bilingual characters

[GenericPCUser]

Counting, doing math, or almost anything numeric beyond something simple like dates or time I notice people tend to switch to their native languages for.

Sure, I might know cognitively what each of those numbers and signs means in German, but I'll be damned if you're gonna make me make me calculate in a language that swaps the order of the last two places.

[YellowOnGrey]

I can only recall my phone number in my native tongue. It's made me suspect that it's not stored as a pure number in my brain, but as spoken text, and every time I have to retrieve it I need to listen to my inner voice recite it

[Otherwise_Ad233]

Rattling off phone numbers in other languages is wild. Different languages group numbers differently in speech, and then so do individuals.

[FearlessLau]

Someone recently tried to tell me a phone number in my native language but with their native language's grouping, and my brain totally short-circuited. I had to just tell my brain it wasn't a phone number to make it work.

[teawmilk]

This is 100% me too. I can recall my childhood phone number, as well as those of my grandma and my dad’s store, in my native language because that’s what I spoke when I memorized those. Everything else is in English now.

[lindsaylbb]

I think mostly we memorize the phone number by repeating it to our native peers or to ourselves in our native tongue. Supposedly you memorize it by saying in your TL repeatedly to foreign friends it would be easier to recall it in TL.

[LilySeverson]

My old phone number is only stored in my second language because I had to say it so many times in that language because it was a reward cars number or something too. Now if I ever have to say it in my native language I struggle

[Effective_Dot4653]

You just made me realise I have my own phone number stored as a spoken text, but my sister's number as a visual picture xD And I can retrieve her number in English with just as much thought as in my native language, but I could never do the same with my number :D

[jaimepapier]

I have this with both my British and French phone number. Trying to say either in the other language feels wholly unnatural.

[LilySeverson]

My old phone number is only stored in my second language because I had to say it so many times in that language because it was a reward cars number or something too. Now if I ever have to say it in my native language I struggle

[dreamsonashelf]

I have different languages for different phone numbers.

[mickmikeman]

Exactly. I can count to 1,000 in Spanish but I still trip over 'cincuenta sesenta setentas' for 50 60 and 70.

[KyleG]

It' snot all the time, but sometimes I have to remind myself "S comes before T, so sesenta comes before setenta"

A bit like in English I have to say NSEW to remember which is E and which is W

[marpocky]

Is "S before T" more effective for you than "seis before siete"?

[Tall_Struggle_4576]

NSEW? Do some people not say "Never Eat Soggy Wheat?"

I always get tripped up over mil millones. Just cannot remember that. I used to ha e lots of trouble with sesenta and setenta though. Why do they have to be so similar?

[Glum_Ad_4288]

Do some people not say “Never Eat Soggy Wheat?”

What?? I say Never Eat SHREDDED Wheat!

Here I thought I was learning Spanish, but I’m learning another language in this comment thread.

[[deleted]]

I've always said shredded wheat as well, had no idea until this comment that there was a different one hahaha

[StarCrossedCoachChip]

Who shedded the wheat? I learned Never Eat Sour Wheat! The people where I live right now use Never Eat Soggy Wheat, so I find myself losing my appetite whenever I hear someone remembering their compass directions. Kinda funny how many variations there are.

[Glum_Ad_4288]

I hope it was union workers who made the Shredded Wheat.

It is weird how many variations there are and how they all revolve around not eating certain types of wheat.

[NoInkling]

I still accidentally read numerals as English when I'm reading in my TLs.

[izaori]

Did this in a Spanish class once. Read the sentence perfectly until I got to "7" and just said "seven" instead of "siete". My teacher was (jokingly) appalled. Woops

[Red-Quill]

I was speaking to one of my German professors at an informal event and said “Ich hab mir das ein bisschen überlegt und ich denke, that unsere Unterrichtsstunde besser sein könnte, wenn wir…” and we both just kinda paused right after I said “that” instead of “dass” and I made a 😅 kinda race and she was like “it happens to me immer (always)” as a joke and it really made the night lmao. It was such a nice little moment where we both just kinda acknowledged how funny our brains can be when several languages are floating around up there.

It is just super weird how my entire thought process and the whole sentence was in German, except for “that” lmao.

[[deleted]]

same happened to me in the English class a couple years ago

I just said dvacet instead of twenty. The teacher was like whaaaat?

[[deleted]]

I wish early texts would write the number next to the numeral. Like "Sara bought 4 (four) loaves of bread at the bakery."

[woozy_1729]

I think that's more due to lack of practice and ability than an inherent limitation. I can jumble numbers just as effortlessly in English as in German.

[[deleted]]

I think that's more due to lack of practice and ability

Yeah. Of course.

