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L2 interfering with L1 | ||
Tags: Language Interference | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3330 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 9 of 14 12 July 2015 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you listen to speakers of foreign languages, you'll hear a lot of English catch phrases and words coming into the language. None of them worries that these are "interfering" with their language.
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| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4453 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 10 of 14 12 July 2015 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Deliberate, purposeful borrowing of foreign words has nothing to do with interference. Interference is an uninentional usage that leads to mistakes or awkward formulations.
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4995 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 14 13 July 2015 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
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That happens to me less than it did a couple of years ago. My theory is that as you get more advanced in a language, it becomes more discrete in your mind, separate from other languages, as if it has its own area in the brain (metaphorically speaking at least - I'm not familiar with the neuroscience of it). Which leads to less interference, be it with other languages or with your native one. But it certainly still happens sometimes, especially when I've been speaking a foreign language for some time then switch back to English.
Something a bit more worrying that's been happening to me more recently is picking up these sorts of unnatural constructions from non-native English speakers. I have a lot of friends whose English level is good but not quite native-like, and from spending time with them I end up picking up certain phrasings. Although on the plus side it also means I pick up things that non-native speakers generally get right and native speakers tend to get wrong, like "there are" instead of "there is". Edited by garyb on 13 July 2015 at 10:24am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3324 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 12 of 14 13 July 2015 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I catch myself thinking certain phrase in Serbian, but haven't got to the point in blurting something out just yet :)
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6385 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 13 of 14 13 July 2015 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. It can be exciting, and it's perfectly normal and definitely nothing like a real mental illness (honestly that's an insulting comparison). And this doesn't mean you risk losing your L1, at least if you still live in a country where it's spoken. But the only kind of it that stays is the pain/frustration of wanting to apply one language's distinction to another. When you're stuck because you realize you think in different categories than the person you're speaking to. (can even be simple stuff like English lacking a less formal term for the whole upper limb from the shoulder to the fingertips) If there's a perfectly legitimate L1 equivalent, though, take this as a sign that you need to work on your ability to switch between languages, especially if you plan to learn more than one language in the future. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5016 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 14 of 14 14 July 2015 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Strangely enough, I can't remember this ever happening to me--it may be because I've never concentrated intensely enough on learning a single language. I do find that if I can't recall a phrase in the language I'm trying to speak my brain will produce the closest thing it can find. So when I'm trying to say something in Spanish that I don't know the word for, my brain may offer up the translation in some foreign language I do know, like Russian. I have to say, "Stop that, the Russian equivalent won't do me any good, but I appreciate the effort."
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