# A question for people who have studied more than two languages



## Setwale_Charm

Do you often find that picking up new languages becomes detrimental to the ones you have studied before and to what extent? Do you find it a big problem when one language begins to "blot out" the other and what you used to know well just slips off your memory and you now seem unable to detach yourself mentally from the structures of the "new" language?

And does it ever so happen that you feel your native language is suffering too?

 I think this question makes more sense for those who have tried several languages in their experience.


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## Athaulf

Setwale_Charm said:


> Do you often find that picking up new languages becomes detrimental to the ones you have studied before and to what extent? Do you find it a big problem when one language begins to "blot out" the other and what you used to know well just slips off your memory and you now seem unable to detach yourself mentally from the structures of the "new" language? And does it ever so happen that you feel your native language is suffering too?
> 
> I think this question makes more sense for those who have tried several languages in their experience.




In my experience, the answer to each question would be no.   I'm actively bilingual between Croatian and English on a daily basis, I've dabbled in German and Spanish to the point where I can communicate (although I'm nowhere near fluency in either and I barely understand the native speakers' natural talk), and I also learned some (nowadays mostly forgotten) Latin in high school.  I've never observed any interference between any of these languages -- on the contrary, I find it easier to pick each next one thanks to the feel for systematization I've developed from the previous ones.  Of course, languages get rusty with lack of use, but not any faster while I'm learning a different language.  

Very rarely, it happens to me that I begin the sentence in a wrong language, especially if I've quickly switched between languages a few times immediately before, but I've never observed any systematic deterioration of any language I speak except due to a long-term lack of use.


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## cas29

I think it depends on where and why you are learning the new language.
French was my second languge, and I was doing very well with it -- then I moved to Italy. I found that I did indeed blot out French so I could get on with the much more necessary Italian.  For the longest time the French speaking part of my brain seemed to really be locked up tight. It is only in the last couple of years that it has opened up again! I still have great trouble speaking, but can do quite well with reading.

I think your native language suffers only if you are living in a country where your second or third language is the prinicple language spoken.


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## Lilla My

Yes, my spanish (4th language) suffered when I began to speak fluently in norwegian (5th), I used to mix both languages and I can assure you that it was quiet a mess since they have nothing to do with each other  
But, as I speak english (2nd language) as often as norwegian, these two don't interfere. Now that I'm trying to learn again german (3rd), I begin to mix it up with norwegian (they are quiet close to each other).

Though I just need to concentrate to manage to speak one language without using other foreign words.
But I know too that, the more languages you learn, the easier it becomes to learn new ones (as far as I am concern, at all rate).

As for my mother language (french), it also happened to me not to remember some words, or not finding a translation. Well, once I even corrected myself although what I said was totally right (and I use a norwegian word instead... )

So, yes, I think it's normal to mix different languages as soon as you have to use them at the same time (I mean, in the same day, for instance).


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## francophone

Well here's my story, i learnt french and arabic together as a child, and went to a french school, those languages complement each other. At the age of 8, i started english normally students at this grade should be 9 or 10, but i was the youngest.

Still no problem, i was taking more than 10 hours of french/week, and about 5 hours of arabic, and 2 in Egnlish, i found english quite interesting, because this is the first language that i had to learn, french and arabic weren't something new.

I'm talking movies and songs, new cool series and stuff like that, the problem was the way i spelled and the way i mixed french words with english automatically just to complete the phrase and vice versa.
Later on, i started to have more hours of english and when i went to college, there was no place for french, i stopped mixing those 2 languages to an extent, just that because i'm not using french as much, i get to insert an english word or 2 when i'm talking.

Italian is a language i started learn as an adult, this language evoked all the questions i could have about the french language which i didn't think of that much, i quite enjoyed that, because the grammar was almost the same, i didn't suffer with its logic. My teacher suffered from my french though, i tend to mix up everything, even when writing "e" i used to write it "et" like french, i used to put the "accenti" the way i did with french.

Other than that i'm skilled with languages and i've never done any effort in my life to learn, i was the best in my italian class, and i never bugged myself to read my lessons or to do my homework, i only worked with the class and i thought it was french, my teacher thought well that's a part of why yolu understand this easily, but you've got a good memory for languages. 

I'm not practicing italian now, i need to put some effort, but i know i'll never forget this language.

My point is that practice is everything, you never forget a language, just that you must use it, if you need to be good. you must find the time, or you'll loose the words, you won't be able to construct a phras ebecause you lack some vocavulary...