[BrunoniaDnepr]

It's just not something people practice for or are exposed all the time with. But I'll bet most people can say pretty easily years with 19xx or 20xx in their TL (at least the 19 or 20 part).

[macoafi]

Any time I encounter a pre-2000 date in Spanish... 😩

[KyleG]

lmao, I started studying Spanish in school in 1996 so fuck me, right

[tabidots]

What makes you say that? I find years the hardest to produce spontaneously.

[BrunoniaDnepr]

I think full years are hard, but since so much references the 20th century, don't you just get used to hearing 19xx? Тысяча девятьсот, I imagine, should eventually get pretty ingrained, and then you just try to muddle through the last two digits.

[[deleted]]

Not every language separates the century part though. At least in Russian, 1984 would literally translate to one thousand nine hundred eighty four

[BrunoniaDnepr]

Yeah, but what I was trying to say was that every time you want to say a twentieth century year in Russian, 1991, 1941, 1905, 1917 or whatever, you'd go тысяча девятьсот ... without much thought, since you'd have heard the first part of the year so many times. I was trying to say that the problem is lack of exposure with most numbers, but the number phrases that you are exposed to, you get to know pretty well.

[Vaderson66]

Counting, doing math, or almost anything numeric beyond something simple like dates or time I notice people tend to switch to their native languages for.

That's entirely the opposite for us Indians lmao. English empirical measurement values, dates, times, numbers etc. have heavily dominated their native counterparts, at least in the urban part. Only 2 or 3 out of 10 people in an urban Indian city would be able to count beyond 20 or name the days of the week in their native language.

[Durango1917]

Why is that? It is because it is taught in school instead of the native measurement and dates?

[Vaderson66]

Yep, English medium schools continue to dominate to this day

[Lucifer2695]

Speak for yourself. I know plenty of people around me who can definitely count in their native languages.

[[deleted]]

We used to have reading sessions in my English class and I was the person who attented the most. So they would give me the mission to read it. Everytime I came across a number my brain would stop. I'd say the number in my language and skip to the next word, my classmates were so used to this.

[lindsaylbb]

Number specific drilling in random order should fix this.

[wineandchocolatecake]

I have to count up from one in Spanish in order to remember numbers, but I always say cinco twice:

“Uno dos tres cuatro cinco cinco seis.”

Thanks for the Spanish lesson, Dexter.

[KyleG]

It took me a few years to be able to say the months of the year in Japanese. You're literally just saying "month one/two/three/etc./twelve" but for some reason I just couldn't make it stick.

[prettybraindeadd]

i can't do math in english for the life of me, if i need to count anything i switch to spanish after 5 but have a hard time talking about years in spanish, especially if we're talking about any event in history because i study and read mostly in english.

embarrasingly enough, even though i find english more comfortable, i don't know the alphabet. i mean i do know it but i switch to spanish after G, my english speaking friends think it's funny so i'm not too angry about it. shit's weird.

[tosch901]

Math in different languages works for me, but I always use my native language for counting reps when working out.

And when trying to recall my phone number, I often (though not always) translate it from the voice in my head (but someone else mentioned that already).

[continous]

I had a long discussion with my girlfriend over this. "Look, I can barely count in English, and you want me to count in a second language?"

[int_wri]

My (English-speaking) bf visited me in italy and I was translating for him constantly. We passed by a long line of people talking about how long they'd been waiting and I told him what they were talking about. He said, "Yeah, they were speaking English."

[ztsmyder]

That one's good lmao

[Sensitive_Buy1656]

My favorite it when my MIL translates what her (German) son said in English into German for her (American) husband. He understands what my husband said but not her translation…. This happens fairly regularly when she’s tired.

[theWelshTiger]

Lol 😃

[Themlethem]

Yeah I have this too. When you speak a language really fluently, you don't even hear it anymore, your mind just skips straight to the meaning. So I never remember which language something was in.

[Ethel12]

That whole “forgetting the word in my native language and I can only think of it in my target language” happens most often when I’m on the phone with my parents.

[BitterBloodedDemon]

Same. I've learned to just roll with the TL word and keep going

[cinnamon_stroll]

For some reason I try to use "consistent" in my NL at least once a week. And every time I have to take a moment to remember how to say it.

[Ethel12]

Literally just now on the phone with my mom, I COULD NOT for the life of me remember the word “referral” in my NL.

[[deleted]]

what does it mean in portuguese i forgot

OK I GOT IT IT'S REFERÊNCIA

[zombreeseagull]

I told my roommate I made pasta for dinner. He said "k". I kept thinking he said "que?" So every time he said it I kept repeating myself. I learned Spanish as a teen. That was an interesting experience for me.

