Ever since my dad brought home a Berlitz Teach Yourself French book when I was seven years old, I have been fascinated by the idea that people can communicate in more than one way. I hadn't really had foreign language exposure much (that I could remember or identify) at that time in life, so finding out that people referred to objects with a different word was awesome. Then I found out that different cultures lexicalize different ideas- that is, create a single word to encompass an entire concept- and I was hooked. I wanted to get into the heads of different cultures and languages, and see what made them tick- why certain words or ideas were more important that others, and how it affected one's outlook on life.
Fortunately, the school system that we were in at the time required all students to take Intro to Spanish in 6th grade, and Intro to French in 7th grade. Given that I already had a background of rudimentary French from working with dad, I stuck with the French, and took it all the way up to my junior year in high school. I started to take the senior year, but after the first few weeks, when people were still saying "jer sweez.... uh...." I decided my time would be better served elsewhere. A couple years after I graduated, when I finally got a chance to go to Paris, I was delighted to find that I'd retained enough of the language (mostly by reading French comic books!) to get around, and had a lovely time there.
Somehow, though, French just wasn't enough. I'd gotten a decent glimpse into the French way of thinking, but I wanted more. I taught myself some Scots Gaelic, a language that has been buried for a while, but isn't quite dead. The lexicon is still firmly rooted in agricultural terminology though, so it's rather difficult to apply to modern life, and I eventually let it slip by the wayside. When I went back to community college a couple years ago, they offered Chinese, and I figured why not? I took that for a year and a half, but between the fact that CU didn't offer the level I needed to continue when I transferred, and the frustration of not being able to read a new "word" (they don't really have an alphabet, just characters, and if you don't know one, you can't spell it out or anything), I let that drop.
Throughout the years, I've also picked up bits of Japanese and Philippino, from traveling there, and a smattering of German, Portuguese and Spanish, just from listening to music, joining a capoeira class, and driving a tow truck in hispanic areas, respectively. I can also finger-spell and know a few signs in ASL, but I wouldn't really claim fluency in any of those languages; I just know enough to get by, and, probably, get myself into trouble. At CU, I've continued my studies in French and have added Russian into the mix, but more and more, I'm finding there are down sides to being multi-lingual, despite the exhilaration of being able to communicate and understand new cultures.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is that when you're speaking in another language, there's a silent injunction in the back of your head to not speak English. If you're bi-lingual, this just means that if you don't know a word, you fumble around for an explanation and, failing that, give in and try the English word. Starting with the third language, however, you get a new option, one that doesn't even consciously register until you hear the word emerge from your mouth and realize it's wrong: you fall back to your second language.
The first time this happened to me in a classroom setting was my first semester of Russian language. We were going over ways to greet people and introduce yourself, and for the life of me, I could not remember a particular vocab word. My partner and I were doing the oral part of a test, and the prof was basically breathing down our necks to catch any mistakes we made. I knew the word was coming up, and I couldn't see a way around it, so my brain panicked and threw the French word into the middle of the sentence. Fortunately, my partner also spoke Spanish, so he recognized the word and rolled with it, but the whole thing went something like this:
This isn't just a problem with languages that you're fluent in, either. There are phrases from the other languages I know that I particularly like, and they'll pop up every now and then unconsciously. What's worse is that, since I know the idea behind the phrase or word, but have forgotten the rest of the language, I generally then confuse myself, and have to spend some time working out which language that came from, and why I said it. If you grew up anywhere around the 80s, you probably remember the whole "this is your brain on drugs" commercial with the frying egg in a hot pan. I'd like to present a rebuttal however; this is your brain on too many languages:
I'm assured that at some point, this will get better. Perhaps I need better compartmentalization, or just to get the vocab lists of both languages close to equal, and then catch up on the other languages, who knows. But until then, if you're talking to someone who's multi-lingual, just be aware that there's a whole lot of chaos going on up there. Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Cheers!
Fortunately, the school system that we were in at the time required all students to take Intro to Spanish in 6th grade, and Intro to French in 7th grade. Given that I already had a background of rudimentary French from working with dad, I stuck with the French, and took it all the way up to my junior year in high school. I started to take the senior year, but after the first few weeks, when people were still saying "jer sweez.... uh...." I decided my time would be better served elsewhere. A couple years after I graduated, when I finally got a chance to go to Paris, I was delighted to find that I'd retained enough of the language (mostly by reading French comic books!) to get around, and had a lovely time there.
Somehow, though, French just wasn't enough. I'd gotten a decent glimpse into the French way of thinking, but I wanted more. I taught myself some Scots Gaelic, a language that has been buried for a while, but isn't quite dead. The lexicon is still firmly rooted in agricultural terminology though, so it's rather difficult to apply to modern life, and I eventually let it slip by the wayside. When I went back to community college a couple years ago, they offered Chinese, and I figured why not? I took that for a year and a half, but between the fact that CU didn't offer the level I needed to continue when I transferred, and the frustration of not being able to read a new "word" (they don't really have an alphabet, just characters, and if you don't know one, you can't spell it out or anything), I let that drop.
 |
| Don't know how to pronounce it? Too bad! |
Throughout the years, I've also picked up bits of Japanese and Philippino, from traveling there, and a smattering of German, Portuguese and Spanish, just from listening to music, joining a capoeira class, and driving a tow truck in hispanic areas, respectively. I can also finger-spell and know a few signs in ASL, but I wouldn't really claim fluency in any of those languages; I just know enough to get by, and, probably, get myself into trouble. At CU, I've continued my studies in French and have added Russian into the mix, but more and more, I'm finding there are down sides to being multi-lingual, despite the exhilaration of being able to communicate and understand new cultures.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is that when you're speaking in another language, there's a silent injunction in the back of your head to not speak English. If you're bi-lingual, this just means that if you don't know a word, you fumble around for an explanation and, failing that, give in and try the English word. Starting with the third language, however, you get a new option, one that doesn't even consciously register until you hear the word emerge from your mouth and realize it's wrong: you fall back to your second language.
The first time this happened to me in a classroom setting was my first semester of Russian language. We were going over ways to greet people and introduce yourself, and for the life of me, I could not remember a particular vocab word. My partner and I were doing the oral part of a test, and the prof was basically breathing down our necks to catch any mistakes we made. I knew the word was coming up, and I couldn't see a way around it, so my brain panicked and threw the French word into the middle of the sentence. Fortunately, my partner also spoke Spanish, so he recognized the word and rolled with it, but the whole thing went something like this:
 |
| Words in parenthesis are in Russian, and 'rencontrer' is French for 'to meet'. |
This isn't just a problem with languages that you're fluent in, either. There are phrases from the other languages I know that I particularly like, and they'll pop up every now and then unconsciously. What's worse is that, since I know the idea behind the phrase or word, but have forgotten the rest of the language, I generally then confuse myself, and have to spend some time working out which language that came from, and why I said it. If you grew up anywhere around the 80s, you probably remember the whole "this is your brain on drugs" commercial with the frying egg in a hot pan. I'd like to present a rebuttal however; this is your brain on too many languages:
I'm assured that at some point, this will get better. Perhaps I need better compartmentalization, or just to get the vocab lists of both languages close to equal, and then catch up on the other languages, who knows. But until then, if you're talking to someone who's multi-lingual, just be aware that there's a whole lot of chaos going on up there. Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Cheers!
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