Going native
You’re never entirely the same person in any two languages.
There’s inevitably one in which you feel most yourself – probably the one you grew up in. It’s the one where you can play with the rules, rage with eloquence, indulge in fancy and be most effectively sly. The one you think and mumble in when you’re sleepy and want to go home.
With each new language you begin to learn, you’ll find varying degrees of affinity – from flat out love and understanding to inexplicable aversion. I doubt any logic can account for our spontaneous reaction to the music of an unknown tongue – why some seem sexy, some jar the ear and others are a persistent source of mockery (the French imitating English sounds something like hey ya ya ok eekin ocking sure).
And a curious thing happens each time you’ve reached a certain point in your grasp of another tongue. You’ll notice that it heightens certain aspects of your mental make-up. Make you more brash or serene. In a sense overtaken by the language’s personality, by its cadence and poetry and interpretation of this mess of human existence. Those you love put a new spin on things, change your dreams and help it all make a tad more sense.
While your gesticulating hands take on a life of their own.
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Comment
- :) I grew up speaking English, Russian and German … English is all I’ve got a good grasp on now, but the other two creep back up on me on occasion. It certainly changes the entire way that you think, compared to my monolingual English speaking friends. Fab way of describing the phenomenon
— Dave May 6, 11:21am # - Amélie Nothomb is the écrivaine which the most marked me until now because it is the only one which is able to speak about the Enemy. Of this thing in us which seems so strong… It is simple but complicated, it is an alive paradox. I admire Amélie because it is Amélie, even if I know well that one cannot know somebody because one made a search for several months for a French course!!
But all it that I know of it me like, and how one can say that one know not a author when one himself be introduce in it that it have moreover plus deprive: its writings.
Amélie inspires to me to fight and write, and to keep my naive glance on a world which I know cruel.
It makes laugh, but, when one reads well, it also makes cry.
Thank you Amélie to be Amélie, and thank you to fight your enemy with as much heat.
— msg May 6, 3:29pm # - Thanks for articulating so well something that I often try to explain to my friends, but fall short. I don’t think you can quite understand it until you’ve experienced it for youself.
— nina May 6, 4:39pm # - Consider this my thanks as well….I’m learning French and Latin right now and will be approaching German in about a year. Understanding a second language really does change you.
— Tiffany May 6, 8:46pm # - Another thank you from me, who found in England a voice that had been stifled during all my growing up in France, and as a result, feel more comfortable expressing myself in English than in French (even though my French is technically, grammatically and phonetically much better than my English).
— céline May 7, 2:03am # - I remember a quote by Karl V. He is purported to have said: “So viele Sprachen ich spreche, so oft bin ich Mensch”. (“As many languages as I speak, as often I am a human (being)”). Beautiful and true.
— Bijan May 8, 1:19am # - ...and explanations…
— msg May 8, 2:32pm # - this is a subject that we at the iowa translation workshop discuss often, this sort of linguistic schizophrenia: phenomenon, gift, burden? the differences are subtle but very, very present… what i like best is the way another language/culture gives you a better perspective on your own…
— jamie May 9, 1:56am # - I’ve wondered whether I hit a plateau during my college-age immersion experiences in Mexico and Germany because I had some inhibitions that kept me from developing a new language-specific personality.
I was careful to cut myself off from English and minimize my American-ness while soaking up the Spanish and German, but I never quite got comfortable in my new skin. Maybe, in fact, my desire to suppress my gringolandian self worked against me: if I’d simply been able to relax about being a mere multilingual foreigner, I might paradoxically have been a bit more open to letting the language and culture do their work on me.
As I work on my current project, acquiring Portuguese and getting to know Brazil, I try to draw inspiration from expatriates and travelers I know here in the US who would never be mistaken for locals but are at ease anyway.
— Prentiss Riddle May 9, 11:54am # - Happy Mother’s Day to you.
(~A, frequent reader, rarely a commentor)
— Alberto May 9, 12:29pm # - Yes!
Years ago, driving across country (USA) with my college roommate, we decided that if we met any cute guys, I would pretend to be French and she would pretend to be English, since we both had rather good fake accents, and I spoke enough French to fool non-French speakers.
We took an evening car ferry across one of the great lakes and decided to sleep in our sleeping bags out on deck. Hours later we woke up in a raging storm, drenched and seasick, and staggered below to dry off as best we could and try to score some dramimine, which turned out to be futile on both counts.
We separated briefly, sick as dogs, and when I found her again she was standing with too very cute 20-something guys. As I reeled toward them, green and nauseated, she called out to me in her English accent, and I realized, to my dismay, that I was now supposed to be French.
The minute I spoke, despite my misery, something, someone emerged that I had never met before. She (I) moaned in a heavy French accent, “When I get off zis boat, I nev-ere want to see wat-ere again!, I weel not drink eet, I will not take ze bath, I will not sweem in ze pool…” They laughed, hard. I went on, or rather this stranger I was channeling went on, doing my impromptu stand up routine until they were all doubled over and cramping with laughter. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
This wasn’t me, the rather too-serious, shy artist-type. Yet when I lived in France a few years later, there she was again, much wittier and funnier than I had ever been. My whole persona was lighter, more playful, more confident and commanding.