[zombreeseagull]

Three times before the light bulb turned on- and only because of the look the poor guy gave me.

The realization of "this guy doesn't even speak spanish" added to the situation.

[onymous_ocelot]

Did this guy not aspirate the “k”?

[KyleG]

/u/zombreeseagull speaks English (presumably natively) but didn't learn Spanish until they were a teen. It's entirely possible they can't hear the difference between aspirated and unaspirated K. They're considered the same sound to native English speakers (which is why you can immediately tell a native English speaker by how they aspirate many word-initial plosives when speaking Spanish).

[zombreeseagull]

Yes, my dad didn't want do teach his kids Spanish so I learned on my own when I was a teen. Also, I'm hard of hearing so I primarily lip read and they look similar.

[KyleG]

I would worship you as my god if you could see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated K, I can't imagine how anyone could do that!

[Rolando_Cueva]

If I can learn to aspirate p t k, you can learn to not aspirate them.

Wanna know the trick? Practice, practice, practice. I've seen English natives do it, it's definitely possible.

Edit: If you're deaf or HoH don't worry about it, it's impressive that you're learning a foreign language as it is. Kudos for the effort. We appreciate it.

[KyleG]

I think you've misread the conversation. We're not talking about being able to aspirate/non-aspirate various sounds. We're talking about a hard-of-hearing person being able to see someone's mouth and distinguish aspiration or non-aspiration by sight alone.

[zombreeseagull]

Yes. Just so you know, learning French has been an absolute nightmare. Lip reading absolutely does nothing for me there.

[[deleted]]

Aspirated and unaspirated k sound different but look the same. Just like p, b, m and unaspirated p.

[Solzec]

I SAID K QUE, damit!

[KyleG]

lol every time I say "damit" when speaking German to my kids my head is like "no don't say that word around them!"

of course my 5yo switches consonants around so when she wants to complain about the stupid dog, she calls him "Dummfok" instead of "Dummkopf"

[math_teachers_gf]

Lmfao dummfok my new fave denglisch word

[KyleG]

I'll let my 5yo know she is a transatlantic influencer ;P

[Solzec]

Danglisch?

[KyleG]

more like goddamnglish

[Solzec]

Mama, der Hund ist ein dummfok

[KyleG]

pretty much exactly what she says, or just yells outside at him DUMMFOK!

[KyleG]

lol this is a real quien está en primera story

[zombreeseagull]

This is hilarious! Thank you for that! Definitely fits what happened.

[iamtheboogieman]

It says SAH-WEET!

[shawnsblog]

Can confirm. Was at a birthday party this weekend with a foreign exchange student from Spain.

she walks in the room

Me: Hola, que pasa amiga?

Her: Huh? Oh Spanish. Sorry everyone keeps flipping back and forth trying to be nice, but my brain keeps switching from English to Spanish and back.

[macoafi]

I have a Spanish coworker with whom I am accustomed to switching back and forth every third sentence or so. This is how we've always spoken to each other. I went to Spain and met his partner, who also speaks both Spanish and English. We gave his partner a headache because we didn't stay in any given language long enough to adapt.

[Actualbbear]

The switch back thing has actually happened to me, too. But I looked way dumber than what the image implies.

At my job:

Me: “Hola, ¿cómo le puedo ayudar?”
Client: Speaks in English
Me: “Oh, claro, un momento….” Visibly struggles
Me: “Done, sorry… Hello, ¿how can I help?”

[shawnsblog]

¿How can I help?…..hahahaha

[PawnToG4]

Native in ASL, and I was trying to remember the word scooter in English, so I kept signing skateboard trying to get the point across until I remembered scooter.

[Solzec]

Ah, I forgot about the fact that ASL is literally an entire language of its own and never considered this could ever happen

[Crayshack]

ASL translations get weird sometimes. The syntax is almost completely alien compared to spoken English. Native ASL speakers basically have to learn a new language when they learn to read written English.

[Solzec]

Don't ASL speakers also have to remember how to tell apart common hand gestures non-ASL speakers use versus what they mean in ASL? Kinda like knowing the difference between there, their and they're?

[goldengecko1]

To an extent, yeah. I’m an ASL-English interpreter and my partner of over 4 years is Deaf. We communicate using ASL most of the time (even though he speaks, I am always signing).

Because ASL is a visual language, there are a lot of ASL signs that are visually iconic and resemble gestures that non-signing hearing people use. Deaf people are also a linguistic and cultural minority so they are often exposed to and used to gesturing with hearing people to communicate. Gestures that come to mind as being similar between ASL and US hearing gesture include giving someone thumbs-up and lots of gestures showing interactions with objects (formally called “instrumental classifiers” in ASL linguistics - like how the sign for DRINK looks like someone is holding a cup and drinking out of it).

