Language acquisition and primary language slipping?

[ThatCyndiGirl]

Does learning a new language make your primary language skills slip for awhaile? I'm just wondering because I have been learning more French lately (actually conjugating verbes more and parsing sentences as opposed to just knowing some nouns and verbes.) and suddenly it seems like my English (my primary language) is worse! I can't find the right word or I think of two different ways to say it in English and can't decide then the words come out sounding......odd, like I can't speak a correct sentence.

 

:confused:

 

Is my brain figuring things out or do I just need to eat some coconut oil? :tongue_smilie:

[fhjmom]

I don't know that it is "slipping" necessarily, but I can relate to what you are saying. I am learning ASL and sometimes I will think in ASL instead of English (or I just "practice" in my head and think of how I would sign what I am saying), and so since my brain is thinking in a totally different grammar but I am speaking in English the words come out jumbled or parts or missing (bc in ASL there are now words like "a" and "the"). Also, sometimes the concept is so much easier to sign, but then I realize the person I am talking to doesn't know ASL so I am grasping for the English words to explain and my brain just isn't working that fast.:tongue_smilie:

 

I don't know if there is any research or "real" support to the idea, but I think I have experienced something similar.

[Rosie_0801]

I had that experience, and it was fully confirmed by a few bouts of baby brain. I've never been the same since :tongue_smilie: My younger just turned 3 so perhaps there's hope of recovery in the next few years.

 

Rosie

[felicity]

I studied Swedish in preparation to live there for a year and a half and yes, I lost my English after a while. It did come back once I stopped speaking it, but my grammar followed Swedish grammar for much longer than my vocabulary did. It was kind of weird to know how I should say something but not be able to get it out that way.

[ThatCyndiGirl]

Funny that two signers are the first to respond! My first babysitter was deaf and taught me ASL as she taught me words in English (print, obviously). My mom was and still is an ASL interpreter.

 

I guess I keep thinking about how you do not translate everything word for word, you translate IDEAS, so I think that the words are getting all jumbled up in there. :001_huh:

 

I also have been thinking a lot about how we have so many options in English (and likely in every language) in which to express one idea. Like, to say, "yes, you can do that" to grant permission you could choose any of the following:

 

Yes

That is okay.

That is fine.

It is fine by me.

I grant you permission.

I give you permission.

No problem.

I don't care.

It doesn't matter to me.

 

That must be SO confusing for people just learning English. Like, just as they memorize some new ones, the next person comes along with yet MORE ways to say it!! And I'm sure it is like that in every language.

 

When we moved to Panama I memorized the basic questions:

 

Where is it?

Where is the bathroom?

How much does this cost?

 

But, I only memorized the numbers 1-10. When they answered my "how much does this cost?" question with "99 cents" I was stymied. It seems impossible to answer every possible response.

Edited February 8, 2012 by ThatCyndiGirl

[Ibbygirl]

I don't know that it is just learning the language that does it or just maybe having acquired more than one way to say the same thing?? I grew up speaking both Spanish and English (often in the same sentence :p ) and I get blocks sometimes. Sometimes I'll be talking to someone and I will just come to a complete halt because although I'm speaking to them in English I'll suddenly find myself thinking a word in Spanish and for the life of my I won't be able to remember it in English and I'll start saying "uh, uh" trying to stall for time until I can remember the word in English. That happens to me in the reverse as well when I'm speaking Spanish so I wonder if it is just the duality of language that does it?? Dunno. It's an interesting question.

[Caitilin]

I have been told that if you learn two languages simultaneously as a child--maybe as an adult too?--that you will "file" certain kinds of ideas in one language, and certain other kinds in the other. I think this helps to explain why Ibby has to search for a word in one language when she can readily pull it up in the other. I know that when I had been taking multiple foreign languages in college, I would temporarily lose vocab in one while acquiring it in another. :001_smile:

[ThatCyndiGirl]

I don't know that it is just learning the language that does it or just maybe having acquired more than one way to say the same thing?? I grew up speaking both Spanish and English (often in the same sentence :p ) and I get blocks sometimes. Sometimes I'll be talking to someone and I will just come to a complete halt because although I'm speaking to them in English I'll suddenly find myself thinking a word in Spanish and for the life of my I won't be able to remember it in English and I'll start saying "uh, uh" trying to stall for time until I can remember the word in English. That happens to me in the reverse as well when I'm speaking Spanish so I wonder if it is just the duality of language that does it?? Dunno. It's an interesting question.

