# language-learning glitches



## Amityville

Have you ever suffered from these:-

1. Through tiredness I guess this happens. You are in mid-conversation in the language you are learning and all of a sudden your brain slips a gear or stalls completely and the person becomes a talking head, just noise issuing from their mouth.

2. You are so busy registering a new word that you lose the thread of the conversation or miss a direct question. 

3. Swearing seems a lot less bad. There is no instinctive shock as in the native language, they are just words. 

4. Really have to guard against this one. You need to use a word you just don't know so use an approximate or the best you have instead eg noir instead of penombre in French. That's ok but then you continue to use it in later situations, even though you have since looked up the word, because it has somehow hard-wired itself into your circuits.

These mechanisms do get less or go away with time and practice but it has helped me to be aware of them.

I wonder too for those of you who are FULLY bilingual, are you able to absorb information which is being delivered in the background without really listening ?
Eg television on whilst you are talking to someone, or two conversations going on in the same room ?

Maybe it's just me, brain not as agile as it was, but my daughter (18) seems to know what I'm talking about - so maybe it's genetic


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## touaregsand

Yes to all.

I am fully bilingual in Korean and English, no accent in either language. I moved to the States when I was five years old. I think this is why I am able to speak like a native in both languages and can think in both. I asked my husband who is a native French speaker if he ever thinks in English and he replied that he NEVER does. He cannot *think* in English.

Yes, I can absorb background information in English and Korean without really listening.


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## Benjy

i wouldn't  classify myself as bilingual, but i have days when i think in french and others in english. listening to either in the background seems the same. i have however noticed most of the things you talk about. the talking head thng happens in english as well though. it tends to happen mostly in lectures  its all a question of exposure. i started pretty late i guess with french (20).


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## Amityville

Oh yes, come to think of it it does (talking heads) And that reminds me of another one, once it has started happening in the language you are learning it happens more frequently in your native language too. It is probably to do with that famous concept 'getting your ear in' - your ear is attuned to one or other language and sometimes there is a delay switching between them. Also if you are a debutant, your native language ear chips in unasked at times. And yet another thing, this may be very quirky. Spelling. I am a good speller but I have noticed a growing tendency in myself, re-reading something I have written, a post for instance. I write something that sounds like the word I meant. One example 'idea' for 'eye'. Am I being taken over by alien forces or is it some kind of interlingual conflict. Not worth analysing too closely but I think it is incompatible subconscious spelling thingies coming into play.
Thanks for that re things in the background, being able to do that I reckon is a milestone. It's terrible to think you're too old if you start at 20 to be able to make it over completely but you have passed the background milestone, can't be bad.  Is your accent imperceptible in French ? (How about recording it ...)


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## touaregsand

Come to think of after reading Amityville's post, learning other languages as affected my 'natural' ability to spell in English. I do the same thing, spell words that sound like the word I meant. I didn't do this before. I'm also beginning to question my syntax.


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## Kelly B

When I was pretty close to bilingual (after 4 mo in France, which was long enough ago that I'm not bilingual anymore) the gear-changing effect was very pronounced. If people I'd only spoken French with in the past suddenly switched to English, I had trouble understanding until it "clicked," because I was still thinking and processing in French. And I was taken aback by the accent overlaying their English -- their French was so good (well, of course it was!).
And it threw my English grammar off -- when I came back, my first inclination was to structure my sentences as in French.
The fun part was at a group dinner when another English speaker, not knowing my origin, complemented me on my English after the conversation switched languages. And the Frenchman who said that he thought he could tell that I had an accent, but couldn't believe that I was American. German, maybe, but American? surely not.


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## Amityville

You are de-constructing, touaregsand. If it's been automatic, second-nature to you, thinking about it can be fatal. But leads to a better understanding in the end, we hope.


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## Amityville

Hi Kelly, nice to know the gear-slip is familiar to you, I'm not alone then.
Speaking French with other English people, a further complication. 
When speaking to a French person who knew English, did you find there was always a limited time of swapping between the two languages, whilst you each assessed the other's level, before plumping for the language which between the two of you there was the greatest cumulative aptitude ? It doesn't take very long usually does it sometimes pretty well immediate.


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## lsp

I can relate to them all. #1 & #2 still often happen in English, too. #3 made me laugh - there's no venting that compares to cursing in your native language. I don't claim to be fully bilingual, but absorbing the background conversations without effort gets easier over time with practice, if I am immersed in the other language for an extended period of time, but can still be "willed away" more easily than English.