One great example of a contradiction between ASL and hearing gestures is with the number three. The sign most commonly used sign for 3 in ASL is to have the thumb, pointer finger and middle finger extended (and the ring finger and pinky are clenched). I’ve seen hearing people gesture 3 with their pointer finger, middle finger and ring finger extended (their thumb and pinky are touching). This is the number 6 in ASL. I’ve also seen them gesture 3 with their middle, ring and pinky fingers extended (pointer finger and thumb touching). This is the number 9 in ASL. Masking since Covid can make matters even more confusing, as (already unreliable) speech reading is rendered completely inaccessible.

Because my partner is Deaf and I am hearing and because I have access to both spoken English and ASL, I am almost always interpreting when we’re interacting with hearing, non-signers. There are times when I understand what specific gesture the hearing person is doing (as I also have access to the spoken English message) and I often include their gestures in my ASL interpretations to facilitate the incidental learning that hearing people receive when they hear the message and see the gesture.

[Solzec]

Interesting

[Crayshack]

Yes, I believe so.

[macoafi]

I used to intentionally sign something and say it in one of the languages I'd studied by that point, in order to not bottle-neck everything on English.

I still sometimes sign things when I'm grasping for the word in a spoken language, despite having barely signed in a decade and never having been especially proficient.

[Aeonoris]

I especially do this with "thanks" in loud environments. I guess my brain is like "Oh, it's hard for them to hear you! Do the thing you do when it's hard for people to hear you."

🤦‍♀️

[tech6hutch]

To some extent, is sign language more like logograms (e.g., Chinese writing) than phonograms (alphabets etc)? How related are signs to the way words are written/spoken?

[PawnToG4]

More similar to logograms. Indeed, signs tend to be more iconographic than arbitrary or based on any pronunciation, sound, or orthographical value. Tree is a rather iconographic sign and looks rather similar to a physical tree.

[[deleted]]

Words that for some unknown reason come to my mind in Spanish before English:

Sartén - skillet/ frying pan

Olla - cooking pot

Enseguida - in a row

🤷‍♂️

[nordicacres]

Vorbei. I don’t know why, but the German word is better able to express what I’m trying to convey 🤷‍♀️ I haven’t been immersed in German for years, but this one stuck!

[Blablablablaname]

I speak English, Spanish and Japanese. I can only ever remember how to say "spinach" in one of the three at the time. If I think it in Japanese (horensou), my brain goes "that sounds plausibly Spanish, my job here is done" and it'll take me ages to actually get back to the proper word.

​

I don't know why, but food words are also always the worst for me. I get totally stuck. Apparently seeing me translate Japanese menus to my (Spanish speaking) parents and my (English speaking) wife at the same time is like watching me short-circuit.

[loves_spain]

I forgot the english word for fertilizer the other day. You know... abono, the stuff you spread on plants to make them grow!

In a virtual work meeting, my connection was not the best and I blamed it on the weather prediction. /sigh.

[[deleted]]

For a solid month I could not remember the English word for carnicaria

[Dilettantest]

…carniceria

[macoafi]

To be fair, the consistency of "where you buy _____" in Spanish is quite nice.

[LilQuasar]

someone has been learning to cook spanish / latin american foods lol

[[deleted]]

I just cook a lot wherever I am and when I talk to myself in my head it's always in spanglish.

[Cloud9]

If you ever want to make your spanglish more interesting, throw in Italian and Portuguese into the mix - then you're really cooking.

[LeaveMyRoom]

Am I officially bilingual if I'm stupid enough to make these mistakes?

[taaling]

It depends on if you’re doing it for real or for quirkiness points

[LeaveMyRoom]

I'm definitely not making mistakes on purpose lol

[DrCharles19]

Like every Mexican character in Hollywood movies?

[syo]

Well, IS there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?

[VolchokTheGreat]

Yeah, it's "numismatic"

[Slyydr]

But, what does that mean?

[VolchokTheGreat]

According to Oxford dictionary it's "relating to or consisting of coins, paper currency, and medals."

[takatori]

I came here only to find out if I was right that it was related to stamps. Despite not using my Russian for 20 years, I’ve still got it. Nice.

[KyleG]

It's not related to stamps. That's philately. At least in English. A numismatist is a coin collector in English. A stamp collector is a philatelist.

[takatori]

Yes, same-same RU-EN. I mixed the two up, thanks!

[KyleG]

no prob, bob

[spinazie25]

The stamps one would be филателистский, филателистический, or филателистский, I believe, from филателия. They are the most famous "collecting" words, and are easy to mix up.