 

:lol: At the first French Club meeting I was talking to a man who holds a Ph.D in Spanish and a Master's in French. I was so frustrated trying to get the words out that I finally said, "what I'm trying to ask is, 'How do you say como se dice? in French?" :001_huh: He just smiled and told me. I couldn't even figure out how to say it this way:

 

"How do you say 'How do you say?' in French?" <--and C'mon, truth be told, that IS an odd sentence to say and write!

[ThatCyndiGirl]

I have been told that if you learn two languages simultaneously as a child--maybe as an adult too?--that you will "file" certain kinds of ideas in one language, and certain other kinds in the other. I think this helps to explain why Ibby has to search for a word in one language when she can readily pull it up in the other. I know that when I had been taking multiple foreign languages in college, I would temporarily lose vocab in one while acquiring it in another. :001_smile:

 

Thank you all! I feel a little more normal. My dh must love this language study obsession lately. It has made me rather pensive and LESS TALKATIVE since I'm trying to work it all out in my head.

 

I swear I heard him humming Simon & Garfunkle the other day. ;)

[Ibbygirl]

:lol: At the first French Club meeting I was talking to a man who holds a Ph.D in Spanish and a Master's in French. I was so frustrated trying to get the words out that I finally said, "what I'm trying to ask is, 'How do you say como se dice? in French?" :001_huh: He just smiled and told me. I couldn't even figure out how to say it this way:

 

"How do you say 'How do you say?' in French?" <--and C'mon, truth be told, that IS an odd sentence to say and write!

 

:lol: I tried learning Portuguese a few years ago and I totally gave up, mostly because I just cannot pronounce those nasal vowels. :svengo:, but also because when I would try to speak Portuguese it always came out Spanish, because they are just too closely related, kwim? It was just a jumbled mess of Spanish and Portuguese that left my Portuguese friend first like this :001_huh: and then like this :lol:. hehe I can read it though and understand a lot of it, I just can't speak it. I had a student whose mother is Brazilian and didn't speak English, she and I would have these crazy conversations where she would speak to me in Portuguese and I answered her in Spanish. :lol: :lol:

[Rosie_0801]

I tell you what is weird. The other day the expression I needed came to me in the form of a sign I don't even understand properly. I've never completely understood that sign so I don't even know if it really was the one I needed. Maybe my subconscious is better at Auslan than I am. :confused:

 

Rosie

[Ibbygirl]

I tell you what is weird. The other day the expression I needed came to me in the form of a sign I don't even understand properly. I've never completely understood that sign so I don't even know if it really was the one I needed. Maybe my subconscious is better at Auslan than I am. :confused:

 

Rosie

 

:lol::lol::lol: Rosie, I think you have the most active subconscious of any person I've ever met! :tongue_smilie::D:p

[Rosie_0801]

:lol::lol::lol: Rosie, I think you have the most active subconscious of any person I've ever met! :tongue_smilie::D:p

 

Possibly the rest of the world doesn't use you as a confessional. Keep my secrets or I shall remove myself as a source of entertainment! :glare:

 

 

:lol:

[Ibbygirl]

Possibly the rest of the world doesn't use you as a confessional. Keep my secrets or I shall remove myself as a source of entertainment! :glare:

 

 

:lol:

 

:lol::lol::lol::lol: My lips are sealed! Promise. hehehehe :p

[Heather in Neverland]

I speak Spanish fluently and I often forget, momentarily, the English word for something. When I was in college I used to take notes in class in both languages in the same sentence. I used whichever word was shorter. :D I also dream in Spanish sometimes (although not as much as I used to since I am not around it any more).

 

Interesting side note: my ds (8) who was in the U.S. from infancy to age 5 but in Malaysia from age 5 to age 8, has started using what I call "ESL speech patterns".

 

He is around kids all day for whom English is their second language and although English is his first language he is starting to sound like it is his second language.

 

Am I making sense? :tongue_smilie:

 

For instance, a common ESL thing is to mix up your prepositions. He is doing it now, too, even though he never used to. It's kind of weird! :lol: I feel like I am re-teaching him English!

 

 

.

[regentrude]

I have never had that experience. Maybe it is because I learned my two foreign languages as a child. I did not notice it when my children were *learning* English either - their loss of native language skills stems form prolongued living in an English speaking environment.

But from just studying a foreign language? Nope. Even when I now work on French, I do not notice it affecting my English and German skills.

Maybe my brain works differently because I am bilingual?

