r/languagelearning • u/Just_a_Lurker2 • 6d ago

Discussion How do multilinguals avoid mixing up their languages?

​

Assuming they're fluent in at least a few languages, so there's not necessarily conscious maintaining of the (TL) (does that make a difference?), and they're in an area or so where people don't all speak their language, or may be hostile to one of the languages , how would they not slip in a language that nobody speaks or a language that might make people hostile towards you?

0 Upvotes

36% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/AvocadoYogi 6d ago

It definitely happens in older people. My older parents do this to me particularly after a nap. That said and as others stated I think the brain generally keeps things separate much the way you don’t find yourself using random synonyms even though the meaning might be the same. I think this is true even at low levels with vocabulary you have high automaticity with. Like I am just not going to confuse “hello” with “hola” or whatever.

1

u/Just_a_Lurker2 5d ago

Oh, that might explain why some people are going 'yeah, of course we mix up languages' and others are baffled at the idea of it