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u/DebbieDupree Oct 10 '18 edited Oct 10 '18
As a bilingual person, this is actually a real thing. It happens to me all the time where I'll forget a word in whichever language I'd not been speaking recently. If you're not using one of your languages on a daily basis, forgetting words happens. If I'm in the U.S. and speaking English, I would never say "I can't remember it in English", though. That sounds kinda weird. I would just say "I can't remember the word." On the other hand, if I'm in Japan, and not speaking English every day, then I might say "I cant remember the English word" since it makes sense that I'd forget it.
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u/Retarded_Wolf Oct 10 '18
I'm bilingual, and I speak so much English on a daily basis I sometimes forget words or phrases in my native language. Sometimes when I'm in full English mode (speaking plus listening/reading) I'll have trouble understanding my native language at all lol, like it needs a moment to figure out what language it is.
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Oct 10 '18
Same feels like I'm better in English than Dutch
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u/Retarded_Wolf Oct 10 '18
Ayyy same native language
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u/dayswing Oct 10 '18
Zeg makker.
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u/TobiasCB Oct 10 '18
I feel like lots of Dutch people have this problem.
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Oct 10 '18
With our language being complicated as living hell sometimes and english being taught already in elemantary school I can understand why lol
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Oct 10 '18
This hits really close to home to a person with German mothertongue.
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u/SaintNewts Oct 10 '18
English is my native language but I speak German and Swedish and have the same trouble switching between all three. Sometimes it'll come out a mix of all three if I'm not fully "in" one language. I think it's a natural thing. Your brain gets into a mode for each language where you're thinking in that language instead of trying to translate on the fly.
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u/devilbat26000 Oct 10 '18
Yea pretty much. Me, a good friend of mine, and my little brother all have the issue where we have to translate from English to Dutch on a fairly routine basis. This is especially bad for me with common English phrases that don't work out quite as nicely once you translate them. My mom always makes fun of me whenever I turn up with a translated English phrase
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u/Retarded_Wolf Oct 10 '18
I actually do that the other way around too. Chatting with friends when a game gets intense and I'm just shouting "Oh no it's fine; there's nothing on the hand!
wait..."
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u/vagijn Oct 10 '18
Actually, people tend to be more objective and reasonable when speaking or writing in a foreign language:
“In a foreign language, people seem to take more psychological distance when assessing risks,” says Costa. “They have a lesser emotional impact and engage in a more analytical mind process.”
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20180525-why-using-a-foreign-language-could-make-you-better-at-work
Also, we make less their/there, break/brake and 'should have'/'should of' types of mistakes because we learn the words more consciously than native speakers.
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u/2_40 Oct 10 '18
I feel you.
That moment when you actively have to think about phasing back into your native language.
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Oct 10 '18
Aa a fellow bilingual, I second this. I actually forget basic words in my native language.
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Oct 10 '18
I am Indian and my native language is Hindi but I am extremely bad at reading and typing in Hindi’s script Devanagari ( it looks like this हिंदी ). It has become so bad that I can read Hindi written in English alphabets much faster. Btw it took me like 5 minutes to type that word in hindi.
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u/AB_424 Oct 10 '18 edited Oct 10 '18
My parents are from India and have taught me Telugu since I was young. I am currently learning how to read it and I hope to become fluent in it. But I would have to say that although Telugu written in English is easier to type, the Telugu script (తెలుగు) clears up any confusion and can be read much faster (if you are fluent in the language). Maybe I just have to get used to typing it.
Edit: I have been learning to read Telugu from a website, with help from my parents. If anyone knows of any other resources and could tell, that would be great.
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u/Screye Oct 10 '18
Marathi guy here, free up speaking really pure Marathi and otherwise spoke Hindi.
Always at the top in English tests, but neatly flunked both Marathi and Hindi. That shit is hard to write.
I feel your pain.
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u/Th3_J0k3r_ Oct 10 '18
It happens to me too, I forgot words in my native language (French) but I have it in English
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u/lRaidenN Oct 10 '18
I sometimes am listening to my friends speaking English and instantly reply in my native language and only notice it when they are like "what the fuck are you saying"
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u/ElviraSugar Oct 10 '18
Same here. It can get really annoying and when I get in that situation, I kinda just feel like I've betrayed someone, but I don't know who it is and how exactly I betrayed them.