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## f_zadi

Yes to all your points, 1-4. These questions are interesting. I was taught British English in France and I worked in the UK, England and Scotland, for awhile before moving to the States. I met my wife within a few months. The first thing she noticed was that I spoke American English (with a French accent of course). Aside from the way I pronounced 'can  and can't.'

I don't consider myself to be fully bilingual. I teach cooking in English, but when I read recipes, methods and lecture notes in English I procees them into French in my mind. When I've visted Algeria and was speaking Arabic daily for months at a time I was still thinking in French. I can understand English and Algerian (Maghrebi) Arabic when listening to background dialogue without paying direct attention. But I always think in French.


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## Amityville

f_zadi, your wife noticed that you spoke AE - does that mean you pick up accents and so on very quickly, given that your English up till then was BE ?
Interesting what you say about French remaining the language that you think in. With anything technical, I too find that I have to slow right down and go hyper-literal. This is the other side of the coin from where you don't get all the words but go with the flow anyway, using the words you do know as stepping-stones, trusting that it will come clear - you can sometimes find yourself hanging in space doing this ! 
But with something more subjective, say a difficult letter, I go through several steps, identify the ideas as they bubble up in their primordial pre-language state then clothe them in English, and then translate. Painfully slow. I don't seem to think in any language, it is more visual than verbal, but after that, English comes in quickly. Just practice and familiarity I guess - with a subject that has been new to me in France, I know the French words and sometimes struggle to say the thing in English.


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## f_zadi

Yes I do pick up accents very quickly and I do pretty good impersonations of different accents. 

Another thing is that I am not that much of a 'thinker' with words. I chose the perfect profession for this, cooking. I can spend all day on my feet, working with my hands, looking, smelling and tasting food without thinking in words. 

I can also sit and not think about anything at all, comes quite naturally. Others might call it a meditative state. 

Not surprisingly, I rarely get stressed.


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## Amityville

I think you are very lucky, f zadi. Do you learn your languages intuitively,more like a child, do you resort to grammar books at all ?


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## f_zadi

Like a child. I am a big kid. I find that reading out loud from the newspaper or literature helps me more than grammar books. I practiced speaking out loud in English for about a year before I started teaching.

As I've gotten older my attention span for structured learning as increased. When I was in culinary school years ago a teacher of mine wrote, "he cannot sit in front of a computer, it makes him crazy." Of course now I am a culinary instructor myself and I have to sit in front of the computer inputting grades, menus, recipes and methods.


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## solecito

Very interesting thread, Hi everyone, When I speak english, I think in english, same with spanish, I was 15 when I moved to the US and started learning english, and I do notice that after a couple of days of speaking only english(I visit the US at least 8-10 times a year) my brain gets tired, and my tongue gives up, my pronunciation gets bad, in my mind I catch everything but I spend most if my time speaking spanish and sometimes I remember certain words in english but forget the translation in spanish.
When I chat on line with my son and we write only spanish, he gets tired and after a while he tells me "OK  I'm going back to english 'cause my brain is smoking already" I guess that happens when you use a lot more one language than the other. Funny this never happened to me when I lived there, I could speak english all day without any problem.


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## timpeac

Kelly B said:
			
		

> When I was pretty close to bilingual (after 4 mo in France, which was long enough ago that I'm not bilingual anymore) the gear-changing effect was very pronounced. If people I'd only spoken French with in the past suddenly switched to English, I had trouble understanding until it "clicked," because I was still thinking and processing in French. And I was taken aback by the accent overlaying their English -- their French was so good (well, of course it was!).
> And it threw my English grammar off -- when I came back, my first inclination was to structure my sentences as in French.
> The fun part was at a group dinner when another English speaker, not knowing my origin, complemented me on my English after the conversation switched languages. And the Frenchman who said that he thought he could tell that I had an accent, but couldn't believe that I was American. German, maybe, but American? surely not.


 
This reminds me of an experience I often had going across to France on holiday from time to time. I often found that French people said they found it difficult to say which country I came from but thought from my accent speaking French I was probably "Dutch". This was said to me on several different occasions by different people, and I started to get paranoid - what was it about my accent speaking French that made it sound as if I was Dutch, and why did everyone agree on so specific a country as Holland?

Then it clicked that what they really meant was "German" (the German for "German" being "Deutsch") and were mixing up the English "Dutch" with the German "Deutsch"! A French person told me that the French consider the Germans to speak French very well and the English not at all so I was to take this as a compliment!