It's gonna be fine, but you've to find something for each language, read, sing, find someone to talk to, try to write, try to speak yourself in the mirror, whenever you feel that you started to forget...

Oh and i want to tell you something, don't learna  new lnaguage before you get to master some level in the language before, that is a must for language like spanish, italian, french...etc. That is a really big problem, i want to learn spanish, but i've to be sure that i'm ok with speaking, lsitening, reading and writing italian.


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## francophone

Oh my that was a mega post, i hope that will not be a trouble to read, and that you'll understand that i wanted to say, that it's quite normal to mix up languages together and that even you native language will be affected. But don't let that stop you, you'll get used to them with time.


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## Benjy

I have found that whilst learning a new language having learnt others in the past certinly helps, but my brain just isnt big enough to keep everything in. And eventually it all starts to leak out and get mixed up.

I found that speaking french all the time has definitely messed with my English. English homonymes that used to seem blatantly different all seem to get confused and I had to relearn its/it's their/they're/there et al. all over again. It was really weird. I still make also sorts of errors like that when writting even though I have been back in England for two and a bit years in a university environment (I was only in France for a couple of years). 

I have a feeling that immersion in French exacerbated a mild dyslexia that I wasn't really aware I had. I hopefully will be moving to Japan in the summer and I am terrified in some respects of what it is going to do my English/French (the Latin I knew having long flown the nest )


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## Frank06

Hi,


Setwale_Charm said:


> Do you often find that picking up new languages becomes detrimental to the ones you have studied before and to what extent? Do you find it a big problem when one language begins to "blot out" the other and what you used to know well just slips off your memory and you now seem unable to detach yourself mentally from the structures of the "new" language?


When I was studying Portuguese I had a lot of problems with French (a language I 'learnt' many years before at secundary school): My French sentences got 'invaded' by Portuguese words. After a while, the situation stabilized.
Something similar is happening with Chinese and Persian: for one or another reason, my Persian pronouns (which I overuse due to my native language) turn out to be quite Chinese once in a while . I mix up words too.



> And does it ever so happen that you feel your native language is suffering too?


At home, my wife and I speak English, our third language for both of us. The first months I had some problems switching from English to Dutch (my native language). I remember I started to speak English at the (Dutch) bakery in that period. But that was probably due to a lack of attention. 
Our English is becoming a kind of private version of English, progressively mixed with Dutch, French and Persian words / expressions / literal translations. But we understand each other .
Due to my job (Dutch SL teacher) and the fact that my wife is learning Dutch, I have become more and more aware of my native language.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## xarruc

> I have found that whilst learning a new language having learnt others in the past certinly helps, but my brain just isnt big enough to keep everything in. And eventually it all starts to leak out and get mixed up.


 
If found this. I studied French until 16 at school and never achieved any level to be proud of. Then dabbled in Spanish at university. I found that my brain only had space for two languages: Foreign and English. My brain knew it was speaking foreign and so would choose to put a French word in instead of a Spanish one if I didnt know it.

Then my Spanish kicked all the French out. I learnt Catalan and that displaced some of the Spanish. I now find that when in Spanish mode I can flick between Spanish/English, or when in Catalan mode between Catalan/English, but I can't ever flick Spanish/Catalan. I think I still have two languages (English and Foreign) but that I can load up one language cassette at a time into the foreign language slot.

An strange aside to this was that even after I learned Catalan and spoke that nearly all the time I continued to speak to waiters and shopkeepers in Spanish. When I went back to the UK for a holiday I started addressing waiters and shopkeepers in Spanish. It took me about a week to break the habbit!



> English homonymes that used to seem blatantly different all seem to get confused and I had to relearn its/it's their/they're/there et al. all over again. It was really weird.


 
I find this too to a worrying extent. Also I don't understand English dialects/accents anymore and occassionally come out with some very jumbled phrases.


