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Decline in Native Language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| LFD1988 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4141 days ago 18 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Spanish, Dutch | Message 1 of 23 15 June 2015 at 1:50am | IP Logged |
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I am curious to know if others have experienced this phenomenon. I am currently
working in Japan as a teacher of English and as such I am constantly surrounded by the Japanese language. The only times I actually speak English are in class or when I meet with my friends, who are also in the same boat as me. I have lived here for only 10 months so far, but I sometimes feel as though my English abilities have declined, even if it is my native language. It's not a significant decline, but I sometimes feel that what I say or write isn't necessarily correct English or I begin to second guess myself. This happens sometimes too when a student asks me if a sentence looks correct and I say, "yes," but then upon looking at it again, I find that I too have made an error. Has anyone else experienced this? What moments can you recall in which it has happened to you? Edited by LFD1988 on 15 June 2015 at 1:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3538 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes  Studies: Serbian | Message 2 of 23 15 June 2015 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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As the saying goes, use it or lose it. My parents barely speak any Serbian outside of
conversation with themselves and they have forgotten a lot of words because they simply don't use them. They however have been here for over 30 years. I notice that whenever I study a language intensely the same sorta thing happens with me where I start feeling weird speaking English. I wouldn't be too concerned about it though if you're only staying in the country for the short term (a couple years). Otherwise I'm sure others here might be able to give some good advice who are more experienced with this phenomena. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nikolic993 Diglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 3782 days ago 106 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian | Message 3 of 23 15 June 2015 at 2:52am | IP Logged |
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I'm not living abroad but I'll comment anyway. I haven't noticed any decline in my Serbian as far as forgetting words is concerned, but I sometimes catch myself using directly translated English words or phrases, which make no sense whatsoever in Serbian.
Another thing that happens to me, and I guess other speakers whose language has cases(can you confirm?), is that I sometimes don't know the correct case ending for a word that I haven't used that often, so I just construct the sentence in a different way and use the case that I know is correct. A couple of days ago, a buddy and I were talking about some girl, and at one point I said: "Nije ona materijal za devojku" (She's not girlfriend material). My buddy gave me a blank stare and then I had to clarify what I meant to say. My mother is Romanian, but she has been living in Serbia for over 25 years now, and she says the she often forgets some "higher register" words, even though she speaks with her Romanian friends here on a daily basis. I guess that's because she doesn't really get to use those words in her conversations, and she rarely watches Romanian TV and doesn't read the newspapers. Edited by nikolic993 on 15 June 2015 at 2:57am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4236 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 4 of 23 15 June 2015 at 4:08am | IP Logged |
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Grammar and vocabulary often mix up, sometimes even pronunciation starts to sound weird. I haven't even been abroad, but having quite a strong ability to talk to myself (if only these conversations were entertaining!) I ended up noticing that I want to form
gerund in Russian (for example, svaling - a derivative of svalivat' (slang for "to leave"), adding -ing, and this is something typical to Russians who have studied English). But part of this decline has nothing to do with other languages. I have noticeable gaps in my knowledge of Russian and precisely because I don't do anything with them, they get bigger. It's like I start to doubt spelling of words I used to know how to spell correctly etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 23 15 June 2015 at 5:13am | IP Logged |
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I still have to use Dutch every day, even though I've already spent over 4 years of my
life abroad (about 1/5th of my life). So my Dutch isn't suffering, and neither is my English. I've been very used to switching around languages even when I was young so it doesn't seem to be a huge issue for me. If I still live abroad in 10 years, though, ask me again. I don't use Dutch that often now. I speak it with my family and during class (and I occasionally read some media), but other than that my life is a mix of languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 6 of 23 15 June 2015 at 6:01am | IP Logged |
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I do not use English very much, actually the only place that I write extensively in
English nowadays seems to be here. I write mostly in Spanish followed by Dutch, but not as practise, but rather as a means of accomplishing other tasks and communicating with others, although it implictly is some form of practise. The only other ways in which I use my native English is with my family, when I go to the store, doctor, chemist, etc., but these are usually conversations that last no more than a few minutes at most. I do find that I take a bit longer to think about how to say things and stutter slightly more in English than for example, 10 years ago. If I had to give a presentation or a public speech in English right now, I feel very unconfident and would probably stutter a lot more than usual, in addition to saying some unidiomatic things. To me I really do not care because someday hopefully very soon, I live in a non- Anglophone country, so my English level is irrelevant there. I do notice that I make both spelling and grammar mistakes in my own language nowadays, perhaps even worse than when I was 12 or 13. But I had a very strict regiment of grammar in my own language during primary school, so even if I make mistakes now, my grammar "training" from the past helps me afloat from keeping it to a minimium and not making (usually) serious grammatical blunders. I also notice that I commit more typos, which is due to the usual fingers making mistakes, but also I forget the patterns on how to type some words because I do not type in English as often as I used to. My chats and messages are usually not in English nowdadays. It is also kept to a repsectable minimum also though, because I use the US Intl keyboard, which is very close to both the UK and USA English keyboards. My friend who studies Russian and uses the Russian keyboard frequently messes up his English chat with me because he has to switch his brain between where the Cyrillic letters are and where the Latin letters are on the US Intl keyboard. I remember hearing about some weird bullshit that came from the 1970s that said about learning foreign languages, that learning foreign languages causes one's native language level to suffer, thus one should not learn foreign languages or something like that. The thing is, it was from the Americans, so they were basically saying that native Anglophones should remain monolingual Anglophones for the rest of their lives so that they should not risk having a declining English level. Strangely, I never saw any objection to applying this principle to non-Anglophones learning English. I do not believe that, but even if it were true, if I kept a C1 level in my native language, that would be fine with me.. Something funny that recently happens is that even when I do not pretend to have a foreign accent when I speak English in an Anglophone country to pretend to be from another country, if I just speak as I usually do, some people think that I have a slight foreign accent. In both the UK and USA, I have been mistaken for a Mexican, Argentinian, Spanish, and Chilean, as well as "some sort of Spanish-speaking immigrant with a high level of English", and that is without trying to sound like that! Edited by 1e4e6 on 15 June 2015 at 6:13am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6870 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 7 of 23 15 June 2015 at 7:03am | IP Logged |
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Yes, it happens to me when I live abroad. The first time I noticed was when I was an exchange student in Mexico and I couldn't think of the English word for "jug" - a container to put milk into.
Since I know that my languages come back to me quickly when I am exposed to them, I find this actually a pleasant and interesting experience, not a frightening one or negative one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4875 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 8 of 23 15 June 2015 at 9:19am | IP Logged |
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Yes. I've studied abroad for three years and my formal Norwegian (bokmål) has suffered
immensely. I often use way too long even writing a short comment on Norwegian forums. My spoken Norwegian (fosentrøndersk) hasn't suffered nearly as much, since I've actually been using it regularly when I was abroad. My English is hardly perfect (in fact, it's far from it), but to me it's much more embarrassing to make mistakes while writing in Norwegian. Edited by stifa on 15 June 2015 at 9:20am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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