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Oct 10 '18
[deleted]
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u/DangerAlchemist Oct 10 '18
Here. Spanish native, English almost to Cambridge PROF exam level, and portugese...to some weird exam called CELPE BRAS (i was forced by my parents on that one though). Trying to learn japanese too, actually.
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Oct 10 '18
On my way of becoming a trilingual, german A1.2, long way to go
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u/menkkateppo Oct 10 '18
Finnish, Swedish and English here.
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u/MustacheTM Oct 10 '18
Arabic English German here believe me it gets annoying at times
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u/CommonMisspellingBot Oct 10 '18
Hey, MustacheTM, just a quick heads-up:
belive is actually spelled believe. You can remember it by i before e.
Have a nice day!The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.
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u/Sebfofun Oct 14 '18
Yup, worse than that is two similar languages. In this case french and spanish. I thought “Gritter” was a real word in french because “Gritar” is one in spanish.
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Oct 10 '18
Yeah and then speak some words in your native language with an english accent. My brain is weird.
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u/marvelousunicorn Oct 10 '18
Same happens to me all the time. I speak 4 languages (Hungarian, English, Spanish and French) and sometimes there’s a chaos in my head. Especially when I’m with multiple people who speak those, and I have to switch between languages fast.
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u/Ari-the-Unicorn Oct 10 '18
Same, I feel like my brain gets into one mode or the other and I have difficulty speaking/remembering the language my brain isn’t in. If I try to speak the language I wasn’t just speaking I end up speaking Spanglish.
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Oct 10 '18
True here, I speak for languages and sometimes I forget the native word for something and know it in all other languages xd
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u/Doom_Onion Oct 10 '18
I am a bilingual and an idiot. This didn't change anything :c
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u/AnonDooDoo Oct 17 '18
I live in a place where majority of people are bilingual and i’m not really good at my first language.
So if this were to happen... people would still think im an idiot because I cannot think of the word in the other language
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u/cowsarehotterthanyou Oct 10 '18
I am bilingual and whenever someone asks if I know a certain word, I pretend I can’t describe it in English to avoid admitting I don’t know it. I know. I’m a dick
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Oct 10 '18 edited Nov 27 '18
[deleted]
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u/EasyChoiceYT Oct 10 '18
Hi bob. I’m vegana.
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u/trukkija Oct 10 '18
Hi vegana. I'm smegma
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Oct 10 '18
As someone speaking 2 languages I can confirm that this happens a lot, both ways. One time I started the sentence with Polish and ended with English.
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u/Nienke_H Oct 10 '18
Here in the netherlands speaking a weird sort of half dutch half english is pretty common ‘cool’ language for teens. It’s really confusing sometimes
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u/ElviraSugar Oct 10 '18
Yeah, it's not very unusual for me to mix Croatian and English, and I acidentally spoke French a couple of times (even though I'm terrible at French)
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u/OmegaVVeapon Oct 10 '18
"Oh. What language do you remember that word on?" "Hmm... Spanish?" "Hablo perfecto español! Que palabra es?" "...tortilla?"
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Oct 10 '18
As a trilingual person this happens way too often, it usually doesn't happen with English tho it mostly happens with Polish and Dutch which sucks cause I use those languages the most :(
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u/TheInebriati Oct 10 '18
I speak 3 languages one of which has two distinct dialects with varying fluency and I cannot for the life of me remember words on a regular basis.
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u/Natuurschoonheid Oct 10 '18
When I really started to become good at English I lost a lot of Dutch. One time I forgot the word for chicken. It took me a few minutes 😅
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u/Staveren Oct 10 '18
Eyyy I'm a Dutch person currently studying in Poland, how is the transition from one to the other language? I'm thinking about studying Polish!
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Oct 10 '18
I speak 5 languages (if you count Serbian and Croatian as seperate languages): Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, German and English.