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## Jeedade

My native language is Dutch, I learnt English, German and French in school. I speak English and German very well (almost at native level). I have lived in Germany for 7 years, during this period I found German began to interfere with my native Dutch, but only the first days when I went home, after some time it went away. I think interference occurs mostly with languages that are very similar.
In the meantime I studied Spanish for quite some years to a reasonable level (able to hold a conversation well with locals, I also have worked in Spain on projects). My better half is Brazilian, so I learnt Portuguese through her (where my Spanish came in very handy), and also between these two languages there is lot of interference.
Then 2,5 years ago we moved to Italy, two months before that I started learning the language and from day one worked full time in Italian. It was tough in the beginning but I managed because of my Spanish and Portuguese. Now, after 2,5 years, my Italian became reasonably fluent but has blotted out the Spanish and Portuguese quite a bit, as I painfully became aware of when I was sent to Madrid for work for a couple of weeks recently. Also communicating with my in-laws in Portuguese has become more difficult (for me) now that we live in Italy. The passive knowledge (i.e. understanding) however does not seem to suffer, in fact, seems to have improved because of the similarities between Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Sometimes I hear or read a word and know exactly what it means, but I cannot tell if it’s Italian, Spanish or Portuguese. 
The Latin languages do not seem to interfere with the Germanic languages, and English (being in the middle somehow) seems to be quite immune to it.


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## emma42

Xarruc - English and Foreign!  One of the fun aspects of knowing something about at least two languages is that one is able to speak a mixture of Foreign and mother tongue.  My sister and I regularly email eachother in a mixture of French, English, Italian (mainly musical terms), Nottingham dialect etc etc.


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## panjabigator

When I started to learn Hindi at the university, my Spanish started to slip away from me.  I would interject in Spanish classes with Hindi words.  It was strange...as if I were new to the language.  I forgot a LOT of words.  Eventually it stabled and now I don't have any issues with the two.

Panjabi and Hindi never really interfere with each other except when I speak Hindi with Panjabis.  Then I automatically want to speak in Panjabi...it feels more normal.

And although I have only studied Catalan for 6 months (and speak it decently for that!) I never mix it with Spanish (save the words that I don't know...which is inevitable for a learner).  Sometimes though I find myself in Spanish using "el mi libro" type constructions....yikes!


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## Pedrovski

I guess it depends on how often you get to practice these languages. I'm supposedly bilingual in english and portuguese (and can also communicate in french reasonably well thanks to 5 years of it back in high school) but there was a time where english dominated portuguese in my mind, because I just wasn't practicing it much. Portuguese currently seems to dominate slightly, but I believe it comes in phases now given that I currently use both on a regular basis.

I remember that learning French was initially a nightmare for me. I just couldn't get to grips with the language, to the point that my French teacher called my mother to school to complain about my "ineptitude" and "lack of effort". I kept going nevertheless, and am now happy I learned it because it made learning other foreign languages apparently much easier (I'm currently learning some Mandarin and some German and I'm not having half the difficulties I had when I learned French). It seems to have made my mind more flexible and more receptive to other languages.


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## Philippa

xarruc said:


> ...I found that my brain only had space for two languages: Foreign and English...


I agree with this!! I learned French at school for many years and then spent a couple of months in France as an au pair before university and reached a pretty good standard. When I started Spanish I wanted to use French words and pronunciation all the time. Now it's reversed and the 'foreign' is all Spanish. If I try to say something (very simple!) in French I have to really concentrate to not pronounce it the Spanish way and not to use any Spanish words. It's a shame my brain has this limited capacity!!
As Jeedade says my passive understanding of French hasn't suffered so much.
And the Latin I knew has long flown my nest too  
Saludos
Philippa


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## Fitzcarraldo

At school I had no problem switching among English, Gaelic and French. Perhaps it helped that all three languages come from three different families.
Later on, (i.e. now) I found the French was a great help in starting to learn Spanish. However I'm a bit scared to learn any Italian right now: it might be a little too close to Spanish and could end up confusing me.


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## Reigh

I find my French - which I'm studying for 8 years now - interfering with my German dialect, that is, my mother tongue, more and more the last months. This is really strange because I've never been to France for a long time...

English, on the other hand doesn't interfere at all with it and hardly when talking French, though I have been learning English for 10 years now. Then again, English heavily interferes with the way I express things in Standard German and together with the influence of the dialect, my spoken German suffers a lot...

I often can't help thinking in French at home - it never happens outside - and since no one at home understands French it sometimes takes some time for me to answer because I realise I am about to say something in French and then have to stop completely and force myself to do it in my German dialect (which we're talking only in our family and with the neighbours).

Perhaps it is because some sounds in our dialect are closer to French than to Standard German and this kind of lowers the barrier between the languages...