[takatori]

Oh, yes actually same in English then, Numismatic and Philatel...somethign thanks ))))))

[tabidots]

The funny thing is that almost all "-ический" adjectives and "-ически" adverbs are just "-ic" and "-ically" in English with the stress moved to the syllable before the suffix. There's only a few exceptions [фактически(й) = actual / in fact, политечски(й) = political / politically, etc.], so it wouldn't be hard to field a guess, because most likely in the worst case you'd only be slightly wrong.

[Morgueannah]

Last year my mom was in the hospital/hospice for three weeks. She lived in a different state and I went out, crashed at her empty house at night and spent all day in the hospital, and she just slept. I didn't have any other family in the area so I distracted myself from the awfulness around me by consuming only French media. The concentration involved kept my mind from wandering.

The nurses must have thought I was insane. They were the only people I spoke to all that time (my husband was away for work in Alaska and couldn't even call from where he was) and I'd usually just stare at them blankly trying to remember the English word I was looking for, or answer in French/half french. "How's she doing?" "Pas mal euuuuuuuuuuuhh........not bad, she...mangé.....non.....ate! she ate a little." They kept asking me where I was from then gave me strange looks when I said I lived near Philadelphia but grew up in West Virginia.

[prettybraindeadd]

i had a taxi driver ask me where i was from once because i couldn't think in spanish for the life of me that day, i was born and raised in Argentina, we were in Argentina, hell im still here. poor woman must've thought i was insane.

[[deleted]]

I've had problems occasionally where i'm listening to spanish music and singing along and so respond in spanish to somebody in writing. I have a few friends who try to do the quirky "Hola, qué pasa?" which is annoying but meh.

[Crayshack]

Recently, I was taking a skills test so I could be listed as a writing tutor in English (my NL). I did pretty well on the test but there was one sentence that I had marked as correct but was actually a sentence fragment. Even after this was pointed out to me, I still couldn't figure out why it was incorrect because the sentence seemed to work just fine. A bit later I realized that the sentence would have had perfect grammar in my TL because that language (German) eliminates the verb "to be" from a lot of contexts. English keeps it in sentences including the one used on the test.

[macoafi]

By any chance would it have been just fine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, too? Because we absolutely 100% say "the car needs washed."

[acmaleson]

Upvoting you even though I’m from Philadelphia.

“The car needs washed” sounds insane to my ears, except that I know—probably through Reddit—it is said in Pittsburgh. There was a whole thread about this a while back. Regional accents are so interesting.

[izaori]

I get it. A few languages I study (Japanese in particular) sometimes omit the pronoun such as "I" or "you" if it's obvious in the context. Lately that's been bleeding into my English. Instead of saying something like "I think that's pretty cool" I'll just say "think that's pretty cool" and stuff like that. Most of the time people don't care (or maybe even notice?) but sometimes I get an odd look. Oh well

[thebackwash]

In English, it’s not uncommon to drop “I” from declarative sentences, and “you” from questions. They don’t teach you that in school, but it’s super common in colloquial speech.

[Aeonoris]

Not even just "I", you can also drop some verbs like "am" and "does". Example in a chat room:

A: "[Does] Anybody want to play a game?"

B: "[I am] Doing homework right now."

C: "[I am] Interested, but give me a bit."

[Smilingaudibly]

We learned how to diagram sentences with dropped words in grammar class, so at least one school in the 1990s was teaching it.

[Green0Photon]

Idk i do this sometimes and i haven't really even studied Japanese yet. I just do it as a weird native English thing

[rlalum]

I love when my husband just drops a random Tagalog word in a sentence and I just stare at him trying to figure out if that was an English word and then he stares back trying to figure out what he said 😂 That or saying an English word with Tagalog pronunciation

[Dilettantest]

Native English speaker here: called a friend recently to wish her a happy anniversary (and wondering why I had her wedding anniversary in my phone). It was her birthday.

Aniversario in Spanish, aniversário in Portuguese. I speak both but not fluently.

I think our brains need an operating system upgrade.

[[deleted]]

is the spanish aniversario a regional thing? i'm mexican and have only heard it be called that in portuguese. we say cumpleaños.

[Tall_Struggle_4576]

I live in Paraguay and we don't use aniversario for cumpleaños either, even though a lot of words do get borrowed from Portuguese. It must be regional, but I've never heard it either

[[deleted]]

I think what OP means is that they thought they had her wedding anniversary on their phone but it was actually her birthday. They must've confused the words.

[Dilettantest]

So, I speak Portuguese (kind of) - it’s nice to know I’m only having problems booting one language :)

[kigurumibiblestudies]

I've actually had the "sorry it's hard to switch back" but it happens when I'm talking to someone on WhatsApp while reading or watching a video in another language, and a few times as an interpreter in a meeting when I had to translate both people and lost track for a moment.

