tazzmanien:milkmynk: just-a-enby-lemon: dovewithscales:bookdragon1811:orca-iguana: pale-sun-kisses:q

tazzmanien:milkmynk: just-a-enby-lemon: dovewithscales:bookdragon1811:orca-iguana: pale-sun-kisses:queenofhearts7378: applejuicewerewolf: averruncusho:kasper-the-unfriendly-ghost: araku-validrava: riskpig: eg515: theboywhocan11: theleakypen: lourdesdeath: cobaltmoony: silentwalrus1: justgot1: cricketcat9: artykyn: prideling: gunvolt: im going to have a stroke Instead try…Person A: You know… the thingPerson B: The “thing”?Person A: Yeah, the thing with the little-! *mutters under their breath* Como es que se llama esa mierda… THE FISHING ROD As someone with multiple bilingual friends where English is not the first language, may I present to you a list of actual incidents I have witnessed: Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!” Bilingual characters are great but if you’re going to use a linguistic blunder, you have to really understand what they actually blunder over. And it’s usually 10x funnier than “Ooops it’s hard to switch back.” I use Spanish and English daily, none is my native language. When I’m tired or did not have enough sleep I loose track of who to address in which language;  I caught myself explaining something in Spanish to my English-speaking friends more than once. When I’m REALLY tired I’ll throw some Polish words in the mix.  There is nothing more painful than bad fake Spanglish by an American writer. Bilingual people don’t just randomly drop words in nonsensical places in their sentences ffs. “I’m muy tired! I think I’ll go to my cama and go to sleep!“ Nobody does that. From my bilingual parents: - Only being able to do math in their original language. “Ok so that would beeeeee … *muttering* ocho por cuatro menos tres…” - Losing words and getting mad at you about it. “Gimme the - the - UGH, ESA COSA AHI’ CARAJO. The thing, the oven mitt. Christ.” - Making asides to you in Spanish even though you’ve told them to not do this as lots of people here speak Spanish. “Oye, mira esa, que cara fea.” “MOM FFS WE’RE IN A MEXICAN NEIGHBORHOOD.” - Swears in English don’t count. - Swears in Spanish mean you’d better fucking run, kid. - Introducing you to English-only Americans using your Spanish name so that they mispronounce your name for all eternity because that’s what your mom said your name was. “Hi Dee-yanna!” “sigh, Just call me Diana.” “Yeah but your mom said your name was Dee-yanna.”  - Your parents give you a name that only makes sense in Spanish. “Your name is Floor?” “No, my name is Flor.” “FLOOR?” “Sigh.”  - conjugating English words with Russian grammar and vice versa. Sometimes both at once, which is extra fun.  самолет ->  самолетас ->  самолетасы - when vice versa, dropping English articles entirely. The, a, an: all gone. e.g. “I go to store and buy thing, I fix car and go to place.” This also happens when i am very tired  - speaking English with heavy accent you don’t actually have - when my family and I are switching over fast, we say the English words in a very heavy Russian accent that mostly doesn’t show up otherwise  bonus:  - keysmashing in the wrong language when your keyboard is still switched over - using ))))) instead of :))) or other culture-specific emoji/typing quirks all of the above I don’t actually speak Tagalog, but my mom’s Filipino. One of my favorite things is when she forgets how to preposition, so something is ‘in the table’.  SOMEHOW I NEVER REBLOGGED THIS?!?!?!?!? this is one of my absolute favorite posts on all of tumblralso, to add to the pile of fun things bilinguals do: cackling over bilingual puns that nobody else in the room will get and then being completely unable to explain why this is funny Interesting. Reblogging this for future reference. my favourite is that feeling when you have the perfect response to something but halfway through saying it you realised it’s in a language the other person doesn’t speak so you either just kind of… fade out, or try desperately to make it make sense in the other language I lose my place all the time when I’m counting in English, but never when I count in German. I’m swedish but at this point I’m so fluent in english that I can switch between languages on a dime. i hate forgetting a word in english and having to describe but realizing that i cant describe it in english. so im just stuttering between russian and english and none of my english speaking friends can help in singapore, we speak a dialect called singlish, which is just english with chinese grammar rules, plus some malay and indian words I’m learning Japanese on duolingo and for some reason my brain decided that the Japanese language files should go into the same folder as my Italian lessons I had back in school. Once I wanted to say “His name is Wolfgang” in Italian and what came out was “Wolfgang は chiamo”, which doesn’t make sense in ANY grammar. When I started learning French, I started forgetting the English words for things I’m only fluent in English and I’m no more near being bilingual, but I grew up in Spanish speaking areas and am dyslexic on top of it so sometimes I just don’t know what word I’m looking for because I either never learned it at all or I only heard the Spanish word for it. So sometimes I’ll be asked for something in English, because I’m in predominantly English speaking areas nowadays, I have no idea what I’m being asked about, even if it’s something I’ve used or done a million times. What gets me is when I am talking to friend and bust out an expression and then realize its a german expression and have to be like, “sorry I was not trying to be rude by calling you a glückschwine, it means I’m calling you a pig. WAIT no it means I’m calling you lucky BY calling you a pig. It’s not mean I promise.” i didn’t see anyone saying anything about ASL as a second language, so ill let you guys know that im learning ASL right now (and i’d assume this is the same for every/most sign languages) but when i talk i use my facial expressions so much more than i used to and sometimes a sign will slip in here or there too. i’m much more animated with my hands and face than i used to be. I’m learning Greek right now and I know a little of half a dozen languages but I’m not fluent in any of them. I relate so hard to the person talking about puns and not being able to explain them. I love multilingual puns but it’s so rare anyone else appreciates them. I’m brazilian, but I learned english and sometimes I just forgot words in portuguese and have little breakdowns. Also sometimes when I’m talkibg about something more complex or niche in english I just use the portuguese version of the word but with a very weird maybe american accent for no reason (in Brazil we do make some jokes about adding “tion” in words to turn them english and in my panic my brain just goes to that). I also sometimes am taking to an english speaker and say an expression in portuguese and try to explain it because I’m certain that it’s a cultural expression (and I can only explain the feeling with that) just to realize they do have the same (like with same meaning words) in english. Oh. And few words in english and portuguese look the same but mean very different things (in spanish this is way more common so I normaly can overcame that because I’m expecting it, not that my spanish is at any means good but is … comunicable) so I sometimes when I’m tired just say them as this words. Like use the word pretend (in portuguse: fingir) instead of intend (in portuguese: pretender). Or use costume (habit) instead of fantasia (costume) in portuguese (I know English, Mandarin, and Japanese.) There was once it was very overcast and rainy, but around 4pm the clouds finally dissipated a little and the sun shone through… When I noticed, my brain went through :太阳出来啦 (the sun’s out)雨上がったね (the rain stopped, but also transliterated = the rain rose up)What I *said* was, “The sun has risen!” My bilingual issues become worse when I’m speaking with another bilingual person in languages we both understand or when I’m tired or excited. I tend to become lazier and just mix everything, including grammar. For example, if the overall sentence was in Croatian and I forgot the verb, I’d use the verb in English and conjugate it in Croatian. Also I somethimes use the Croatian article when speaking in German or vice versa. I definitely do the thing where some of my idioms get tossed in a language-agnostic pile and then I have to be like… wait that’s a Chinese one it doesn’t exist in English?And then all my cooking vocabulary is in Chinese even though I speak English 90% of the time because my parents taught me all my cooking basics in ChineseCan’t forget all my times tables being installed in Chinese either (superior times table language imo) -- source link

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