fnord Triglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5035 days ago 71 posts - 124 votes Speaks: German*, Swiss-German, English Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch
| Message 9 of 13 29 July 2014 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
I wouldn't call it limited ability but my brain somestimes needs a few seconds / minutes to transition.
I don't to get to use English nearly as often/much as I wished. So I use my L2 probably less than as most of you here.
Though when I do, after longer periods I am sometimes having difficulty recalling specialized (less common)
vocabulary in my L1. This effect quickly wears off after a few minutes, if not seconds. And I have never felt any
impediment to sentence structure or grammar - just the odd word that might be amiss.
Switching from German to Swiss German and vice versa, I make the occasional slip in pronunciation. These two are,
of course, only different varieties of German, so vocabulary is pretty much identical and there not a problem.
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Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3747 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French
| Message 10 of 13 31 August 2014 at 3:39am | IP Logged |
Yes, when I start to learn intensively, listen to second language while walking, driving, going to work, watching
movies, educational courses, read websites I begin to have some trouble with my native language so I start to think
that I have to read and listen something long in duration in my native language.
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tornus Diglot GroupieRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5145 days ago 82 posts - 113 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Danish
| Message 11 of 13 02 September 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged |
I've been living in Denmark for more than year now. I'm speaking virtually only English since I study in a very International school with students and teachers coming from a lot of different places but I'm also trying to get to know Danish in the meantime (I'm also exposed to Spanish to a much smaller extent). I'm originally from Northern France and I have to say speaking French has been very frustrating.
When we talk among ourselves with my French classmates, it gets really messed up and we resort a lot to Danish and English words "c'est så hyggeligt!" or "je suis super proud de moi"(pronouncing super with a Danish u") or syntax, or I sometimes use English particle for French verbs "promener around" "prendre over". The more lazy I am with speaking French correctly, the worse my French gets in the long run. Hence, I decided to make more effort to maintain it.
The worst is that my English is far from being perfect and can be very challenging.
Before moving abroad, I had a lot of English inputs everyday but speaking French was a never a problem. I guess it can only happens with intense immersion.
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beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4624 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 12 of 13 09 September 2014 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
I think if you are raised and educated entirely in your native language, it will always be very strong, no matter where you live in the world. I do spend 2-3 weeks each year immersed in German but I don't ever feel this lowers my ability in English, even temporarily. However, the odd German word might slip through upon returning home but this disappears after a couple of days.
Edited by beano on 09 September 2014 at 4:55pm
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Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4255 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian
| Message 13 of 13 09 September 2014 at 6:19pm | IP Logged |
I spend most of my time immensed in English and I find that my Finnish is as good as ever.
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