Quick language switching: how easy is it?

[P__]

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...

[Lenny]

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.

[Tap10lan]

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.

[Silent Fox]

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!  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.

[StellersJayC]

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.

[Krisse Kovacs]

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.

[Bobriha]

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!

[Shine]

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.

[Lonkelo]

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...

[viola]

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.

[Fenris]

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.

[Noodles]

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.

[Kat Sohma]

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.

[urbicande]

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.

[Noodles]

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.