speaker. I'm trying to get back into the habit of listening to Spanish podcasts and news channels to feel more confident in my listening and switching.
:vaticancity: This generally isn't a problem because Latin is so rarely spoken that I hardly come across people to converse with using it.
:japan: After watching a lot of anime I'll occasionally have trouble translating my sentences into English. But I think this just has to do with the way conversations flow in Japanese, as well as the notable cultural differences.
Hawaiian: I usually just read Hawaiian even though I know a number of native speakers. I'm hoping to get over my fear of mispronunciation soon so that I can practice conversationally. I know a number of natives that use Hawaiian words in place of English ones in conversation even if they don't consider themselves "fluent."
All in all, I think my brain has trouble switching between languages quickly (but this could just be perceived difficulty). But as I become more proficient in a language, the difficulty level of switching feels slightly lower.
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I am far better at writing in Spanish than speaking it because I need to think too quickly in order to hold a conversation, though with my Spanish teacher this year speaking almost entirely in Spanish, that's helping me get better. Though I can somewhat understand spoken Spanish and can semi-decently write in Spanish, but still am not that great at speaking in Spanish.
When I was trying to teach myself Welsh and German, though, I kept getting confused as to what was for which language, which is why I've since put Welsh on hold. And now that I'm trying to get more serious with both Spanish and German, I've had to put German on hold because I'd start getting confused between the two. Though that might also have been because I was feeling pretty stressed at the beginning of the school year, which has somewhat gone down so I'm starting German again.
It doesn't help that the only person I really have to talk to is my dad (because I am a shy and awkward potato who gets nervous when talking to teachers) and language classes are seen as only a thing you do until you have the minimum requirement in my school. So that's my story.
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I thought that by simultaneously studying two languages as different and Mandarin and Norwegian, I'd manage not to mix them up. Yet somehow my brain is still managing to come out with sentences like "Jeg er meiguo ren." O_o
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It took a long time and a lot of practice with live interpreation between English and Spanish before I reached a point where I felt like I could take either in, process it for meaning without actually thinking about the words and then convey the meaning in the other language without having to actually translate any of the words.
Today, a bit out of practice, I need a second or two to realize what language I'm listening too before my brain makes the switch to listening in the right language.
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I can switch into Spanish easily, other than the fact that it takes me a bit to remember the actual vocabulary, but whenever I'm trying to use German I inevitably say or think the sentence first in Spanish, or in a weird mangled combination. I'll be trying to figure out what I actually know in German, and will translate something like "I would like to read that book" as "Quiero leer das Buch" because that apparently is the extent of my knowledge in German. Once I actually added Japanese to the mix, and I don't even know Japanese.
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Yesterday at dinner I uttered the phrase "pass me l'olio per the Spargel" which I think means I switch much more between English and Italian than between either and German.
That sentence still makes me sick, though.
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My problem when it comes to switching languages is when there are great words in one langue that just aren’t translatable. Like, I’ll be saying something in English and I’ll need a word that is specific and correct enough to sum up what I’m trying to describe, and only German has that word. For all of you other people who know German, words like Gefräßige Stille and Pracht and Pech are just so hard to translate! Even though they’re such good words!
Another thing that’ll happen is when I’m really excited to show my friends a movie, but then remember it’s only in German and doesn’t have any English subtitles :P
Other than that, the only confusing thing that occurs is when my brain mixes up Norwegian (which I’m just starting to learn) and German, because they’re similar languages and have a ton of cognates, and then I forget which word belongs to which language xD.
Edit: or when I’ll be speaking German with my sister and then say ‘Danke’ instead of ‘thank you’ to the person who held the door for us, and they give me a confused look ;D
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It goes both ways for me, some good words in English are not translatable into Finnish or at least not in any smooth and/or elegant way (for example, “facilities”) and some words just don’t happen in English.
One funny thing, which affects many Finns at least is that when speaking English we often pronounce Finnish names funny. Including one’s own name.
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Whenever I go to France to visit family, I end up speaking and reading significantly more French than usual. After about a week, I'll be reading things in English without always consciously realizing that they're in English. For example, my uncle was showing me some Singaporean street signs, and I asked him why Singapore had signs in French. I have no idea why it happens, as it never happens the other way around but it's still really annoying.
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My problem when it comes to switching languages is when there are great words in one langue that just aren’t translatable. Like, I’ll be saying something in English and I’ll need a word that is specific and correct enough to sum up what I’m trying to describe, and only German has that word. For all of you other people who know German, words like Gefräßige Stille and Pracht and Pech are just so hard to translate! Even though they’re such good words!
When I talk to myself (and I do that a lot), I usually switch back and forth between Polish and English for precisely this reason. When I stumble upon such a problem with other people, though, I just get stuck and frustrated.