Another thing - which is perhaps funnier - is that my studying Japanese has influenced the way I pronounce names from foreign languages I don't know, but that is harmless, I think


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## Outsider

Setwale_Charm said:


> Do you often find that picking up new languages becomes detrimental to the ones you have studied before and to what extent? Do you find it a big problem when one language begins to "blot out" the other and what you used to know well just slips off your memory and you now seem unable to detach yourself mentally from the structures of the "new" language?


I have never felt this. However, I began learning each of the few languages I speak when I was fairly young, still a teenager. It may be different when you start later.



Setwale_Charm said:


> And does it ever so happen that you feel your native language is suffering too?


Only in the sense that occasionally I find myself using grammatical calques of English in Portuguese. But not very often.


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## Athaulf

Outsider said:


> I have never felt this. However, I began learning each of the few languages I speak when I was fairly young, still a teenager. It may be different when you start later.



I started learning Spanish when I was 26, and I didn't notice any interference with the other languages at that age either.


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## Cache

In my opinion, some of us have space for only two languages and others for three ones. If someones start learning another language (having three), it may lose knowledge of one of the others.

What I'd like to know if what languages interfere more....I am Argentinian and my native tongue is Spanish. English is everywhere so I think both will never "go away"....but What would happen if I start learning French, German, Italian or Portuguese? If anyone knows, please let me know


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## PuntaGallinas

My natives languages (english and spanish) never suffer because of the learned ones (italian and french)....but between italian and french!!!oh my! I used to have italian class in the morning and french in the afternoon and I would be in full italian mode! et/e and a loooot of problems with MAIS/MA and il/lui

Ive had friends that have this problem with french..apparently italian kicks it out everytime...Its a pity because I can retain italian much better than french...


In terms of spelling, sometimes I think that if one is a good speller in your native language you will be a good speller all around. This is my case. 

Yet if you are a poor speller o "midly dyslexic" (which is what it feels like!!) in your native tongues than that will NOT get any better by adding more languages to the mix.


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## John-Paul

You also have to consider that languages are constantly changing. The Dutch I left behind 11 years ago is not the same as the language they speak and write today. But if I would start focussing on keeping up with my first language I'd get behind in my second language, not to mention number three and four. It's like holding a nest of young kittens in your arms; you grab onto one and another escapes. Although I am writing in two languages I don't know if I'm able to reach my literary Mt.Olympus.


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## pontchartrain

Knowing Spanish helped me learn French. The vocabulary and pronunciations are quite different, but the grammar rules are almost identical. German was completely different, so there was no competition. However, Italian and Spanish push each other out of the way because they are so similar. . . and I'm not the only person I have heard express this opinion.


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## képi

Personally, my native tongue is Spanish, and learning English definitely affected it in a rather negative way, but taking another Romance Language, French, did the exact opposite. Learning French made my Spanish a lot better.


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## tvdxer

I've had a little bit of L2-L3 interference - for example, I started thinking "sound" in Spanish was _sueno _rather than _sonido_ because of Italian _suono_.


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## Cache

So, we conclude that if you are, for example,  a native Spanish speaker, it is easier to learn French and the latter does not interfere in the former, although almost all the native speakers do not know grammar rules of their tongue?


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## Philippa

PuntaGallinas said:


> In terms of spelling, sometimes I think that if one is a good speller in your native language you will be a good speller all around. This is my case.
> Yet if you are a poor speller o "midly dyslexic" (which is what it feels like!!) in your native tongues than that will NOT get any better by adding more languages to the mix.


I am a fairly poor speller in my native English (but still learning - I've learned colleague, dictionary and thank you from the foros  ), but quite a good speller in Spanish (partly because it's much more logical and also because I took a lot of trouble with it, especially when I started posting in WR). It's nice to be good at spelling one language! But, perhaps a bit like Benjy, if I spend lots of time reading and writing Spanish I start wanting to spell English words in Spanish ways e.g. fotos
P


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## Thomsen

xarruc said:


> If found this. I studied French until 16 at school and never achieved any level to be proud of. Then dabbled in Spanish at university. I found that my brain only had space for two languages: Foreign and English. My brain knew it was speaking foreign and so would choose to put a French word in instead of a Spanish one if I didnt know it.


 
I remember reading that the brain may processe native languages and foreign languages in different parts.  I think age of learning was the main criteria as opposed to level of ability.  Here we go: http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/second-language3


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## divinelight

My family is Azeri but we mostly speak Russian at home and that was the first language i ever learned. However, at an early age I started learning English and Turkish. Since Azeri and Turkish are so similar, it helped me understand Azeri better, but everytime I want to speak Azeri now I involuntarily end up speaking Turkish. So that I believe is quite unfortunate. As with suffering, any language suffers if not sufficiently used. Lately I have been using English more than any other language and I find it sometimes much easier to explain myself in English now than in Russian or Turkish.


