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Not know what language you’re hearing

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19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
glidefloss
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5727 days ago

138 posts - 154 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, French

 
 Message 1 of 19
23 January 2015 at 4:12pm | IP Logged 
Does this ever happen to you? You don't register on which language you're hearing, but you understand it? My
Spanish is still pretty bad, but my understanding has improved, and sometimes I don't remember if someone was
talking to me in Spanish or English, or whether I just watched something in Spanish or English. When I watch TV
shows, for instance, I'm just following along mentally with the plot, and not noticing the actual words.
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eyðimörk
Triglot
Senior Member
France
goo.gl/aT4FY7
Joined 3858 days ago

490 posts - 1158 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French
Studies: Breton, Italian

 
 Message 2 of 19
23 January 2015 at 5:13pm | IP Logged 
Sometimes I don't notice switches between French and Breton, but mostly I'm aware of what language I'm listening to. I don't forget that I am listening to English or French, just because I don't have to make an effort. With friends whom I speak several languages with, I am aware that we switch when we do switch (and often try to figure out the cause of the switch).

I often don't recall which language I heard or read something in, though. I used to associate video with English, so for a long time I remembered everything I had watched in French as if though the dialogue had been in English. French film quotes were stored in my head in English, even though I don't mentally translate while watching. Since I now have very little exposure to English media, instead my mind has started filing English films under French more frequently.
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robarb
Nonaglot
Senior Member
United States
languagenpluson
Joined 4818 days ago

361 posts - 921 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French
Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 3 of 19
23 January 2015 at 7:34pm | IP Logged 
Interesting, this never ever happens to me. I always seem to pay some attention to the surface form of language. I
notice people's accents.
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hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4889 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 4 of 19
23 January 2015 at 9:30pm | IP Logged 
This happened to me once, but it wasn't exactly not knowing which language I was hearing, rather which language I was answering a question in.

I was in a restaurant with my ex-wife. Our daily language was Spanish, as such that's what we were speaking. Throughout the meal, our waiter would come around, refreshing our water, asking if we needed anything, etc. in English. At some point, I guess because he heard us speaking Spanish, he asked if we wanted more wine in Spanish. I answered in English, as I'd done throughout the evening. I wasn't aware until my wife pointed it out to me.

R.
==

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hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5108 days ago

1243 posts - 1458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

 
 Message 5 of 19
23 January 2015 at 11:31pm | IP Logged 
At the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin somebody asked me from behind where I'd got my T-
shirt from (a language lover one) and even though I understood the question, I couldn't
reply because I couldn't register what language he'd just asked me in. I looked at him
for a few seconds and tried to repeat what he'd just said in my head so that I could
realise what language it was before replying in the same one. It was Czech.
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carlyd
Groupie
United States
Joined 3748 days ago

94 posts - 138 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 6 of 19
23 January 2015 at 11:57pm | IP Logged 
I was walking into the library for a meeting (before it opened) and a man asked me about the library hours. I answered him and continued on to the meeting. The person behind me asked what language I'd been speaking. Totally stopped me because I wasn't even aware that I'd been talking in anything other than English.
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jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6668 days ago

4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
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 Message 7 of 19
24 January 2015 at 1:14am | IP Logged 
Is this like the Barry Farber paragraph about not knowing which language you spoke during your date the night before (*yawn*) or not knowing if the language you hear is just similar to something else you know?

If the latter, it might happen if somebody spoke Galician (and I thought it was Portuguese) or some of the smaller languages in Spain (and I thought it was Spanish). For any other slightly mutually intelligible combo, my level would be too low (if I look at the languages in my profile).

Or is it like the case when a bunch of university students from India happened to pass by the information desk at the library? They asked me (in English) where they could get access cards. One of them quickly explained in their native language where they could get them - I heard ONE loan word ("reception"), saw where he pointed, and then I said something like "Yes, he's right, you have to go to the reception desk". The group got very surprised and immediately asked me if I spoke Punjabi...

Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 24 January 2015 at 1:29am

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glidefloss
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5727 days ago

138 posts - 154 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, French

 
 Message 8 of 19
24 January 2015 at 8:12am | IP Logged 
Who is Barry Farber? The radio show host?

I think this is a disadvantage if anything. Maybe it comes from switching often between languages and not
understudying one of them very well.


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