Another thing that’ll happen is when I’m really excited to show my friends a movie, but then remember it’s only in German and doesn’t have any English subtitles :P
As someone who consumes culture in both Polish and English, yet only ever hangs around people who only speak one or the other (!@#$%^& language barrier, I swear I'm gonna kill you someday), I'm constantly conscious about that. Doesn't stop me from talking to my friend about it for hours on end, though. He's gotta know what he's missing out on.
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Yay! More interesting linguistic threads! I love it so much! Hi, everyone!
My problem when it comes to switching languages is when there are great words in one langue that just aren’t translatable.
Oh, my, this is so true!
One funny thing, which affects many Finns at least is that when speaking English we often pronounce Finnish names funny. Including one’s own name.
I’ve suffered with this problem too! I mean, I’m Russian but Russian names in English are pronounced sooo weirdly. I found out that my last name, which is 15 letters long, really is an issue for people who speak in English and don’t know any Slavic languages O_o
As far as switching from language to language... Usually I speak to myself in English, which is strange because in my head I think in Russian. But then, when I started learning Finnish and Swedish, I realised that I’m calling “onion” - “sipuli” and saying “hunden” instead of “the dog” simply because I think these words fit better than English ones ;D
I write stories in Russian because I don’t know enough of English to do so. And when I try to translate them, I get upset - you obviously cannot translate it fully... without missing some part of the feeling...
Languages have something amazing in them. You’re never sure that you can actually speak in some language you’re learning until you just start speaking. It is some kind of magic! :))
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I write stories in Russian because I don’t know enough of English to do so. And when I try to translate them, I get upset - you obviously cannot translate it fully... without missing some part of the feeling...
yeah, translation is difficult like that. It really makes me admire professional translators! I mean, translating a book roughly, word-for-word from one language to another is one thing, but to actually capture the emotion that the original language is conveying in a new language? so difficult!! and ideally that translation in the new language is short and concise. Makes me wonder what training translators go through, too
Languages have something amazing in them. You’re never sure that you can actually speak in some language you’re learning until you just start speaking. It is some kind of magic! :))
it is magical, isn't it!! i find it so cool that humans have such a large variety of ways to communicate with other humans, and also the creativity that goes into different grammar structures, even if a native speaker of x or y language doesn't see that grammar structure as interesting as a new speaker might. I also love those moments where you're learning a new language and you, i dunno, listen to a song or try to read a sentence, and realize, "hey!! i understood some of that!!". Those moments of excitement and joy are largely why i like learning new languages :)
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Makes me wonder what training translators go through, too
Mainly a lot of practice, and going over your and your classmates' translations with a teacher and comparing different translations and solutions, learning translation strategies. Not all translators are equally good at all kinds of translation either. Some specialise in e.g. legal translations, for which getting every little detail consistent between original and translation is essential, while others may be better at translating fiction, where conveying the feeling of a text is sometimes more important than the exact details (although the details should still be preserved if possible!). As with so many skills, the key word is practice. Preferably guided practice.
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Sort of related to translator training, but for speaking not writing. A live translator was describing how they learned to do simultaneous translation: they started with just repeating something in their own language with a very slight lag. Once they could do that, they could move on to translating on the fly; having learned to listen and repeat in the same language made the transition to listening and repeating in a different language a bit smoother.
I experimented - I would sometimes call the weather report phone number, and if I just listened I would instantly forget what they said, hang up and say, "Wait... is it going to rain or not??" So I tried repeating it with as little lag as possible. It helped that it was really predictable, but I could listen to what was being said while repeating what was said a second or two earlier, and best of all, I would actually remember the forecast.
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I experimented - I would sometimes call the weather report phone number, and if I just listened I would instantly forget what they said, hang up and say, "Wait... is it going to rain or not??" So I tried repeating it with as little lag as possible. It helped that it was really predictable, but I could listen to what was being said while repeating what was said a second or two earlier, and best of all, I would actually remember the forecast.
Not translating/interpreting, but one of my issues with listening comprehension in other languages is that I'll understand what someone's talking about in the moment and then immediately forget it. Which is a real hassle when I'm trying to listen to a discussion in class. Someone could be speaking in Japanese, and I guess my brain is more focused on the "can I understand this" question instead of the "what does this actually mean" question. Though, this might also be tied into my auditory processing issues (which are why I always like to use subtitles, even when I'm watching something in my native language).
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Not translating/interpreting, but one of my issues with listening comprehension in other languages is that I'll understand what someone's talking about in the moment and then immediately forget it.
That happens to me in my native tongue! ::) Listen, nod attentively, maybe even put in the odd, "Uh-huh," and then end up saying, "Sorry, what was that again?"
I've forgotten exactly where this thread started, but the subject is "quick language switching", which I am in awe of. I used to live in New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province, and travelled through Québec occasionally, which is French but with many bilinguals. I overheard lots of conversations in which the speakers switched languages from one sentence to the next.
