It gets worse when you know more than two languages, even moreso when they overlap. I've had numerous times when my brain freezes and goes "Was that the word for it in Italian... or Spanish...? Which one is it?" check "They're the same! FUCK!"
English words are so common in Hindi nowadays that it is a very frequent occurrence....I for the life of me cannot remember what they call a table in Hindi, fuck.
I speak a fair amount of Spanish, enough so that when I hear Espanglish I just take it in stride. Was driving some Indian students around last week and chuckled to myself every time I heard a bit of Hinglish!
I'd never really eaten aubergine, maybe like twice in my life, until I lived in Spain for just 3 months and my housemates would always bring home berenjenas all the time. Even now, I can read the word 'aubergine' on a menu and in my heads little internal voice I hear the word 'berenjena'. It's just makes more sense to me, cos even though it wasn't a very long time that I was there, I probably ate/encountered 5000% more berenjenas/aubergines than I'd ever eaten in my entire life lol
Anyway, that was a super boring little tidbit of my brain,
Most of the native Hindi speakers I knew mostly spoke Hinglish anyway. 😂 My old landlady was from Goa and she'd just switch from Hindi to English mid sentence when talking with other Indians
My best friend would do this when we were in middle school. She would switch to her native language, and I would lose the plot. What's funny is that it would take me a couple of seconds to figure it out. Like what? What are you saying?
It's the worst experience when you're remembering a word in two languages out of three but not in the correct one and the other person doesn't speak the other two languages.
Then you look like an idiot because your brain is conceptualising your thoughts in the wrong bloody language.
It gets worse when you realize that the sentence you wanted to say doesn't really fit in your language. For example, if someone does something for you, you'd say that you appreciate it. In German, that sentence would sound sorta stiff. Happens all the time
Tbf even when speaking in Hindi, most people say table instead of whatever the fuck the word even is in Hindi. I can't even recall because no one uses it.
Yup... I grew up speaking English and Greek (dad was from Greece) and later studied German in high school and college. Now I'm learning Spanish. There have been numerous times where I've used a word from a different language while speaking another. Another common mistake of mine involves Spanish and Greek... There's a few false cognates... In particular, "aquí," pronounced "ah-KEE," meaning "here" in Spanish and "εκεί," pronounced "eh-KEE," meaning "there" in Greek. I often screw that up in interesting ways in both languages.
I’d just like to note that I learned the German equivalent to the English phrase “It’s all Greek to me” to be “Es ist mir Spanisch”, and your repertoire of languages makes me feel for the strain that must be on your brain all the time lol
This is a huge trap in French. The literal translation of "excited" is excité(e) and that's what Google Translate will tell you. But in French, excité(e) means excited in the sexual sense, like horny.
Oh my gosh! It's the same with Spanish too. I had to have my Spanish teacher tell me this after 4 years of using it in classes. Emocionada is excited or eager, you know standard emotion. Excitante is well... you know what.
It was very emabarassing.
THIS! I am always impressed with folk that speak multiple languages. I worked with a gent who knew 4 languages AND 17 Spanish dialects. Which I can not fathom.
I'm a native English speaker, but I also speak a bit of German and Spanish, my brain definitely gets confused between the two even though they're practically completely different.
Also, spoken English vs written English varies a ton. So a non-native speaker has trouble keeping up in conversations, studies extra hard, and when writing their grammar is often better than native speakers.
For those who grow up speaking it but not studying the language as much, their writing tends to be weaker as it's often based on their speaking patterns
I know a little Spanish and now I’m learning Italian ahead of a trip to Italy. For me, Spanish and Italian are so close that it makes things easier and so far apart that it makes things harder.
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u/FILTHBOT4000 Sep 02 '24
It gets worse when you know more than two languages, even moreso when they overlap. I've had numerous times when my brain freezes and goes "Was that the word for it in Italian... or Spanish...? Which one is it?" check "They're the same! FUCK!"