4 ms·
The point about keeping languages separate is interesting. I know bits and pieces of many different languages, but I only know two reasonably well. I studied
by Natsu 13y ago
The point about keeping languages separate is interesting. I know bits and pieces of many different languages, but I only know two reasonably well. I studied French for about six years in high school and college, but I haven't had much occasion to use it since and am somewhat rusty. Conversely, Japanese I hear quite a bit of these days so my experience with it is much more recent.
But sometimes when I try to remember the French word for something, I get a Japanese word instead, which is odd because the languages are nothing alike. Similar problems exist for programming languages, for example, trying to remember the Perl way to do something and getting the Ruby keyword instead.
- jtheory 13y agoI have similar experiences -- I spoke only English at home as a child, then studied French starting in 6th grade. Nowadays I'm fairly fluent in French (and live in France, so I use it regularly), though nowhere near my level of comfort in English, and I know scraps of various other languages to get by when traveling -- but it seems like my brain is inclined to store words in just two buckets -- "native" vs. "foreign". Often when I'm trying to come up with a word in any other language, the French word pops into my head first, I discard it, then I'll get the right word in German or whatever (if I know it). If I'm trying to say something in Spanish or Italian, I sometimes don't realize that I don't know the right word, because the French word in the right accent (and possibly modified ending) sounds about right. My wife grew up truly multilingual, though, with 2 languages at home, a 3rd as the medium of education, and friends who all spoke a 4th among themselves -- and she has less of a problem keeping them separate (including new languages she's been picking up as an adult).
- Natsu 13y agoI know what you mean about Spanish. I've never really studied it, unless you count a few weeks of introduction in high school and a bit of exposure due to living in the Phoenix area, but thanks to its Latin base and knowing French, I can read it somewhat reliably by guessing that words that look like French words have similar meanings. I can even pronounce it reasonably well according to some Spanish-speaking coworkers because the phonics of other languages have always automagically "clicked" for me, except when I have to learn new vowels or consonants.
- dnr 13y agoSame thing here: I learned some Spanish in high school, then studied Mandarin later. Now whenever I try to say things in Spanish, Mandarin comes out. It's like it took over the "foreign language" spot in my brain. I was never really fluent in either of them, though, just barely proficient. I wonder if I had gotten to a higher level in Spanish, would it have been harder to unseat.