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What is it like being Bilingual? | ||
Tags: Native Language | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5291 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 17 of 22 11 December 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I used to be bilingual in English and German until a certain age. Unfortunately, my German is mostly only native on
the basis of understanding, and my speaking and writing have deteriorated (although I'm working to improve that). Being bilingual at such a young age, I don't really remember much language wise, as I think with images, not sounds. However, my understanding of spoken and most written German (except for advanced/scientific works which I would have trouble understanding in English) is very good. I hear no difference between the two when I'm not paying attention, which can often get me into weird situations. If I space out, and someone addresses me in either language, I won't realize which language. I just hear the words and I register them as images in my brain. Often this causes me to respond in the other language, or in a mix of the two. Weirdly enough it's mostly German, which is why I want my speaking to be back to native, as I feel that it's a part of me I subconsciously can't let go. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5083 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 18 of 22 11 December 2010 at 12:33am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I am bilingual in English and Serbian but they are not equally strong, i.e. my English is better. This is because I deal
with English throughout my daily life and was educated in this language. My Serbian was for a long time mostly restricted to words spoken in the home, hence not a very rich vocabulary. In latter years, since I've been reading online media and watching videos, both my vocabulary has improved and residual grammatical mistakes have started disappearing. I think in both languages and codeswitch all the time with family members. Codeswitching is a handicap, since I just throw in the English word when I'm too lazy to decline some weird noun. Not surprisingly, when I am in a context in which I can't codeswitch, i.e. visiting my grandmother and other family, my Serbian improves a lot in a short time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| CheeseInsider Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4932 days ago 193 posts - 238 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* Studies: French, German | Message 19 of 22 11 December 2010 at 12:53am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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From birth I was raised speaking Mandarin to only my mother, and English to only my father. My English is stronger than my Mandarin though. Compare being in an English speaking environment 24/7 to having only 1 person to speak Mandarin with and with only 4 hours of Mandarin instruction a week. It's no surprise that one turned out stronger than the other. I think this experience is common among people with two mother tongues, a lot of the time, one will be significantly weaker due to lack of exposure. I can think in Mandarin, but never about anything meaningful. I think part of that is because the only time I've ever had to speak Mandarin was when speaking to my Mandarin teachers, my mother, or people on her side of the family. So our conversations were restricted to topics about school, food, friends, daily activities and the like. Edited by CheeseInsider on 11 December 2010 at 1:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5036 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 20 of 22 13 December 2010 at 3:03am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I've done it with a couple of friends (Spanish + English, German + Spanish + English) and I see it around me quite often (Russian + Spanish) - and it's a lot of fun. Whenever you reach an appropriate level at any language (not necessarily above intermediate) you begin to realize that it has unique words and structures that simply come to mind when you're speaking, and saying them in any other language would require some roundabouts. If you know your interlocutor will understand anyway, why not do the switch and speed up communication? As I said it can be a very fun game to see if the other person will get what you concoct, or what [s]he'll come up with :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Syntax Bilingual Hexaglot Newbie South Africa Joined 4905 days ago 28 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 21 of 22 13 December 2010 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I don't know. How is it to not be bilingual? :)
Yes
No
Actually, both are equally dominant in my thoughts. I do, however, speak more Afrikaans. Strangely, my English seems better than my Afrikaans.
Uhm, I guess so, but once I start a train of thought in one language, I tend to finish it in that language.
That happens all the time in Afrikaans. We tend to use the language that conveys the idea most efficiently. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4940 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 22 of 22 13 December 2010 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
That may be somewhat unique to South Africa. When I visited Cape Town in 2008, I was intrigued by SA television. It was a constant mixture of English and Afrikaans, whether it was a soap opera or the news. Nothing was in a single language. To be fair, I'm sure that exists in other places (Philipines,maybe? I've not been), but SA was the first place I've seen a mixture of languages in the media to that extent. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
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