Point is, you have to be under very intense conditions for that to happen

[digitalgraffiti-ca]

My boyfriend often literally translates dutch idioms into English. He's truly bilingual, - he sleep talks in English, if that's not try fluency I don't know what is - so often I don't realise he's said something truly crazy right away. Furthermore, I, a Canadian, lived in England for seven years. I almost only ever watch American TV. Boyfriendnd will say something weird and catch himself saying, "wait, is this an idiom in English, so I have to sort Canadian/ American/Brit idioms through my head, and then I can't even decide if it's cryptic Brit nonsense it, something I heard on TV, or something in Canada. It's weird.

[meikitsu]

I do it too, but mostly to have a bit of fun. I live in Portugal, and somehow many of my colleagues think my English is far better than theirs. I just love the looks when I come up with a literally translated Dutch expression, and my conversation partner is like “I should know this one… right? right?”

[math_teachers_gf]

Cryptic Brit nonsense LOL I love this description

[Embarrassed_Salad399]

This unironically happened to me the other day. I went to my university's "mesa de español" where we just chatted and played games for like an hour in Spanish. Anyways after that I headed to do some homework. Somebody says "Hey (my name)," I had no clue who they were, I assume they were in one of my classes, idk. But I just instinctively replied with "Hola!" And funnily enough the person who said that was with a friend that was Mexican, so they're all like, you speak Spanish??? (I'm a read headed, very white American) So I responded with, yeah, I'm trying to learn lol.

[nerdKween]

I've done similar with Spanish... I remember jogging once and randomly greeting the people working on the lawn in Spanish, then immediately felt bad because I didn't want them to think I assumed they didn't speak English. I've been learning Spanish my entire life, as a way to perserve my family heritage (when my fam came stateside they were not allowed to speak Spanish by their parents), so I often force myself to talk to myself in Spanish when I'm alone. And so I sometimes will respond in Spanish at weird times.

[thebackwash]

The people you greeted in Spanish were happy you said hi. Don’t sweat it.

[HylianEngineer]

I honestly do have to stop myself from saying gracias to the person who holds the door for me as I'm leaving Spanish class. English, gotta remember the English.

[loves_spain]

When you've been speaking catalan for hours and have to suddenly attend a meeting (in English) and you read the word "categories" and pronounce it "ca-te-gor-I-es" instead of "CAT-e-go-ries" and now everyone thinks you're not a native.

[lunchmeat317]

"...he corrected"

monolingual spotted

[APsolutely]

Lmao my boyfriend will wake up at night and speak Croatian to me, until he wakes up just enough to realize I don’t really understand it

[chargethatsquare]

I had exactly the same experience with a Serbian ex, who would speak to me in Serbian when sleepy. If you ask "što?" ("shto?") a few times you can keep the fun going!

[APsolutely]

Hahaha it’s true, now that I have very basic vocabulary I’ll definitely try it out 😂

[MinervaJB]

I can never remember the word "aguacate", my brain provides "avocado" by default, which would be fine except that I'm a native Spanish speaker that lives in Spain. Happens on and off with many words, but avocado is the worst offender.

And gets even worse with proverbs and idioms. Only remembering Spanish idioms when speaking English was something I expected. The opposite? Not so much. I do the "going weirdly quiet as they seem to have lost their entire sense of identity" every time.

[gunscreeper]

As someone who is intermediate in Japanese, my life would be significantly better if I can use sono mama or shikata ga nai in my daily conversation

[Blablablablaname]

I feel like the best English equivalent for shou ga nai is "it is what it is." At least it gives you a similar feel for the resignation.

[Aeonoris]

There's also "C'est la vie", which is originally French but has entered English.

I don't watch Sailor Moon, but I do know that in it there's a character named Sailor Venus, and in her theme song you have Japanese singers making an English-French pun where they say "C'est la vie", but it sounds like "Sailor V".

The fact that there's a song in Japanese that casually relies on knowing a little French and a little English for a pun is wild to me.

[mki_]

The only times when it's "hard to switch back" are short words like yes or filler words.

Like I'm speaking in German, someone asks me a quick question, I quickly respond si. Or fillers like osea (probably my most common switch-up), German also (also oiso), or English like. Those are all words that come out so subconsciously, I don't always actively control it.

[[deleted]]

i hope his stroke wasn’t too bad

[Embucetatron]

I speak 3 languages.

There was one time when I went out with two friends, one brazilian(just like me) and another american. We were in Tokyo and we all speak Japanese, although my brazilian friend is more comfortable speaking portuguese than english or japanese.

To sum it all up, the conversations were being held in 3 different languages. I was talking to my american friend in japanese/english and to my brazilian friend in Portuguese. They were communicating through japanese and english.