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## panjabigator

I sometimes find certain expresions fleeting in one language and abundant in the other.  I tried to express "stomping" today in English and resorted to the Hindi /dam dam/.  English is my first language.


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## gaer

I have two different problems.

1) Although reading a great deal in German has actually expanded my English vocabulary and has made me more aware of the structure and grammar of English, I do get stuck at times. I haven't really lost anything, but if I think of a German word first, it may take a while before the English word suddenly pops back into my head.

2) Italian blocks Spanish for me. It drives me CRAZY. I only know Italian for musical terms, but the moment I think of a word like "dolce", "dulce" goes right out of my mind. Many of the most important words for directions in music, which are Italian, are very similar to words in Spanish.

Gaer


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## Cache

Cache said:


> So, we conclude that if you are, for example,  a native Spanish speaker, it is easier to learn French and the latter does not interfere in the former, although almost all the native speakers do not know grammar rules of their tongue?



Am I right?

At the beginning of the last decade, Argentina was one of the most powerful countries in the world. Lots of Italians, Spaniards, German, etc people came on account of poverty or due to wars in Europe. My grandmother is Italian and she has lived here for about fifty years and still has the Italian accent and does not know how to say some words in Spanish . That shows how the relation between Italian and Spanish is.


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## CrazyArcher

Being a native Russian speaker, I started to study English when I was 5 or something, but it didn't progress significantly in my childhood, only an above-average schoolkid level, for my shame. My family and me moved to Israel when I was 12 or 13, and I found Hebrew very systematic. Being immersed in the language I learnt it in 2-3 years to the point of absolute fluency. I resumed studying English actively as well, and nowadays I probably think in English most of time. 
I have little communication in Russian nowadays, except talking with my family, and it did suffer to a certain point (sometimes I don't remember how to say some obscure word), but I'm trying to maintain it by reading Russian books here and there.
So, I know 3 langauges almost perfectly (sounds boastful, but it's something I can be truly proud of), and I'm thinking about picking the 4th one. Norwegian has fascinated me lately, but I can find no resources, except some brief dictionaries...  Can anyone point me in the right direction?


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## Derwin

I am currently studying in Spain. Since I have been here, my native language (English) has gotten a bit worse in the following ways: Spelling is worse (I try to spell things like they are spelled in Spanish) and I forget words. I also find myself having to translate my thoughts back from Spanish into English sometimes.
I also took a course of German here in Spain. Learning a 3rd language through my 2nd language was alot of fun. I didn't find learning German to make my English or Spanish worsen... it actually helped me understand the underlying structure of languages better!


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## Setwale_Charm

And what about the accent? Do you find you cannot adjust your mouth to pronounce things in your language after you have spoken another one for a long time? Do you find that your intonation is affected?


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## Derwin

Hmmm... good question. I find myself pronouncing certain english names in Spanish, just because people here don't understand when I say it with correct English pronunciation. But I find it hardest to overcome my strong American accent to cope with Spanish accents.
Although, when learning German, I spoke more like a Spaniard trying to speak German than an American learning German


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## Athaulf

Setwale_Charm said:


> And what about the accent? Do you find you cannot adjust your mouth to pronounce things in your language after you have spoken another one for a long time? Do you find that your intonation is affected?



Definitely not.  After a few years of living in Canada, I haven't even changed the hideously distorted ways in which we pronounce the English loanwords in Croatian (and not just loanwords, but also the English personal and band names, titles of songs, movies, etc.). 

I noticed only one slight change in my Croatian in recent years: since I moved from Croatia to Canada, I've been using Croatian far less for any formal purposes; I've used it almost exclusively with my Croatian friends here and for the phone calls home.  Thus, the influence of the literary language on my speaking has diminished and I speak Croatian in a somewhat more vulgar and folkish way.  However, I can still easily switch into the formal mode when necessary.


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## Trina

xarruc said:


> If found this. I studied French until 16 at school and never achieved any level to be proud of. Then dabbled in Spanish at university. I found that my brain only had space for two languages: Foreign and English. My brain knew it was speaking foreign and so would choose to put a French word in instead of a Spanish one if I didnt know it.[...]