In the decades following, I have grown into ‘her’ even when speaking my native English, but it really took that perspective to jog me into a different part of myself and let her emerge.
Even though my French grammar and vocabulary are quite limited, I’m so glad I was forced to learn another language, and lucky enough to have an amazing, inspirational teacher with a killer accent I could mimic when I needed to.
— wizmo May 9, 1:41pm # - True it is. In the midst of trying to learn both French and Spanish (not very well I should add) I have become more dumb and mute. Unable to mutter even the most common phrases in public. I see car crashes and earthquakes in my head and if I were a possum I’d be road kill who once stared into your headlights.
Unfortunately, I know this all a good thing. ;)
— Vaska May 10, 2:32am # - Don’t wish to be a party pooper, but would like to point out that, while it is true that my knowledge of French and German has given me a much wider horizon and while I am indeed another person when I speak these languages, the fact of the matter is that however fluent I may be after 25 years of immersion in them, they’re not my language and my instincts deep down are still English. I call upon so-called fluent speakers to ask themselves honestly: do you know how to swear correctly in the foreign language? And don’t tell me you’ve never had the experience of your native humour and (translated) witty repartee being taken at face value or met with blank bewilderment and incomprehension. I certainly have—unless it’s because I’m just not a funny bloke …
— Nick May 11, 5:13am # - Nick, I’m not sure what your party pooping has to do with the party. Nobody’s claiming they’re perfectly fluent in the other language, just that they’re familiar enough with it to take on another personality.
My experience with French is much like wizmo’s (aside from the cute guy part); I find myself becoming “lighter, more playful.” More of a souffle, less of a hamburger. It’s most enjoyable.
— language hat May 11, 11:36am # - I felt I was party pooping because everyone sounds so euphoric about being able to speak another language, whereas I feel as if I’m wearing someone else’s shoes. I envy you feeling “ligher and more playful”. When I take on my German or French personalities, I feel like a clodhopper. Oh well.
— Nick May 11, 12:27pm # - Very well written post and I enjoyed the comments as well.
— Blinger May 12, 6:28pm # - Many of you have experienced a ‘personality change’ when speaking (or trying to speak) another language, and so have I… I don’t think it’s simply a case of how fluent you are, or that speaking a language other than your native tongue gives you an opportunity to ‘break loose’.
The distinct personality of language has often led me to ponder the difference in thought patterns that formed the languages. Not only are some languages more technical or more lyrical, but so seem the people and cultures that speak the languages, as well.
Do any of you think that the pattern of language formation is an indication that there must be a fundamental difference in the psychological make-up of various nationalities? I’m sure there has been (much) research on the subject, and have always meant to read up on it. (Any recommendations?)
If this is the case, then no wonder that we have difficulty understanding each other…
— Diane May 13, 9:49am # - I grew up in France, the Anglo child of English parents. We spoke, ate and read English at home. At school, we spoke, ate and read French. At school growing up, I had a rather less confident personality than I did at home- I suspect this to be due to the nature of French schools.
Now, I find that I’m a lot more playful, whimiscal and philosophical in French. In English, I tend to be too reasonable and rational, and not emotive enough. I conclude that my personality changes according to the people I’m with, that different sides of me emerge depending on the company. I’m not sure it depends entirely on the language.
I think you’re absolutely spot on about the likes/ dislikes re new languages. I have no sensible way to explain my strong dislike of German, a language I can speak passably after seven years of lessons, as opposed to my absolute passion for Spanish and all things Spanish. The one has fallen in disrepair, the other makes me want to travel 1000 miles regularly. There is no rational explanation, I think.
— e May 15, 7:38pm # - There’s a whole discipline—sociolinguistics—that is concerned precisely with the way in which language shapes our character and vice versa. I have sometimes wondered, for example, how much Freud, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are instrinsically “German”.
One caveat, however: although it’s very tempting to say that some languages are more “technical” or “lyrical” than others, I suspect that the appreciation of beauty and the search for ways of expressing it verbally are universals. It should therefore be possible to find “lyricism” in every language. Conversely, even the most “mellifluous” or “melodic” language can sound ugly.
We should therefore keep an open mind, even about those languages that we think are cacophonic (no names, no pack drill), and try to overcome our irrational aversions. The world would be a better place for it!
— Nick May 17, 3:10am # - I went to a bilingual (french/american) grade school. One of my best friends there was French. As our friendship developed we quickly realized that when having any sort of ‘important’ conversation or argument we needed to speak our native languages despite both of us being ‘fluent’ in both languages, otherwise we’d end up drastically misunderstanding each other. So, when we’d argue I’d speak in English and he’d speak in French. That way we were sure we both were saying exactly what we meant.
— sam May 18, 2:12pm # - Lovely entry, this. I just found your blog after chasing down links after being impressed with the smoothness and crackling dry humor of the explanations surrounding Textile.
I’ll be back for more.
— Adam Khan Jun 5, 5:21am #
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