My French has faded from disuse, sadly, so I found New Brunswick French really hard to follow; it's often a mix of French and English. For example, I heard two people discussing some TV show, and one of them said, "Oui, j'ai watché ça." You might think that would be helpful to an anglophone, but I have to focus pretty hard to follow spoken French, so when an English(ish) word suddenly pops up, it's confusing. I'm surprised when I encounter French just how much I can still understand, and how quickly it comes back. But only to hear or read, I'm hopeless at speaking!
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The same thing with Fennoswedes i.e. Swedish speaking Finns. Here in the capital region they are all strongly bilingual. Especially the young sound like they are using 30% Finnish. Clearly it depends on the subject because the same speaker may change to half Finnish on some issue while using almost only Swedish on another.
Similar but weirder thing happens with my kids - they put a lot of English into their speech. They may just casually comment in English for no reason. And I usually answer in English too. There are some words that don’t really translate so the English is easier to use for that thing, but it’s more than that.
Particularly the doggo appears to be English-speaking. We have a funny/weird habit of “channeling the dog” i.e. speaking aloud what she might be thinking. And that’s at least half of the times in English or English-ish. Typical comment could be “aa, snackos! Give snackos! Why is snackos box closed?”
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I grew up in a only German-speaking region, I grew up in a household only speaking German, I still live there, I talk German with my friends, only ever learned English at school, and yet one day I started thinking almost exclusively in English. At some point I started watching movies, shows and Youtube only in English, which might be one of the main reasons this happened.
It´s like my native language sort of switched (that is an overstatement, but you get the idea), I sometimes have to actively translate a sentence I thought in English into German to talk to someone.
There are a lot of Anglicisms the people around me use, which I find painful to listen to, but still do myself. But more likely I will just completely switch to English in the middle of a sentence for no reason until I reach a point where I only have a fitting word in German, from where I will switch completely back. Especially when I´m talking about a piece of media or so that I only read/watched/played in English, I find it incredibly hard to explain it to someone in German. Me and my brother both do the switching thing, so we usually talk in a wild mixture of English and German with each other. Our parents do understand us, but find it very irritating when we do it, so when what we are saying is directed at them, we will usually stick to German.
On the topic of translating, I write stories in both English and German, but I can´t really translate a story I wrote in one language into the other, because I would use different words to convey the same feeling. It works if I think about it for a while, but only slowly. However, when I translate the French Tintin-comics we have lying around to my siblings, I have almost no problem. But with comics the visuals already communicate a lot of the feeling plus I probably wouldn´t even understand the connotations in French.
Not just with English and German, but I also often think a sentence in one language and start talking in a different one, which a) confuses myself when I suddenly run out of words, and b) annoys everyone around me.
When I was still learning French at school it happened to me in both English and French classtests that I would translate words into the wrong language and not notice at all. Otherwise I don´t really mix languages up when writing.
But generally I start switching languages whenever I have the opportunity. I dream in a wild mixture of every language I know even a few words of, when I´m on vacation in France I will start speaking French even with my non-French-speaking siblings, when I´m in Italy I will at some point start speaking broken Italian. As of late I´ve also been known to text people in Finnish despite knowing that they don´t understand a single word. In my family mainly to annoy them, but I also caught myself already having typed "Goodbye" in Finnish in a message to a (non-Finnish-speaking!) friend who doesn´t even know I´m learning Finnish before.
But yeah, while I find quick language-switching relatively easy and often do it unconciously, I know it is painful to listen to and not exactly good for keeping up conversations.
it is magical, isn't it!! i find it so cool that humans have such a large variety of ways to communicate with other humans, and also the creativity that goes into different grammar structures, even if a native speaker of x or y language doesn't see that grammar structure as interesting as a new speaker might. I also love those moments where you're learning a new language and you, i dunno, listen to a song or try to read a sentence, and realize, "hey!! i understood some of that!!". Those moments of excitement and joy are largely why i like learning new languages :)
Also this ^^
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Interesting, Mirasol, that’s what my parents did to teach me English: we watched almost all the movies in English, since I was like... so young that I don’t even remember ;)
Oh, about Finnish that no one around knows... I have the most wonderful friend ever, who can speak in about four languages and who was so interested in my idea of studying Finnish, that she learned a few phrases in Finnish herself, so now in the evenings sometimes I get a “hyvää yötä” instead of “good night” :))
I think it’s a cool thing that you can EASILY switch from language to language! I appreciate people who are like that. It’s always so interesting to listen to their speech and ask them about the words from the language you don’t know (or if it’s a fellow who mixes the same languages that you do, it’s even more fun). But, I guess, it’s not the popular way of thinking about the mixed-language conversations...
