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Accidental language interference | ||
Tags: Language Interference | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ironman Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 4927 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Swahili | Message 1 of 15 26 November 2010 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been looking for a forum that discusses this specific topic (if there is one, please direct me), but something I've experienced recently is when I'm speaking a language and can't think of a specific word or phrase in that language, my brain seems to automatically spit it out in a language that it does know. For example, I was speaking Spanish and wanted to say "that's why...", but I said "deshalb" because I couldn't quickly remember "por eso". That has happened numerous times, I guess because my knowledge of German right now is greater than my knowledge of Spanish. Has anyone else experienced this? Interested in hearing other views, especially if you are familiar with psycholinguistics.
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| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6483 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 2 of 15 26 November 2010 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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As opposed to deliberate language interference...?
Kidding aside, this seems to happen to most people when they are speaking a language they have not fully mastered. When I first started learning Chinese, I would get interference from the French that I took in high school. Years later, now that I'm pretty good at Mandarin and haven't worked on French since high school, anytime I try to speak in French, the words I don't know come out in Chinese. I was talking to someone the other day who said that the last language they were using is the one that interferes with their new language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| B-Tina Tetraglot Senior Member Germany dragonsallaroun Joined 5308 days ago 123 posts - 218 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish | Message 3 of 15 26 November 2010 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I started my intense study on Polish language, I did experience an interference as well (with french), especially when it came to words with similar spelling and/or meaning. Turned out I would say things like "W zasadzie tak, mais...", ("In general yes, but...") sometimes without even noticing that I just switched languages.
Interestingly enough, my Polish did not affect my abilities to speak English at that time. During the summer I invested quite a lot of time in studying Polish (about 1-4 h a day) and realize that by now even my English starts to suffer from this - even though I still have daily exposure to the English language via the internet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| B-Tina Tetraglot Senior Member Germany dragonsallaroun Joined 5308 days ago 123 posts - 218 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish | Message 4 of 15 26 November 2010 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I started my intense study on Polish language, I did experience an interference as well (with french), especially when it came to words with similar spelling and/or meaning. Turned out I would say things like "W zasadzie tak, mais...", ("In general yes, but...") sometimes without even noticing that I just switched languages.
Interestingly enough, my Polish did not affect my abilities to speak English at that time. In the last few months I invested quite a lot of time in studying Polish (about 1-4 h a day) and realize that by now even my English starts to suffer from this - even though I still have daily exposure to the English language via the internet. edit: as for my experiences, those interferences occur even in written language, e.g. the spelling of "profesor" appears to me to be correct at first glance, only to realize a moment later that the correct spelling of the German word is "Professor". Edited by B-Tina on 26 November 2010 at 11:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5121 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 5 of 15 27 November 2010 at 8:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm, for me, I find it weird that at times, I could speak a language effortlessly and fluently, until the other party thinks that I am almost like native speakers of the language, however, at times, I would stammer and that phrases that come out of my mouth sound really miserable...
Has anyone of you experienced this before? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5923 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 6 of 15 27 November 2010 at 8:59am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, with Portuguese. They wouldn't believe that I wasn't a native speaker, or at least having spent time in Brazil. But then, sometimes I just can't remember basic words... Quite bothersome. I've had similar experiences with Italian, German, and Swedish, but never speaking so well that anyone thought I was a native. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5121 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 7 of 15 27 November 2010 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Isn't that just so demoralising? But I do find that, when the other party speaks clearly, I tend to be able to participate in the conversation very actively too, and usually that's the time when people would ask me whether I am born in Germany or at least studied in Germany, however, sometimes, when the other party speaks in a too fast speed or use some kinda slang (like from eastern Berlin for example), then I begin to stammer and the level suddenly drops:( Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 27 November 2010 at 5:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5334 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 8 of 15 28 November 2010 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Haha! Finnish is my 2nd language and Spanish is my heritage language, i.e. the language half my family speaks as their first language, of which I speak not a single word. Over the summer we had a family reunion. Everyone came up from Perú and we all congregated in Florida for a celebration. Great fun and most of the dialogue around me was in Spanish, but out of the couple handful of times I tried to speak Spanish, I always felt the Finnish words billow up into my throat and threaten to spew themselves all over the place, even if I was consciously thinking about how I would answer ONLY in Spanish and not Finnish. Got some bewildered looks with my weird hybrid language!
"Yo estudio kielitiedettä y Finlandés ja mie quiero joskus palata a Finlandia opiskelemaan kunnolla." Raincrowlee hit the nail on the head with saying this stems from "speaking a language [one has] not fully mastered". I am far from a master in Spanish and have no desire to master it, so something like this is inevitable! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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