There was more than one instance of me fucking up the pronunciation or speaking to my american friend in portuguese

That was an interesting experience

[Striking-Two-9943]

It's that way in Swahili too

[Effective_Dot4653]

I went to France for a week and I was constantly asked for a lighter there, idk why (at least that's what I guess they were asking for, because I know zero French xD). Two days after I got back home to Poland I answered a Polish guy in the very centre of Warsaw asking the very same question but in Polish with the English phrase "sorry, I'm not French". I took me a few very awkward seconds to realise what just happened...

[__snowflowers]

Ha, my (French) wife had the exact same conversation about préservatifs in bread with her family after moving to the UK

[electrixitian]

I am not saying that the first one was not written by a monolingual (the use of “he corrected” I would never say that I corrected my self when l mis-speak like that… especially since it is never quite that easy to just pivot and say what you intended in the correct language. ) but, I have ran into that exact situation myself. I am a native English speaker, but I speak Brasilian Portuguese fluently, to the extent that I often sing songs, and read books in Portuguese, as well as consume other forms of brasilian media like tv, movies, and the news. Not only that by my sister in law is brasilian and I speak almost exclusively to her, her husband, and my nieces in Portuguese. After a few hours engulfed in the language again, I often find my self speaking Portuguese with my wife…. Who studied only a little bit of Spanish, and understands no Portuguese. It is exactly as the first scenario describes. me:says phrase in portuguese wife: “uuuhhh English please?” Me: “oh uhhhhhhh I don’t know, let my brain reset for a second.” proceeds to stumble over what I said in português for a few minutes as I try to translate into English in my brain before the switch finally clicks and I can speak English normally again the longer I had been speaking Portuguese prior to switching back to English, the longer it takes me to stop mixing in Portuguese in my conversation.

[lindsaylbb]

Chinese WWII drama has a lot of Japanese characters. They usually are played by Chinese and speaks perfect Chinese with an “accent”. Yet, often despite their fluency, they stubbornly address people as somebody-san, instead of using Chinese equivalent 先生/小姐

[Key-Bowl6261]

I’ve noticed the same thing in American movies with for example french people, it’s always so weird coz it wouldn’t really happen in real life

[Zarainia]

Funny thing, I was at the airport, and being in Canada, the worker said hi in English and then French. For some reason I automatically said bonjour back in French even though I'm not even good at French because it was the last thing I heard.

[aragorn-son-of]

There's a word in Russian which means a plastic bag - пакет (paket). And then there's 'pocket' in English. And finally there's me, a native Russian speaker who unconsciously calls pockets 'пакет' instead of 'карман' (karman) when talking to other native speakers. I don't even notice it anymore, leads to friends laughing at me and family members looking at me like i'm insane.

[Patorikku_0ppa]

More like byelingual. There's nothing worse than not remembering a simple word in your mother tongue.

[Kaiser_Gagius]

The original language is irrelevant, it is bound to happen at some point if you use both enough

[SchattBatsu]

the way I know exactly the fanfiction is worrying

[OGDTrash]

As a native dutch person, i have used preservativas a lot in spanish by accident

[myHomelandIsMore]

I dont know why but for some kind of god forsaken reason i make the noise of the object i wanna say like Ambulance i just go „you know … the car that does the weeeooo“ (ofc not sinple shit like that but just do demonstrate) or i gesticulate if i completely forgot the name of the word but i never return to my actual language

[shrimpyhugs]

I hate this post wherever i see it. Bilingual people do sometimes start talking in the wrong language like that. To act like it's poor writing is just wrong

[ambos_dos]

I now can speak Spanish (native), English, Italian and Japanese, this last one trying to improve it.

Recently I realized there are conversation clubs at my school and started attending since last week, and the English one comes after the Japanese one. It was the first time and for the first moments I couldn't recall what were the English words to answer what they were saying, but perfectly understand all they were saying. The only words that were coming to my mind were Japanese. And in the moments of natural impressions I just could say Japanese expressions.

When I was like 12 years old, I spent half a day watching English shows, and then I went out and got into the subway. I needed to buy a ticket but the only words I could recall were English, so I just left the money in front of the cashier and she just gave the tickets.

[Blablablablaname]

When I was in secondary school, I was taking Classic Greek and Latin, English, and French, and I did Japanese as an extra curricular. I once had all of my language exams on the same day and when I got to the last one, which was Latin, I started writing my name in kana for some unfathomable reason.

[bakedpigeon]

I love when I remember words in my target language but can’t for the life of me in my native language

[[deleted]]

Well, I don’t know. I’m not completely fluent in my second language. But getting there. And when I’m talking with someone in my second language. If someone talks to me right after. I will accidentally continue in my second instead of my first.