[TheReader]

:lol: I tried learning Portuguese a few years ago and I totally gave up, mostly because I just cannot pronounce those nasal vowels. :svengo:, but also because when I would try to speak Portuguese it always came out Spanish, because they are just too closely related, kwim? It was just a jumbled mess of Spanish and Portuguese that left my Portuguese friend first like this :001_huh: and then like this :lol:. hehe I can read it though and understand a lot of it, I just can't speak it. I had a student whose mother is Brazilian and didn't speak English, she and I would have these crazy conversations where she would speak to me in Portuguese and I answered her in Spanish. :lol: :lol:

 

We have the same experience when talking to DH's mom! Too funny. He speaks to her in Portuguese, she answers him in Spanish, and they get it all sorted, LOL. (they do both speak English too....)

 

As to the OP, I've definitely experienced it as I've been learning/living Portuguese. There are words I recall more easily in Portuguese than in English, and I definitely sometimes mess up the syntax of a sentence in English.

 

Makes for some interesting conversations at times. The worst for me is the first few days of a trip to the US (and then the first few days back in BR), when my brain is really struggling to switch over. Which is crazy, because we use English at home, but still that transition is nuts and I know I sound like I'm relearning English during that time.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Does learning a new language make your primary language skills slip for awhaile? I'm just wondering because I have been learning more French lately (actually conjugating verbes more and parsing sentences as opposed to just knowing some nouns and verbes.) and suddenly it seems like my English (my primary language) is worse! I can't find the right word or I think of two different ways to say it in English and can't decide then the words come out sounding......odd, like I can't speak a correct sentence.

 

:confused:

 

Is my brain figuring things out or do I just need to eat some coconut oil? :tongue_smilie:

 

Absolutely. If you spend a lot of time in the new language environment it can actually get pretty extreme. And feeling muddled isn't unusual.

 

There were some things that I'd done so much in German that I didn't know how to express them in English. For example, I found myself mentally translating my canned explanation of homeschooling from German into English when I was back with other Americans. That was pretty weird.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

:lol: I tried learning Portuguese a few years ago and I totally gave up, mostly because I just cannot pronounce those nasal vowels. :svengo:, but also because when I would try to speak Portuguese it always came out Spanish, because they are just too closely related, kwim? It was just a jumbled mess of Spanish and Portuguese that left my Portuguese friend first like this :001_huh: and then like this :lol:. hehe I can read it though and understand a lot of it, I just can't speak it. I had a student whose mother is Brazilian and didn't speak English, she and I would have these crazy conversations where she would speak to me in Portuguese and I answered her in Spanish. :lol: :lol:

 

I find that when I'm working with a new language, I pull out all sorts of words from languages I've studied in the past. My German is pretty solid because I studied it longest and deepest. I get it mixed with other languages less (though I'm appalled at how much I've forgotten).

 

But put me in France and all the sudden I'm remembering Russian words. Put me in Japan and a bunch of French will come out. It's annoying and unpredictable.

[Ester Maria]

I have been told that if you learn two languages simultaneously as a child--maybe as an adult too?--that you will "file" certain kinds of ideas in one language, and certain other kinds in the other. I think this helps to explain why Ibby has to search for a word in one language when she can readily pull it up in the other. I know that when I had been taking multiple foreign languages in college, I would temporarily lose vocab in one while acquiring it in another. :001_smile:

Take all of this with a grain of salt, I am no expert, but here is how they explained it to me.

 

There are two "files" - one is for native language(s), one is for languages learned after that critical period in early childhood.

When certain kinds of brain traumas happen, there are situations of people temporarily losing one file - thus all those weird stories of a brain injury after which one could only speak foreign languages for a while, etc.

 

Sometimes the brain classifies as native languages also those which are actually foreign, but there was a continuous and long-term exposure to them in early childhood. I am pretty confident based on some personal anecdotal experiences that I have two or even three "native languages" in that sense, even if I was never typically bilingual, but I see that my relationship with certain languages is just qualitatively different. All of those, however, are languages I learned early in life. I do not have such a relationship with English, in spite of having used it extensively for many years in daily functioning. I have simply never internalized it that deep, even if I technically know it better than a language I did.

 

The native language can get affected in these ways you describe, but it typically happens with aadults only in cases of extreme immersion and almost total functioning in a foreign language. Or, perhaps, if they do not know how to "shift" very well - professional interpreters are masters at "shifting", it is a skill that can be learned like any other, because they need quick reactions in real time without confusion and mixing. It is very exhausting. Typically, the better you are at all your languages and the more experience you have with shifting and functioning equally in both, the LESS you mix, lose words, etc., although there are still awkward moments.