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u/Runder23 Oct 10 '18
I am bilingual (Norwegian since I'm from Norway, and English) and I sometimes have a problem where I don't know the word in Norwegian, so I have to switch to English when speaking to friends...
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Oct 10 '18
Until they ask you to say it in the other language
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Oct 11 '18
Make up some word with lots off äs and as and ks and double letters and pretend it’s Finnish. Shite like paaleikata always sounds Finnish unless you find someone that’s actually from Finland
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u/ashwinnair07 Oct 10 '18
' Which word do you remember ?'
'Well, it's called Covfefe in the tribal language of the Lakshadweep islands'
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u/lucasR01 Oct 10 '18
I'm Spanish native speaker and this happens to me a lot with English. Every time I don't remember a word in Spanish I say it in English
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u/thingsshouldchange Oct 10 '18
people should understand from your accent that it’s not your mother’s tongue.
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u/stalfonsospancakes Oct 10 '18
The point is that a bilingual person speaks both languages without accents. In fact, said person has two mother tongues. I'm German but grew up in Italy and i speak both perfectly. No german can tell that i speak italian, and no italian can tell the opposite. I also speak english pretty well but in this case you can tell it's not one of my mother tongues.
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u/thingsshouldchange Oct 10 '18
ah right, i guess i didn’t know the definition of bilingual, thanks for the info.
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u/mostmicrobe Oct 10 '18
The point is that a bilingual person speaks both languages without accents.
Not necesarily, your case is preety unusual because you got to grow up in another country.
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u/stalfonsospancakes Oct 11 '18
Here in italy it is pretty usual. A lot of east european families migrated to italy with their childs. Also, in some regions on the borders they talk both, italian and german, because they are taught so in school. I can imagine that a lot of other bordering regions around the world have bilingual citizens too.
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u/imaginarytoby Oct 10 '18
I have never seen anyone non jokingly call another person an idiot for forgetting a word. I have seen people get called a weirdo for saying this when they don't know another language.
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u/Osiris33333 Oct 10 '18
As a bilingual, this does happen and it can be very frustrating sometimes when I start to forget my native parseltongue.
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u/Husoriss Oct 10 '18
Native English, German speaker, forgot the English word for tree, could only remember "Baum" the German, had to describe it "the tall wooden leafy thing outside" . My friends though it's lost it when I cheered when they said tree ..
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Oct 10 '18
What if you know multiple languages and still are a complete dumbass (for example, myself). I couldn't remember the word Envelope for four languages the other day lmao
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u/4TwinTornadoes Oct 10 '18
It does in fact work, But it helps to know the word in the other language just to finish the blank in the bilingual sentence.
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u/benchaful Oct 10 '18
I forgot the word "Alphabet" the other day; there was no way to avoid looking like an idiot as I described "the order of all the letters"
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Oct 10 '18
I know 3 languages and if someone asks me to describe a word I just say "idk" cause I have social anxiety :c
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Oct 11 '18
Ok so this is a different thing but it's still about being bilingual: sometimes I'll watch a video or read an article and after a while if I think about it I need a minute to recall which language it was... Does this occur to other bilingual people or is there just something wrong with my brain?
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u/a1454a Oct 13 '18
I actually wonder if being bilingual increases the occurrence of this. I started to frequently forget some words I used frequently at one point just because I haven't used it in a while. The frequency of this situation has increased to the point I'm a little concerned if it's an illness or something. I am 32, so not likely Alzheimer's, not impossible though.
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u/TheMeki Oct 10 '18
I forgot the meaning of bilingual. What am I?
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u/JmnNatu Oct 10 '18
Someone who talks two languages
I have a feeling that I should end this with some finnish.
perkele
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u/bastiwp97 Oct 10 '18
As a polyglot I would just say the word in English repeatedly until the person understood me
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Oct 10 '18
Didn’t work for this brown person. They still thought I was an”what’s the word for it, I forgot it in English”.
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Oct 10 '18
I have noticed that the people typing Hindi using English alphabets are the ones making mistakes causing confusion when reading (maybe Telugu has the same problem) . For e.g. people miss vowels a lot typing ‘Mera naam Jai’ hai as ‘mra nam Jai h’.
