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Another language with a fellow native? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4255 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 25 of 26 16 April 2013 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
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I am friends with a Dutch guy, who speaks flawless English, but we often talk in Spanish when it's just the two
of us (my L2 his L3). It's not quite the same as the question posed, but English is clearly the "natural" language of conversation for us, as he's very proficient in it, but we choose to speak in our mutual 'secondary' language. Upon reflection this might be an 'equalizer' for some (no one has the upper hand with their own language), although in this case, I honestly feel he could express himself very well in English. When I lived in Honduras, I lived with 3 other English speakers. We almost always spoke English to each other inside the home and when talking just amongst ourselves even in Public. Sometimes we'd even slip into English infront of native speakers, but then they'd remind us they didn't understand! Edited by vogue on 17 April 2013 at 1:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4340 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 26 of 26 17 April 2013 at 6:26am | IP Logged |
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When I was going to a Japanese language school in Tokyo, most of my classmates and I
would only use Japanese to talk with one another even though there were 3 students in my class who spoke English fluently. When we all first met, we spoke to each other in Japanese since no one knew where anyone was from or which languages they spoke, and we continued in Japanese for the rest of the time I was there. When it comes to multilingual people, I find I usually feel most comfortable using the first language I used with each person. A while back, I met a Colombian lady who moved to Canada when she was very young, lived in Quebec and learned French for a few years and then came to the city where I live and learned English. Spanish was her best language, but she had absolutely no problem with English and could speak French relatively comfortably. The first time I met her was in a club for people who wanted to practice French, so French was the first language I spoke to her in. Then, I saw her again the day after at a meeting for a similar Spanish club. After the group, we stayed back a while to chat and I had a hard time speaking to her in Spanish or English (it just seemed weird to me!) so we reverted back to French. I have many other similar experiences with Japanese and French natives who spoke English, where sometimes I felt more comfortable in English and other times in their respective native languages. It all depended on our first meeting. (I even have one friend with whom I switch from French to English to Japanese because that's how we talked the first time we met...) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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