Wednesday 22 June 2011

Linguistic weirdness

My brain is taking me to completely new linguistic levels. Gone are the days when I spoke one, or two, or however many languages. I already had a little taste of this new weirdness when I first arrived in France five years ago. After having spent only a couple of days there, I remember reading a book in Swedish, and hearing the words in my head in Swedish, but with a French accent. Slightly worrying.

Last week when I got here, I quickly noticed I was thinking in English (which sometimes happens at home, too) but with a Scottish accent. The thing is, I couldn't speak with a Scottish accent to save my life. In my head, however, there seems to be no problem at all. Weird.

Also, having spent quite a lot of time with French people this past week, I noticed yesterday that my brain's gone into Frech mode. I was surprised when I suddenly heard someone speak English, and when some idiot almost hit me with his car, my first reaction wasn't to swear at him in Swedish or Finnish, as you'd expect, or even in English, but instead the first thing that came out of my mouth was "Oh, putain!". Very interesting...

Let's see what happens when I start work, and I'll be speaking Finnish, Swedish, English and French (probably) every day. I'm used to it, sure, but seeing as my brain's been having these weird reactions to things lately, I'm not sure what to expect...

3 comments:

  1. Well you're not the only one. After having spent quite a lot of time with Irish people my brain sometimes thinks in an Irish accent. Very confusing.

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  2. I know, right! But it's kinda cool at the same time :)
    For me, mostly, when I think of stuff in general, it's in a Scottish accent, but when I think of me saying something to someone, then it's always in my own accent. Weird, weird...

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  3. Oh, I'm a fifteen year old boy and also have this problem.I have to learn three languages: Chinese as my mother language, Malay as country's language and English as international languages.Normal days my mind work in Chinese but since this year it sometimes change into English!^-^

    p.s:In your profile you said you are a student?Are you learning Linguistic in University???I want to know more about Linguistic!!!谢谢!Terima kasih!Thank you!!!

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