I can relate to this.
English is my first language. (Russian actually was my mother-tongue but is just about non-existent since learning English at age 5). I learnt French (6 years) and German (4 years) at high school. Since then, I have started learning Italian and am trying to rekindle French and German. Basically it is, for me, English or a Foreign jumble.
Last year, when I travelled to Germany, I had a helluva time trying to keep French words out. In Italy, French again intruded.
Basically, I think *the strongest second language takes control* and for me, that is French.


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## Lugubert

In adulthood, keeping proficency in a language is a function of how much you continue to be exposed to it. The amount of interference between languages is probably very individual and for me, it can vary between words more than being systematic between languages. I can't remember any examples, but there are cases when I want an expression in a language, and the first thing that pops up is a word/expression from a totally unrelated language, because I struggled with that one more than with the one I wanted. For the next groping for words in even the next sentence, the automatics might yield a word from yet another unrelated language. (Interference between closely related languages is of course a common phenomenon, like several posters have pointed out.)

Generally, I think that the more, the better. If you have learned (or at least tried to learn) many languages, you hopefully get more proficient in learning languages.


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## Sallyb36

panjabigator said:


> I sometimes find certain expresions fleeting in one language and abundant in the other.  I tried to express "stomping" today in English and resorted to the Hindi /dam dam/.  English is my first language.



This is what I find, sometimes I cannot find a suitable expression in English to express what I want to say but I know it in Spanish, or vice versa.


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## Trina

This thread has given me hope. Before, I saw this confusion of languages as a negative, undesirable thing. Although I would dearly love to be fluent in every language I attempt, I can now relax a little, knowing that when I travel and speak a mixture of tongues (in the one sentence!), there are others there who will understand me, and quite possibly reply in the same "mixed" tongue.


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## capsi

In India,we use lots of english words while speaking in our native language and thats very common not only in cities or town even vilages; in the cities people talk a mix language. as Bengali is my mother tounge,i also know english and hindi and most of the indians who went to school do know 2-3 languages [english is must] tend to speak what we call Hinglish[hindi+english] or their mother tounge mixed with 30-40% english words.

and it does have a bad effect that, most of the terms we use in english may be sometime we dont remember the native terms.


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## divinelight

Setwale_Charm said:


> And what about the accent? Do you find you cannot adjust your mouth to pronounce things in your language after you have spoken another one for a long time? Do you find that your intonation is affected?


 
My ear is well trained to pick up on different accents, and I usually try to imitate the proper pronunciation of the language that I am speaking. I've been living in the States for 4 years, and I've been told that I speak almost like a native speaker. But I do find that it affects my native language (Russian), as I've also been told that I am developing a slight accent in Russian now. Besides I forget to "russify" certain American names, so sometimes I say them with the correct American pronunciation when I'm speaking Russian.


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## gaer

Setwale_Charm said:


> And what about the accent? Do you find you cannot adjust your mouth to pronounce things in your language after you have spoken another one for a long time? Do you find that your intonation is affected?


I have difficulty with "American" names that look German and remind me of German words, for example: "Spielberg".

It's also very hard for me to say "Schwarzenegger" in the normal American way. 

Gaer


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## batka

In my case the languages I learn doesn't really influence each other (unless I'm using one of them and then suddenly have to switch to the other) as much as my native tongue...I usually don't get them mixed up, when I'm speaking English I speak English, when French - French, the same goes for Japanese, but I often find myself adding foreign words to my everyday speech, and not because I don't remember the word in Polish (that happens very rarely), but mostly because I kind of form sentences that way...o.o" (That's silly, I know. xD") or because I just got used to saying this one particular word in a particular case (like "oishii" when I'm eating something really tasty 

Also, now when I have much more contact with French (because I'm studying it) I sometimes have a small block on English pronunciation, but then again French is helping me with the spelling if the English word derives from French.

And about accent:
when I was once reading something out loud in English and then quickly switched to Polish I forgot to switch the accent too and it sounded really stupid. xD"

And I also still can't pronounce French "r"...o.o"


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## Bespelled

I speak 6 languages and have been learning German for a couple of months, so I am a case-study of interference problems. 

In short, it was more or less OK as long as there were 5. My Turkish (4th) and my Spanish (5th) was the first case of interference, albeit a mild one: I can’t switch easily between the two and they used to compete with each other for my memory. 