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## Amityville

If you were speaking French allemand & hollandais would have avoided the confusion.  

They thought you were German, so were saying Deutsch to show willing in what they thought was your language ?


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## joensuu

When i came the first time for a long time in a english speaking country, it was really difficult to think in english. I had lectures in english, spoke and read only english but during a few months continue to think in french. I think it take me at least 3 months to begin to think in english. 
But now, it's the second trip and it come easily in english after a few days.


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## timpeac

Amityville said:
			
		

> If you were speaking French allemand & hollandais would have avoided the confusion.
> 
> They thought you were German, so were saying Deutsch to show willing in what they thought was your language ?


 
No - sorry for the confusion, they said in _English _something along the lines of "Ware you from? England? Oh I would have thought you were Dutch!". That sort of thing.


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## PSIONMAN

It seems strange no one has mentioned numbers. I am a long way from being bi-lingual, but when I read numbers in Spanish they just get switched to English and I have a real problem hearing numbers in Spanish (but it's easier in shops now that we longer have hundreds and thousands of pesetas for quite small purchases). 

I also noticed that a Chinese colleague, who speaks perfect (if accented) English does a double take with numbers - I can see her process them in her mind (and fingers)

My question is

In which language do you do maths? If you have to add up a column of numbers, or even worse, multiplication and division


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## timpeac

PSIONMAN said:
			
		

> It seems strange no one has mentioned numbers. I am a long way from being bi-lingual, but when I read numbers in Spanish they just get switched to English and I have a real problem hearing numbers in Spanish (but it's easier in shops now that we longer have hundreds and thousands of pesetas for quite small purchases).
> 
> I also noticed that a Chinese colleague, who speaks perfect (if accented) English does a double take with numbers - I can see her process them in her mind (and fingers)
> 
> My question is
> 
> In which language do you do maths? If you have to add up a column of numbers, or even worse, multiplication and division


 
Oh I completely agree. I am a long way from bilingual but can hold "chatty" conversation in French without too much difficulty, but as soon as it comes to numbers - no chance. It's particularly difficult in terms of French (as opposed to say Spanish) because they express number such as 72 as "sixty-twelve" and 98 as "four-twenty-eighteen" at which my brain just switches off!


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## VenusEnvy

Amityville said:
			
		

> 1. Through tiredness I guess this happens. You are in mid-conversation in the language you are learning and all of a sudden your brain slips a gear or stalls completely and the person becomes a talking head, just noise issuing from their mouth.


Of course! I often suffer from this when speaking in my native tongue!



			
				Amityville said:
			
		

> 2. You are so busy registering a new word that you lose the thread of the conversation or miss a direct question.


I do this sometimes. I concentrate too hard on learning, and forget to just listen!



			
				Amityville said:
			
		

> 3. Swearing seems a lot less bad. There is no instinctive shock as in the native language, they are just words.


I am so glad that someone else feels the same way! Curse words in Spanish don't carry so much stigma to me. They are just sounds, words, letters. This is how I used to feel.  But, after testing them out on friends, their reactions will forever be engrained in my brain!  After hearing my Spanish-speaking friends use them often (Yes, they are potty-mouths), I am beginning to feel their stigma.



			
				Amityville said:
			
		

> I wonder too for those of you who are FULLY bilingual, are you able to absorb information which is being delivered in the background without really listening ?
> Eg television on whilst you are talking to someone, or two conversations going on in the same room ?


At times I am able to do this. Just a few months ago, I began responding in Spanish without having to think too much. That is to say, when someone asks me a question in English, I simply say my answer, without thinking about what I am saying. When speaking Spanish, I usually pause for a second, think about what I want to say, figure out if it's correct, then say it.

A few months ago, someone asked me a question in Spanish, and I quickly said an answer. Then, I had to stop and think, "_Wait, what did I just say? What did they ask me? And, what did I say? Was that correct? Oh, it was? I didn't even have to think about it_!"


Tim: Oh yes, the numbers in French are killer!    

When saying Spanish numbers in the thousands (1,100), I want to say, "Once cien", but then I have to remember that they don't say "eleven hundred", they say "one thousand one hundred."



AHH!