[Ibbygirl]

We have the same experience when talking to DH's mom! Too funny. He speaks to her in Portuguese, she answers him in Spanish, and they get it all sorted, LOL. (they do both speak English too....)

 

As to the OP, I've definitely experienced it as I've been learning/living Portuguese. There are words I recall more easily in Portuguese than in English, and I definitely sometimes mess up the syntax of a sentence in English.

 

Makes for some interesting conversations at times. The worst for me is the first few days of a trip to the US (and then the first few days back in BR), when my brain is really struggling to switch over. Which is crazy, because we use English at home, but still that transition is nuts and I know I sound like I'm relearning English during that time.

 

I find that when I'm working with a new language, I pull out all sorts of words from languages I've studied in the past. My German is pretty solid because I studied it longest and deepest. I get it mixed with other languages less (though I'm appalled at how much I've forgotten).

 

But put me in France and all the sudden I'm remembering Russian words. Put me in Japan and a bunch of French will come out. It's annoying and unpredictable.

 

hehehehe It's nice to know I'm in good company. :p

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

When I was in grad school for French, I was speaking French, reading in French, watching films in French, all the time. When I tried to speak English, it would take my brain a few seconds to "transition" back over. And among other anglophones in my program, we spoke quite a bit of "franglais"- just saying a word in whichever language popped into our heads first.

[zaichiki]

Sometimes I'll be talking to someone and I will just come to a complete halt because although I'm speaking to them in English I'll suddenly find myself thinking a word in Spanish and for the life of my I won't be able to remember it in English and I'll start saying "uh, uh" trying to stall for time until I can remember the word in English. That happens to me in the reverse as well when I'm speaking Spanish so I wonder if it is just the duality of language that does it??

 

This happens to both dh and I (and extended family members) when we switch from one language to another. I think it's normal.

[zaichiki]

Funny that two signers are the first to respond! My first babysitter was deaf and taught me ASL as she taught me words in English (print, obviously). My mom was and still is an ASL interpreter.

 

You know what's REALLY weird???

 

I am fluent in American Sign Language, but I didn't become truly fluent until college. For YEARS now I will occasionally have trouble finding an English word (thinking and speaking in English at the time), but the sign will come immediately. I'll be hemming and hawing, mentally seeing myself sign the word over and over, until the English word comes. The first time that happened it freaked me out.

 

So... why on earth is my word recall better in my second language? (Maybe I'm having early dementia??? LOL!) Could it be the visual component? Or maybe it's kinesthetic or muscle memory?

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

You know what's REALLY weird???

 

I am fluent in American Sign Language, but I didn't become truly fluent until college. For YEARS now I will occasionally have trouble finding an English word (thinking and speaking in English at the time), but the sign will come immediately. I'll be hemming and hawing, mentally seeing myself sign the word over and over, until the English word comes. The first time that happened it freaked me out.

 

So... why on earth is my word recall better in my second language? (Maybe I'm having early dementia??? LOL!) Could it be the visual component? Or maybe it's kinesthetic or muscle memory?

 

For me, some words come more easily in French because I used them more in French. For example, I knew the words "train station" in English before I learned French, but I never really used them at all in practical life. In France, however, I went to the "gare" quite frequently, not only to ride trains, but to pick up visitors and as a handy place for meeting up with friends. So, when I think of train stations, the word "gare" comes to mind immediately. I would almost never think "train station" in my head first.

[cathmom]

But from just studying a foreign language? Nope. Even when I now work on French, I do not notice it affecting my English and German skills.

Maybe my brain works differently because I am bilingual?

 

English is my native language. I started learning Spanish at 15 and German at 19. I have an MA in German and have taken graduate level Spanish classes. About a year and a half ago, I started learning Swedish. My Swedish has already affected my German, because now I want to make learning reflexive, e.g. "Ich lerne mich Schwedisch" because that's how you would say it in Swedish.

 

I have the same problem in Spanish. Since "sich erinnern" is reflexive, I want to say, "Me recuerdo" but that is not reflexive in Spanish. A friend told me I should just use "acordarse" instead so I could say "Me acuerdo".

 

Actually now that I think about it, maybe my problem is reflexives! :D

 

I do frequently have the experience of only being able to think of a word in one language, the one I don't want at that particular moment in time. One day as I was teaching Spanish, I tried to think of the word "witch" and could only remember "Hexe".

 

And sometimes the language I can't remember the word in is English, but not too frequently. I'll be trying to tell someone what a word means in English and it's like the concept is there but not the word.