The REAL problems started when I learnt Italian (my 6th, and with my native Romanian my 3rd Romance language). I had progressed very rapidly in Spanish and used to be very proud of it as I could speak rapidly, understand almost everything including jargon and had a natural instinct for grammar, syntax and expressions (courtesy of my Romanian).

My Italian progressed hyper-fast as well but…at the expense of my Spanish: from the very initial stages it bloated out Spanish words, destroyed my fluency, wrecked my pronunciation, somewhat confounded my grammar and killed my natural instinct, although initially I was still taking a Spanish course.

When I practice some Spanish I can put it together in a relatively short time, but then my Italian suffers a lot. In short…it’s a full-fledged war between those two. 

Also I now find it more problematic to speak fluently in any language whatsoever! After the 6th one I find I sometimes have problems even with languages I use a lot. However, my native tongue never suffered much from my other languages. 

Don’t even get me started on my pronunciations!


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## Bespelled

Let me put Setwale_Charm's question a bit more practically. 

Has anybody successfully tackled interference problems between languages? Especially between languages that resemble each other? Especially between Romance languages? (read Spanish and Italian : ok, now it's official: a combination between these two is explosive! ) 

Can anybody recomend some useful tecniques? I'd be really grateful for any advice in this regard.


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## divinelight

Bespelled said:


> Let me put Setwale_Charm's question a bit more practically.
> 
> Has anybody successfully tackled interference problems between languages? Especially between languages that resemble each other? Especially between Romance languages? (read Spanish and Italian : ok, now it's official: a combination between these two is explosive! )
> 
> Can anybody recomend some useful tecniques? I'd be really grateful for any advice in this regard.


 
You are absolutely right that two languages that resemble each other can be mutually destructive. I personally think it has a lot do with which language you learned first. As I said before, my family is Azeri but I was more exposed to Turkish as I lived in Turkey during my teen years. So now when I try to speak Azeri, whatever things I knew from my childhood are just wiped out and I can't help speaking Turkish. My mother, on the other hand, spoke Azeri all her life and when we lived in Turkey she could not speak proper Turkish, because she was so used to Azeri. She just could not let go of it. She was understood by Turks most of the time, but she never picked up the "Turkey" Turkish that I speak.


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## Cache

At this point we come across another question: How can a person learn more than three languages, in a decent way ( I mean, not making a lot mistakes, modest vocabulary and being able to understand natives)????


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## Amewire

I'll say that there have been occasions where I find that I mix languages up.  When I started learning Korean (my 6th language) I began having problems counting from 1-100 in Korean.  I would start off fine up until the number 10 and then I would start counting in Cantonese or Mandarin and sometimes in Spanish.  It annoyed me to no end, especially with Korean having two different numbering systems.  I also had problems with mixing German (my 7th language) and English.  German pronunciation is more consistent than English and I sometimes read English with German pronunciation.  Usual problems for me are seeing 'll' and automatically pronouncing it the Spanish way and seeing a 'j' really messes me up because the difference in pronunciation in English, Spanish and German.  The biggest problem however, is when I speak perfectly in English, but using German or Vietnamese syntax.  It's very embarrassing.

Overall though, I would say the benefits of learning a second language far outweighs the costs.


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## panjabigator

Would you say that adequate dedication to languages is the key to over comming these mix ups or are the bound to happen to even the most fluentist of speakers?


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## Amewire

panjabigator:  I'd say they are bound to happen although I think the more fluent you are with each language, it becomes increasingly rare to mix those languages up.


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## Setwale_Charm

Bespelled said:


> Let me put Setwale_Charm's question a bit more practically.
> 
> Has anybody successfully tackled interference problems between languages? Especially between languages that resemble each other? Especially between Romance languages? (read Spanish and Italian : ok, now it's official: a combination between these two is explosive! )
> 
> Can anybody recomend some useful tecniques? I'd be really grateful for any advice in this regard.


 
 Well, not only. I myself have problems "distinguishing" or rather separating Scandinavian languages, Dutch and German, Czech and Polish, and especially, Czech and Slovak. Plus, I think, Spanish and Portuguese are even closer to each other han Spanish and Italian.


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## divinelight

panjabigator said:


> Would you say that adequate dedication to languages is the key to over comming these mix ups or are the bound to happen to even the most fluentist of speakers?


 

Yes absolutely! The more you practice a language and the more you are immersed in it, the likely you are to develop fluency or at least a decent knowledge (but that again might happen at the expense of other languages if you neglect those in the process).


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