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## Amityville

Yes, they are horrendous, numbers. Sometimes as part of my job I have to read out over the phone long numbers such as those on RIBs - the person I have to read them to is 'speedy' and it is hell. If there is an error, he reads them back to me at 80mph, and I am supposed to verify. Mental arithmetic also impossible - someone tells me an amount in French, I have to convert to English, then do the calculation and then translate back - they see the cogs turning, I seem to go into a trance but don't realise what I'm going through. Oh god, no wonder I've got stress and never was a maths freak anyway. Trying to be positive, it is just practice like everything else, as I dont have trouble with phone numbers any more, can scribble them down, relieve that there are only ten of them.
Re soixante dix-sept, surely surely seventy seven is more logical ? You see it instantly in your head.
The ten-second delay thing, in general when the learning manoeuvres and vocabulary lacunae keep you just behind in the conversation, reminds me of those international tv interviews where the distant interlocutor just stares vacantly long after the question has been put because of the transmission delay. Have to see the funny side, and not mind looking stupid.


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## Phryne

HI Amityville! (I'm native of Spanish and my second language is English.)

1. It happens to me in any language. As Benjy said, in school it is almost a habit. Crowds and parties used to be a problem when they all spoke English, but thankfully, not anymore.

2. I'm the opposite. I'm so used to listening and understanding anything even thought I don't know every word I hear. So, I became very lazy because now I don't look up words as much as I used to. I don't _need_ to, so I don't.  

3. Ha! Yes, it does. Some dirty words are totally harmless to me, but nevertheless, on my everyday life I do curse in English, not in Spanish.

4. I use words I'm not familiar with all the time. Many times I made a fool of myself, but I don't care. I rather learn than play safe. And I do pick up words even if I don't look them up in the dictionary or ask anybody.

This whole bilingual thing can be very annoying to me. When I'm in the States, I think, dream and curse in English, even though I'm not as proficient as I am in Spanish. When I call my mom or visit Argieland, I code switch but with some difficulty. I stutter, pause, chose the wrong words, have problems with conjugations, and hesitate a lot. According to some people I speak funny. It goes away after two weeks of continuous Spanish, but then when I come back to the US, my accent gets very thick. So I was told. I do notice that it takes me a couple of days to recuperate.

I don't have a problem with numbers since neither English nor Spanish have the same system. However, I'm terribly slow at spelling. I should practice that! 

saludos


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## Amityville

Hi Phryne, thankyou for your story, it is by and large very encouraging and it is nice to talk to people who don't pretend it's all a bed of roses ! (that's everyone who has contributed I think. It is sometimes hard to see what progress you have made, through being wrapped up in the process with the glitches continuing to come for quite a long time, with good days and bad days, and by all accounts never going away completely to the extent of being able to switch instantly between your languages when you change location. I sometimes think of what it would be like having to give up speaking French, say I went back to the UK where I wouldnt know any French people, and I know that hard as it sometimes is, I would be bereft.


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## Aupick

Amityville said:
			
		

> Trying to be positive, it is just practice like everything else, as I dont have trouble with phone numbers any more, can scribble them down, relieve that there are only ten of them.
> Re soixante dix-sept, surely surely seventy seven is more logical ? You see it instantly in your head.


Ahh, I'm jealous! After a couple of decades French numbers still get me, and I practise, I really do. When I read French texts in my head I always make a point of saying numbers, dates, etc. to myself in French to force myself to practise, but it's hard.  And whenever I'm jotting down a phone number and there's a seventy-something, I always write down a six and have to cross it out. I hear the 'soixante' and just don't think. Then the 'dix-sept' comes along, and by the time I've processed it, I've lost the rest of the number. But the really reassuring thing is a couple of weeks ago I saw a French person do exactly the same.  I was over the moon. It was like confirmation that French numbers are illogical.


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## Amityville

You have my heartfelt sympathies, Aupick, it is bad enough without soixante dix sept and the rest. I do that too, start to write 6, and scribble it out for 7, same with the 80's and 90's. Dates, yuck. We are lucky to have just had the millennium and mille neuf cent I have got wedged in my head, but any others I'm lost with.
 Belgians, I discovered, use "septante" for seventy, much better, and I got the impression they think soixante dix is a bit quaint.


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## joensuu

Aupick said:
			
		

> And whenever I'm jotting down a phone number and there's a seventy-something, I always write down a six and have to cross it out. I hear the 'soixante' and just don't think. Then the 'dix-sept' comes along, and by the time I've processed it, I've lost the rest of the number. But the really reassuring thing is a couple of weeks ago I saw a French person do exactly the same.  I was over the moon. It was like confirmation that French numbers are illogical.



No, it's english number wich are illogical  ... or at least for a french 

But the worse is Finnish number ... again this language ... But when you need more than one line to just write a number, it's too much for me!


