kazhoke Newbie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5357 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: Portuguese*
| Message 1 of 11 26 March 2010 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
What do you do to change the languages you are speaking?
I've been studying Russian for 1 yer, and just started with English.
When i'm speaking Russian i can't remember any word in English and if i want to start speaking English i need to take a long time to change the languages.
In short words, which techniques can i use to swith the languages in my head faster?
my mother languge is Portuguese.
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FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5736 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes
| Message 2 of 11 26 March 2010 at 3:52pm | IP Logged |
Unless you want to become an interpreter, I consider this a good trait. Seems like this will make sure youll have less of a problem with confusing the two (which was a bit of a problem for me)
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 3 of 11 26 March 2010 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
Practice, practice, practice. I switch between English and French at least 50 times a day and I never even think about it.
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datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French
| Message 4 of 11 26 March 2010 at 4:09pm | IP Logged |
The switching speeds will come with time... I can switch almost instaneously between German, Portuguese, and Spanish. The more you think about the language (and how you can say different things in them, the faster you will be able to switch) :)
^^I agree with the practice. It will be VERY easy if you give it time :D
Ate logo :D
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Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 5 of 11 26 March 2010 at 4:59pm | IP Logged |
If you practice your accent, you will feel different when you are speaking Russian from when you are speaking English. Accent is a very physical thing and you will use your muscles differently in each language.
"English face" will speak English and "Russian face" will speak Russian.
"Russian face" speaking English in a Russian accent won't happen, because it feels wrong.
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 6 of 11 26 March 2010 at 5:04pm | IP Logged |
Cainntear wrote:
If you practice your accent, you will feel different when you are speaking Russian from when you are speaking English. Accent is a very physical thing and you will use your muscles differently in each language.
"English face" will speak English and "Russian face" will speak Russian.
"Russian face" speaking English in a Russian accent won't happen, because it feels wrong. |
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A girlfriend once told me I was a different person whether I spoke French, English or Spanish (she spoke all 3).
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omuraisu Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5396 days ago 7 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 7 of 11 26 March 2010 at 7:00pm | IP Logged |
I have no problem switching from English to Korean or vice versa, as I've done that since I was a child. However, going from Spanish to Japanese is difficult for me, and apparently even switching from Korean to Japanese and vice versa is really difficult too!
I was once at a Korean restaurant with some Japanese friends and was ordering for our table in Korean. I got very confused as to which language I was using, and kept responding to our Korean waitress with "hai, hai"! I couldn't believe it; my Korean may be rather weak but it's still stronger/more native than my Japanese. (Or at least that's what I thought.)
Arekkusu wrote:
A girlfriend once told me I was a different person whether I spoke French, English or Spanish (she spoke all 3). |
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Arekkusu, that's really interesting! My skype language partner has told me several times that my voice "sounds different" depending on whether I'm speaking Spanish or English. He said it was almost like he was talking to another person!
I've noticed that my voice gets higher-pitched when I speak Japanese, if only because my Japanese teachers were all very feminine and spoke that way and I learned by imitating them. However, the thought that my Spanish voice sounded different too shocked me.
Do you suppose we all sound different in different languages?
Edited by omuraisu on 26 March 2010 at 7:04pm
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cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6125 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish
| Message 8 of 11 26 March 2010 at 7:23pm | IP Logged |
I wonder how you develop this ability to have a 'language switch.' I don't feel this at all, really. Maybe this contributes to my difficulty with listening comprehension.
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