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Oh, about Finnish that no one around knows... I have the most wonderful friend ever, who can speak in about four languages and who was so interested in my idea of studying Finnish, that she learned a few phrases in Finnish herself, so now in the evenings sometimes I get a “hyvää yötä” instead of “good night” :))
Aww, that´s so sweet! I halfway-recruted a friend of mine too to practice Finnish on her, but sadly she didn´t really show any interest in the language and started to seem annoyed by me (she didn´t say anything, but I could tell that after a while she didn´t want to ask me anymore what the heck I just wrote), so I stopped... Oh well, looks like my brother or so will have to suffer in her place. :'D
I think it’s a cool thing that you can EASILY switch from language to language! I appreciate people who are like that. It’s always so interesting to listen to their speech and ask them about the words from the language you don’t know (or if it’s a fellow who mixes the same languages that you do, it’s even more fun). But, I guess, it’s not the popular way of thinking about the mixed-language conversations...
Thank you! This is indeed an opinion I hear rarely... Yeah, it´s really fun if you talk to someone who mixes the same languages as you do. The best part are the confused faces of the people nearby. :'D
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Aww, that´s so sweet! I halfway-recruted a friend of mine too to practice Finnish on her, but sadly she didn´t really show any interest in the language and started to seem annoyed by me (she didn´t say anything, but I could tell that after a while she didn´t want to ask me anymore what the heck I just wrote), so I stopped... Oh well, looks like my brother or so will have to suffer in her place. :'D
Oh, that’s sad... well, siblings always work okey for that kind of stuff >:D :'D
Thank you! This is indeed an opinion I hear rarely... Yeah, it´s really fun if you talk to someone who mixes the same languages as you do. The best part are the confused faces of the people nearby. :'D
Ahaha, yeah, peoples faces...
That actually makes you proud sometimes that you can understand a language people around don’t get :'D
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Oh, about Finnish that no one around knows... I have the most wonderful friend ever, who can speak in about four languages and who was so interested in my idea of studying Finnish, that she learned a few phrases in Finnish herself, so now in the evenings sometimes I get a “hyvää yötä” instead of “good night” :))
That sounds lovely! I need more friends who are learning the same languages I am so that I have someone to practice with. I have a lot of friends who speak Mandarin, but for everything else I'm mostly on my own. Sometimes I'll switch into Japanese around my family, which none of them can understand. At this point I think they're mostly used to it but not always happy about it. Sometimes I say things in Spanish just to make sure I don't forget it, but I inevitably have to switch into Japanese because I've lost so much Spanish vocabulary. Once I start speaking a foreign language, it seems my brain's internal switch gets flipped to "generic foreign language." As long as it's not English, my brain seems to think it's an acceptable word to use. This leads to weirdness such as "kyou, quiero ir a la koen." (When my brain switched out the Spanish words for "today" and "park" into Japanese).
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That sounds lovely! I need more friends who are learning the same languages I am so that I have someone to practice with. I have a lot of friends who speak Mandarin, but for everything else I'm mostly on my own.
Yeah, that’s true! And it’s so useful to have a friend to talk with in a foreign language, waaay easier to learn that language. That’s mostly how I learn my English - by having conversations with my “American cousins“ (we aren’t really cousins, we just call each other this way :'D)
Sometimes I'll switch into Japanese around my family, which none of them can understand. At this point I think they're mostly used to it but not always happy about it. Sometimes I say things in Spanish just to make sure I don't forget it, but I inevitably have to switch into Japanese because I've lost so much Spanish vocabulary. Once I start speaking a foreign language, it seems my brain's internal switch gets flipped to "generic foreign language." As long as it's not English, my brain seems to think it's an acceptable word to use. This leads to weirdness such as "kyou, quiero ir a la koen." (When my brain switched out the Spanish words for "today" and "park" into Japanese).
Wow, that’s cool. I‘ve always respected people who are learning Asian languages (like Chinese, Japanese, Korean and others) because for me it seems super hard. I know a guy who is learning Japanese and heard him saying some phrases. It sounds so interesting.
Making up a language is such a problem! And another thing is when you have a language you have created so you start using words from it and no one in the world would get that! :'D
(I write fantasy stories so I made up a few words for different race there and now it’s hard sometimes to not say them accidentally)
And about mixing up the languages... oh, my, I think I speak sometimes in a language made out of three other ones! But it’s always fun to try to understand other people who are doing that (I think I already talked about this in some other post)
I just love different languages and how different people use different languages and how they learn new language, sometimes just out of curiosity...
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sometimes just out of curiosity...
You're not implying curiosity is an odd reason for learning new languages, are you?
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You're not implying curiosity is an odd reason for learning new languages, are you?
No, not at all! I personally am learning several languages just out of curiosity! What I meant was that it’s interesting that people do that :)
In a good way