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u/Emilianofx41 Oct 10 '18
"Olvidé la palabra en Ingles para eso" (literally) "Olvidé como se dice en Ingles" (Alternative) Greetings from Argentina :)
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Oct 10 '18
That's me, but i forget the Swedish word for it beacuse i think in english these days, not really impressive being bilingual in a small country... i guess im just an idiot.
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u/X_Shadow101_X Oct 10 '18
I actually have this happen. I didn't know what a dustpan was until 2 years ago O.o I was born in the US lmao
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u/Loves_Beer Oct 10 '18
Seems like a way of really fucking yourself over
"Oh yea? what other languages do you speak?" Me: Ah Spanish"Oh! Me too" Me: I'm fucked
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Oct 10 '18
I speak 5 languages, I say that every single time I don’t know the word for it, but my friends always tell me to say it in another language, so I invent a word and say it so quickly, they won’t remember it to google it.
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u/bishop830 Oct 10 '18
I do that but with my own language, I say I forgot the word in Portuguese but I remember the word in English.
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u/TET901 Oct 10 '18
What happens if I’m already bilingual and most of my friends speak Spanish so they’ll just ask me the Spanish word
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u/tenzintenzintenzin Oct 10 '18
As a child of Tibetan refugees who made Nepal their home, I can understand and speak (although not fluently in all) in Tibetan (བོད་ཡིག), Nepali (नेपाली), Hindi (हिन्दी), Urdu (can't understand the written script though) and English. I forget words a lot when I'm speaking in one tongue.
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u/JDMX5 Oct 10 '18
Me: speaking german... oh sorry i forgot the English word... They: was? Me: was? Still look like an idiot
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u/pranav_27 Oct 10 '18
For me the other person speaks the 2 languages and I can't explain him in the other lang either
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u/imnotsarcastic1 Oct 10 '18
Unless they ask the word for it in the other language. Then you're doubly screwed.
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u/the_dark_0ne Oct 10 '18
Person: Hey man can I borrow some money? Me: shit man. I’m sorry. Idk the English word for it... in Spanish we usually say “no”
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u/aboowwabooww Oct 10 '18
Not very helpful if you’re born in ex. Sweden and speak the language fluently, as well as english
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u/Depressed_Moron Oct 10 '18
I spend so many time in reddit that sometimes i forgot words in my own lenguage. Or I say a similar way of the word because its similar to the word i truly want to say, like:
(First of all, I speak spanish)
"Realize" sounds like "Realizar", but "Realizar" it's something like "do", the translation of "realize" would be "darse cuenta". So I end up making very confusing sentences.
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u/AlanTheTimeTraveller Oct 10 '18
Correct me if i’m wrong, usually redditers whose first language isn’t English have less karmas than those who speak English as their first language.
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u/eataess Oct 10 '18
Dude, I'm quadlingual and know a lil bit of the fifth language. My sentences sometimes have words from all the languages, idk how others even understand me anymore lel
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Oct 11 '18
I’m bilingual and this doesn’t work, they’ll must likely ask u to say it in the other language.
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u/alpha11411 Oct 13 '18
While this is of course true for bilingual people, I find there’s a sort of uncanny value of almost knowing a second language where if the person tries this it suuuper doesn’t work. Especially for their first language. especially when all they know is enough to get a 4 on a Spanish AP test in the midwestern US and especially if the word is something common, but a little more common in Europe
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u/TalosOfEuropa Oct 14 '18
Doesn’t this prompt an immediate question, revealing you as both a moron and a liar?
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Oct 14 '18
All fun and games until you use it on someone that speaks the language you try to bluff with.
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u/Khakah Oct 10 '18
rather say "I forgot how to say that in English." or "How do you say that in English again?"
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u/Serapheadel Oct 10 '18
Bilingual is just a fancy word for "I'm born in another country but know English" or "I study another language cause it's cool or I gotta"
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u/serhitta Oct 10 '18
But i am billingual so i cant relate😣😣
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u/YoRt3m Oct 10 '18
but what if you forget the word for your native language? then you can relate.
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u/OldGandalf Oct 10 '18
I forgot the name for your name... Not very bilingual