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## Philippa

timpeac said:
			
		

> It's particularly difficult in terms of French because they express number such as 72 as "sixty-twelve" and 98 as "four-twenty-eighteen" at which my brain just switches off!





			
				Aupick said:
			
		

> And whenever I'm jotting down a phone number and there's a seventy-something, I always write down a six and have to cross it out. I hear the 'soixante' and just don't think. Then the 'dix-sept' comes along, and by the time I've processed it, I've lost the rest of the number. But the really reassuring thing is a couple of weeks ago I saw a French person do exactly the same.  I was over the moon. It was like confirmation that French numbers are illogical.





			
				Amityville said:
			
		

> Belgians, I discovered, use "septante" for seventy, much better, and I got the impression they think soixante dix is a bit quaint


I just saw this and I thought of your comments!!  


> French teachers and researchers in Japan sued outspoken Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara on Wednesday for calling French a "failed language", demanding compensation and a public apology....According to the suit, Ishihara said last October: "I have to say it is no surprise that French is disqualified as an international language because French is a language which cannot count numbers."....


And to come back to your original question, Amityville....I know exactly how you feel with nos. 1, 2 and 3!! Venus, you must have very good hispanohablante friends to be testing out their reactions with swear words!!

What about this glitch - or am I alone? When I've been reading and listening to lots and lots of Spanish and then I stop, my brain starts to randomly throw out Spanish words and phrases/they just pop into my thoughts - they're not usually connected with anything in particular and often they're not even things I was aware of trying to learn!!  

Saludos
Philippa


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## suzzzenn

I can really relate to what people have posted. Here is something odd that happened to me the other day. I was at an Albanian friend's house, and even though I was speaking English with my friend there were many people in the background speaking Albanian. He was showing me a DVD he had recently bought to help him prepare for an exam, and the narrarator suddenly switched to another language. It sounded choppy and unfamiliar. I asked him if it was Albanian and he said he had no idea what language it was. I listened again and realized it was Spanish! About half a second later my Spanish seemed to "click on" and I was able to understand every word. I was really shocked that I didn't immediately identify the Spanish, which I hear and use almost everyday!


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## meili

For #1: 

Yes! I am so so guilty with this!  And also I tend to black out especially after having conversed with a lot of Spanish speaking people (I work as a customer service translator) and the next customer is talking real fast!



For #2:

Uh-oh!  Another one.  Also when I hear a familiar but not so familiar word that I go in a trance and try to rack my brain for an equivalent in English?!  I get lost.  Like for example 'entre mete', going back to my co-agent, I said: 'intercept' instead of interfere.



For #3:

Oh no! For this part, swearings in English and Spanish has the same effect to me.  (Harsh words in my native dialect are the same with Spanish!  When I enrolled last year for Spanish lessons, I was so amazed hearing the same 'bad words' from the artists that my grandmama is using!)



For #4:

Yes, yes! I understand how you feel.  I often always succumb to filling words with other words -like using intercept with interfere  but this usually happens to me when I am speaking in Spanish.  And then after that I go and look for the right words, find its meaning, then again use the same old 'not-so-appropriate' word because I again forgot of the right 'next' one - and get 'Como? No entiendo.'    I get frustrated the whole day.



Though I say that I am bilingual in English and Spanish but is bilingual with English and Filipino.  And I have no problem shifting my attention from the person I am talking with in Tagalog and listening to the background noise in English.  I can understand both well.  But I take extra care of my Spanish, and also I think in the language I am speaking, be it Filipino, English or Spanish, that way, I spend less time thinking of what to say next.



I also have an observation:  When I speak English with a Filipino, I become conscious with my grammar, words, sentence construction (I always have this fear that I am going to be laughed at) and as a result I begin to stutter and say a lot of 'ahh... ummmm... amm...' like I have to rack my brain and think real hard for the next word to say (but I know I know what to say!).  On the other hand, my English just come and flow when I am speaking with a native English Speaker.  Same goes with Spanish.



How come?


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## Amityville

I am just catching up with the thread.

Philippa, I do sometimes have something similar, that is I wake up in the night speaking French. I see this as positive, it means the French is kicking in at a subconscious level. I think that is what must be happening to you, your brain is processing the Spanish without your conscious control.




			
				suzzzenn said:
			
		

> ....It sounded choppy and unfamiliar. I asked him if it was Albanian and he said he had no idea what language it was. I listened again and realized it was Spanish! About half a second later my Spanish seemed to "click on" and I was able to understand every word. I was really shocked that I didn't immediately identify the Spanish, which I hear and use almost everyday!