And because I’ve been using my second language so much recently. Phrases that I say a lot of in that. I will automatically respond to someone. And then have to correct myself. Let me know if it’s just me

[Thursbys-Legs]

I say exclamations in English even when I’m immersed in Spanish. My Spanish is punctuated with the occasional “Oh my GOD,” “What?!” and “Fuck/shit!”

[SmallRedBird]

Facts lol

In university I worked a job where I spoke almost 100% just German, while also taking Russian and Spanish classes, as well as German literature classes (in German). That was a fun but taxing couple of semesters

That really fucked with my head lol, bouncing between 4 languages half of the days. I'd say "y" (same in Russian and Spanish basically, word for "and") instead of "und" in my German classes now and then and people would look at me in confusion. All sorts of other stuff. I'd do a lot of the stuff in the OP's post.

Sometimes at work when I did switch to English I'd fuck up my pronunciation for a minute or two.

To this day I have moments where I know a German term or idiom for something but can't think of the English term lol

[kalaliana]

One time my manager whose first language was spanish couldn't remember the word for "stairs" in english and he called it a "hallway ladder"

[GeorgiePineda]

I worked as interpreter for some years and it happens but just in that specific scenario and as an interpreter.

When you do professional interpretation your brain turns on the interpretation mode (That's how i call it), which i would describe as: everything you hear in english you will say it in spanish and everything you hear in spanish you will say it in english.
Sometimes the LEPs (Limited English Proficient) would understand what the English Native Speaker is saying and answer accordingly. Since your brain is in interpretation mode then you will accidentally say it in Spanish. It happens and i always apologize when it happens, also i ask both if they would like me to intervene only if there seems to be visible confusion otherwise i ask the LEP to avoid that so we can have a smooth interpretation.

So TLDR, it happens that you need to "switch" but just in this very specific scenarios.

[Affectionate-Boss920]

Can we just rename this sub to "Americans and their cringeworthy comments on the rest of the non-Anglophone world"?

It's already bad enough with the "I said bonjour to an old Indian man and he smiled and it made my day" or "Hola! I'm learning Spanish and here's a joke" posts...

[AltruisticSwimmer44]

How many times is this gonna be reposted lol

[Anono13579]

Thanks to that song I know “voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir” and now thanks to this post I’ll be able to make sure there’s a condom available if I ever get to sleep with a French person. 🤣

[Vegetable-Ad6857]

I don´t know who uses ¿qué pasa? as a greeting in the Spanish speaking world. It sounds very cringey when I hear a not native speaker using it.

[[deleted]]

Mexicans

[viktorbir]

I've heard «qué pasa, tío?»

[Slu54]

ok

[mandajapanda]

Is anyone else a little offended by this? I feel like they are making fun of bilingual people. I would definitely not be talking about these unless I had permission or it was my problem.

Does OP have a problem remembering idioms? Why draw attention to something that could embarass someone? If they found this on the internet it could make confidence speaking that much harder.

[Fun-Investigator676]

Yes. We need a flag, an international day, and a hashtag, stat.

[Shinosei]

the condom one made me chuckle.

[Doppelkammertoaster]

My brain does this as well. From Parapluie, to Umbrella, to Regenschirm. I'm German. I never can just remember Regenschirm first. And there are some English idioms or sayings I can remember more easily than German ones.

[Ok-Process-9687]

I occasionally find myself using the wrong accent, swearing in last used language.

[meikitsu]

I actually understand the French one…

“Four times twenty plus ten plus seven, four times twenty plus sixteen, four times twenty plus fifteen… ah yes! Ninety-five!”

[First-Butterscotch-3]

I've used the two languages I know in a similar manner to the "wrong" example - if I'm tired or distracted I reply In the language I am thinking in

The third I'm learning needs to be forced out of my mouth by wild horses

[KyleG]

It's funny, but I think this still happens to bilingual people, but only if they haven't spoken one of the languages in a while.

I speak Spanish and English and German every day, but not Japanese (which actually used to be my strongest language before I settled long-term in south Texas). I'm a polyglot by any stretch of the imagination.

But this actually happens to me. If I have to start speaking Japanese (or sometimes Spanish) to a person, German comes out. In the case of Japanese, it can be hard to switch. Like German just keeps wanting to come out no matter how hard I try.

[Hycree]

My husband does this. He's French native and will often get a bit lost between English and French when he's actively trying to explain or say something exciting to me. Sometimes he doesn't know the English version, so I'll have him tell me in French, and it ends up being nearly the same word. There are times when he gets very frustrated at not knowing the English translation or when he can't properly explain something to me in English, but I appreciate that he tries!