Ik spreche germanska

[muckefuck]

I've heard people say that your brain seems to acquire new "modes" as you learn more languages. At first you have only "native mode" and "foreign mode", so if you learned only a year of French before switching to Chinese, you find yourself constantly coming up with French words when you're trying to remember Chinese vocabulary. I did that myself with Spanish when I first began taking German classes.

I eventually got over that, but I still seem to have fewer modes than languages. Dutch to me is really a kind of encoded German, and I have to keep reminding myself to rearrange the syntax and undo the Second Consonant Shift before I speak. And now I guess my brain sees Swedish as encoded Dutch, since I'm forever about to say "ik" when I mean "jag" and whenever I read the word "under" what I hear in my head is "onder".

Comments

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

I find Russian getting in the way of my Hebrew. WHen I was learning Russian, it was Japanese. It's a vicious cycle!

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

Hebrew seems to be interfering with my Amharic. There's enough similarities that I get lulled into a sense of secuirity and -- bam -- I'm speaking the wrong language. Again.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I only have one foreign mode. It drives me berserk: I'm consistently paralysed now for about half an hour whenever I try to switch between French and Portuguese.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Bahahah! That is really true.