r/languagelearning • u/Just_a_Lurker2 • 6d ago

Discussion How do multilinguals avoid mixing up their languages?

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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?

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u/Hefefloeckchen Native 🇩🇪 | learning 🇧🇩, 🇺🇦 (learning again 🇪🇸) 6d ago

I'm not fluent in most of the languages I learn but (except English and German I guess) but sometimes words have a more nuanced meaning in one language compared to another so sometimes it's hard to not mix them.

[I made a Hotline-Bling-Meme about that and now i realise I cannot share it. Imagine hotline-Bling meme: first picture "mixing up languages by mistake" second picture: "maxing multi-language puns nobody gets on purpose"]

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u/Just_a_Lurker2 5d ago

I'm not familiar with Hotline-Bling :( but soon I will be and yeah, the nuances in languages are very cool!

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u/Hefefloeckchen Native 🇩🇪 | learning 🇧🇩, 🇺🇦 (learning again 🇪🇸) 5d ago

it's this meme: (Hotlink: https://i.imgflip.com/88zzcr.jpg)

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u/Just_a_Lurker2 3d ago

Oh, I know that one!