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I 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 liv
by jtheory 13y ago
I 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.