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Mangled languages and memory failure | ||
Tags: Memory | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5973 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 5 23 October 2009 at 5:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I could use some guidance regarding a very distressing language problem. I've been working mostly on German for about 15 months and I'm now also reviewing Spanish.
First a little background information: I began studying Spanish at age fourteen, and German at age thirty-six.. So, there's a long time gap between the acquisition of my first foreign language and the second one. I don't know if that's the source of the problem. The "foreign language" section of my brain, so to speak, has had only one occupant for such a long time that I'm now having a hard time managing two. Retrieval of Spanish seems to be severely blocked. I've recharged my knowledge of the language many times over the years, and never really had a problem bringing it back. This time, though, it's not so easy. What's most frustrating about this memory failure is that it is only partial. I can still understand Spanish very well. I can read and listen and get almost everything; the problem happens with production. Even very basic vocabulary is just not there! Or, rather, it's there, but not quite coming to mind as needed. I was so disturbed by this that I tested myself with a list of a few hundred basic words and phrases. I could recall most of them, but only slowly. This used to be spontaneous! Is German in the way? At times, when I practice in German, I find instead entire Spanish sentences popping up in my mind--the same ones I didn't remember when I previously tried to say them! It seems I'm sending requests to my personal Foreign Language Headquarters, and too often bringing forth the wrong language, or scraps of both. Now, what to do about it? I had originally planned to do a comprehensive Spanish review about 6-8 months into German learning; however, at that point it was all beginning to cohere and I figured that since I was doing OK, I should just continue and dedicate a full year to it, and I did. I tried reviving Spanish starting two months ago, but this time it is so much more difficult. Obviously it's in there somewhere, just not fully or easily accessible. I think that I will eventually work through this impasse, but so far it is happening too slowly. I need to find a way to split these two languages apart, at least enough to be able to use them, and I especially want my Spanish back! I know this matter has been discussed before, but would very much appreciate any advice as to how, specifically, I might arrange these languages into some kind of working order: --Suspend German for a short time and focus only on Spanish? --Study both, but at separate times of day, or on separate days? --Work on both, together, but make a more deliberate effort to concentrate on grammatical/lexical similarities and differences? --Swear, cry, throw stuff out window, consult a linguistic soothsayer? (just kidding!) Edited by meramarina on 23 October 2009 at 5:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5580 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 5 23 October 2009 at 7:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Struggle through it; the problem will go away on its own. I've been there, and there wasn't really anything I did specifically to fix it, it just sort of happened on its own. You brain just needs time to readjust itself.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6017 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 5 23 October 2009 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||
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The brain is a wonderful thing -- I giant statistical calculator working out thousands of probabilities in the blink of an eye.
But the brain is not faultless. Rather than trying to hold everything in and process it all exactly, it tries to remove irrelevancies and forget information that has no more use -- and that's why they say "use it or lose it". The statistical measure of how important a given language feature is is simply how often you hear or say (or read or write) it. If you don't use your Spanish, the stats drop and the brain hides it. I've always found that languages that I've learned simultaneously are less easily confused than ones I've learned consecutively, regardless of similarities between languages. The brain sorts them out by context. I almost never use any Spanish words in my Gaelic or vice versa, because my brain learned the difference -- with certain people I speak one, with others the other. That's context. But when I met a Gael who now lives in Spain... wow. I couldn't stick to one language. I'd start a sentence in Gaelic and end up in Spanish. I'd then switch back at some random point without realising it. Eventually I got so confused that I could only speak English. However, as soon as there was one other person in the conversation, we managed to stick to one language. So your brain will use any language that the person you're speaking to will understand. How is that relevant to you?
Your brain knows you understand Spanish. I silently verbalise my thoughts sometimes, but I cannot strictly control the language I do it in. It drifts, and while I'm convinced I'm doing it in one language, I'll suddenly realise that I'm actually doing it in a completely different language. That unconscious drift does not happen when I speak, except with the Spanish-speaking Gael (and once or twice when I was veeeeeeeeeeeery drunk). The lack of a conversation partner and the resultant lack of the possibility of not being understood kills the need to speak one language or the other. OK... maybe a bit of a long and rambling post, but to sum up: Use both languages regularly and your brain will establish better boundaries between the two. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dragonfly Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6485 days ago 204 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, Mandarin | Message 4 of 5 23 October 2009 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would advise you to continue working as you are doing now. I have the same problem with Spanish and German, that is when I try to say smth in German the Spanish translation pops up (my Spanish is much better than my German). Interestingly enough, when I try to produce smth in Mandarin sometimes German comes to surface. I think everything will be ok with time as my English now doesn't interfere with anything.
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| rggg Heptaglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6331 days ago 373 posts - 426 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Malay Studies: Romanian, Catalan, Greek, German, Swedish | Message 5 of 5 23 October 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Something similar happened to me, Italian words poped up in my mind when I was speaking Portuguese, but it lasted only for a month or so, I stopped doing it without a conscious effort, I'm inclined to think that'll be exactly the same thing for you.
If the problem lies in your speaking skills, try to freshen them up, try to speak Spanish as much as you can, at least for a few weeks, and see what happens. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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