Second Language Personality Change (Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages) Language Learning Forum

Second Language Personality Change
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Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages

27 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

J T
Newbie
Australia
Joined 5687 days ago
12 posts - 16 votes

Message 25 of 27

05 August 2011 at 7:29am | IP Logged

Violaine wrote:

This is a very interesting topic.

My mother tongue is french, and when I speak it, I feel kind of "forced" to look clever. It's hard to explain, but as I speak it very well, I suppose people expect me to be clever and to make sense in what I say. So usually I feel hesitant and shy because I don't want to sound stupid and because I always wonder if what I say makes sense or is worth being said.

In English, where I consider being almost fluent - I live in Belfast for almost one year and have been studying English for years and years very seriously - it's very different because I don't really "feel" the language. It's also quite tough to explain, but I feel I do not have as much feeling in English as in french. There is a distance between me and what I say, when I say it in English. I don't feel as involved as in French. So as there is a distance, I feel more free to talk and I can actually be more personal in English than in french. I just feel more confortable because it seems to be that nothing can ever sound silly in English whereas it almost always does in french ! I know it's just an impression that I have but it has a great influence on my personality.

In french I feel clever but slightly boring and pretentious ; in English I feel more free to speak, personal, intimate, and confident.

I wouldn't say I am more arrogant in English ; it would probably be more the case in french because I know in which context you can use each word and my knowledge is much more serious, so I can sound a bit arrogant I suppose !

AHHH! I'm so happy I came across this topic. You have pretty much NAILED the exact feeling that I have felt since I started learning Chinese 3 years ago, especially the part about "feeling the language".

For example, even though I understand the meaning of "我以我全部的真心爱着你" and I would definitely appreciate it if someone that loved and cared about me very much said that Chinese sentence, no matter how much you try to say that in a very loving and caring tone of voice, to me, it just doesn't SOUND and FEEL the same as someone saying in a loving and caring tone "I love you very much with all of my heart" in English. I don't know why that is, but when many ppl in this thread started talking about the concept of 'feeling separated' from the foreign language, I completely understand what they mean.

And also someone posted on the topic of swearing. HAHAHA! That's also another thing I wanted to address. I know and understand the Chinese equivalents of the very bad English words/phrases, but even the Chinese translations of the most offensive English words/phrases don't sound and feel anywhere near as strong or shocking as the ones in English. I know you might argue that I come from Australia and Australia is a country that is very renowned for it's use of bad language, but that's besides the point. Even the translations in other foreign languages that I've studied in the past don't have the same effect as the English ones. I remember one time I was speaking to a Chinese friend and I said a phrase/word and she was absolutely shocked that I said it, but yet, in my heart, I didn't feel that I said something bad. However, I would be pretty shocked myself if I found myself saying the English equivalent in conversation to someone else.

So, there's positives and negatives of this situation. The main negative would be that no matter how much you tried to express a very deep feeling/meaning in a foreign language, although you maybe able to UNDERSTAND the meaning, you may not FULLY experience the FEELING of those words. So, the concept of "the meaning going into the brain, but not heart" definitely applies with me.

The positive would be what a few of you have already said: because you already feel that separation with the foreign language, it can be a lot easier to express deeper feelings/meanings without fear. Because it's not your native language, you know you can make mistakes and because you already have that separation, nothing sounds silly to you in the way that it would if you said it in your native language. Also, if someone said something bad about you in a foreign language, you could play it off, whereas in your native language, you couldn't get away with it since the native language is pretty much wired through every fibre and cell of your body (metaphorically speaking). So, essentially you could get away with saying certain things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to in your native language.

Edited by J T on 05 August 2011 at 7:33am
1 person has voted this message useful

lecavaleur
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4777 days ago
146 posts - 295 votes

Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Spanish

Message 26 of 27

29 October 2011 at 7:11pm | IP Logged

I had always noticed that in French, my second language in which I am dangerously close to near-native fluency, I was a more loquacious person, less reserved and more willing to discuss subjects that I avoid in English.

I worked in an environment for 18 months where there were a few other bilinguals and we often had to speak French in our jobs and, one day, one of the other bilinguals mentioned that she had been speaking to some of the others and they had concluded that in French, I sound like a completely different person than in English. So much so that people in other offices to whom I spoke on the phone daily thought there were actually two Jameses in my office, one an English guy, the other a French guy!

So it's not just in your head. You might actually leave vastly different impressions on the same people in a blind test when speaking to them in different languages.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Mulliman
Diglot
Newbie
Sweden
Joined 4720 days ago
7 posts - 13 votes
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian)

Message 27 of 27

25 December 2011 at 10:18pm | IP Logged

I really agree, I also feel that I have different personalities depending on which lanugage I speak.

I am Swedish and I speak English fluently. Since Swedish is my mother tongue, in expressing very emotional or deep thoughts it is the most effective.

However, I am more correct and precise in my descriptions in English. I think this is because English as a language has way more words. In Swedish, with more complicated ideas you have to play around a bit with the meanings to get to what you actually want to say.

Also, I am from Skåne, so I speak a dialect that is not considered "standard". It is also quite fast and a bit mumbled. Therefore, my English is more formal and correct compared to my native language.

1 person has voted this message useful

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