 

I have this too. With my kids, if there are only us about we speak English, no problem but if I hear it on tv which is quite rare, I get the 'talking head' syndrome even though it is my native language. It's like when you are a child and switch off boring adults' conversation.

Generally I think tv and radio can be a fine learning tool if you are interested in the subject but otherwise not because there is no onus on you to understand or reply. Nothing beats a native friend with the same sense of humour for bringing on your language.


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## Amityville

meili said:
			
		

> For #4:
> 
> Yes, yes! I understand how you feel. I often always succumb to filling words with other words -like using intercept with interfere  but this usually happens to me when I am speaking in Spanish. And then after that I go and look for the right words, find its meaning, then again use the same old 'not-so-appropriate' word because I again forgot of the right 'next' one - and get 'Como? No entiendo.'  I get frustrated the whole day.
> .....
> I also have an observation: When I speak English with a Filipino, I become conscious with my grammar, words, sentence construction (I always have this fear that I am going to be laughed at) and as a result I begin to stutter and say a lot of 'ahh... ummmm... amm...' like I have to rack my brain and think real hard for the next word to say (but I know I know what to say!). On the other hand, my English just come and flow when I am speaking with a native English Speaker. Same goes with Spanish.
> 
> How come?


 
I am glad to hear someone else also suffers from #4 - I tend to blame myself for laziness but on the other hand immersion has a lot to recommend it but there is only so much you can process, and falling short of the ideal is bound to happen. Transplanting yourself to a different culture is mind-broadening but also mind-boggling with the different protocols etc.
I am not sure how frequent it is for fellow-Filipinos to speak English together, but is there an element of competiveness there, do you tacitly measure each other up ? Feeling you are being assessed can be an instant turn-off and produce stuttering etc !


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## zazie

I recently got back from a semester in Moscow, where there were at most 20 people I spoke to in English (and more like 10 on a daily basis).  I was taking math classes in English and living with Americans, so I didn't get out of the habit of speaking English.  One time I was walking down the street and suddenly heard a couple of American tourists speaking English behind me, and just hearing this was so disorienting I almost felt dizzy.  I was still used to hearing people speaking English, but it was really strange to hear a new person speaking it.

And my French-Canadian friend in Moscow got so confused with languages that sometimes he'd subconsciously switch into French, even if he was talking to someone who only spoke English or Russian!


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## meili

Amityville said:
			
		

> I am glad to hear someone else also suffers from #4 - I tend to blame myself for laziness but on the other hand immersion has a lot to recommend it but there is only so much you can process, and falling short of the ideal is bound to happen.


 
I do as well.  Also I do not know if I am doing the right thing of totally ignoring books (in Spanish) with guidelines on grammars, tenses and conjugations and reading books, magazines, listening to music and watching hispanic movies instead.  (I guess we just have different ways of immersing ourselves to ways of improvement, or improving) 



			
				Amityville said:
			
		

> Transplanting yourself to a different culture is mind-broadening but also mind-boggling with the different protocols etc.


 
Verdad!  But also as we all say: _There is no glory without sacrifice.  _And I think you and others will agree that it is better to have our minds boggled to broaden knowledge than for it to remain idle and stagnate 



			
				Amityville said:
			
		

> I am not sure how frequent it is for fellow-Filipinos to speak English together, but is there an element of competiveness there, do you tacitly measure each other up ? Feeling you are being assessed can be an instant turn-off and produce stuttering etc !


 
We almost always speak in English, all the time.  (We also speak in _Taglish [Tagalog-English]).  _Even among friends, or family members.  There is always a need to speak in English in the Philippines.  All important documents are written in English.  Even in schools, I remember during High School, we used to  pay a certain amount (just like a fine) if caught speaking in vernacular.  (But we have a special subject in Filipino where we learn all the rules).

As an element of competitiveness.  Yes, I guess so.  And I must say that I, as one, is guilty to the crime.  (Maybe this is the case to people who have graduated or is with good education).  The most concern is that when we are speaking infront of a person who we know has a much higher education, but is of the same age, we tend to stammer.  (Or perhaps is in my case).  

Cosme to think about it:  Quizas it is also in the person's confidence. (Right?)

I stammer less now.  Thank goodness! (I am so sorry foreros.  Sometimes I just tend to argue with myself!  I need help to overcoming this one! ...New thread?)


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