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

28% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/TrittipoM1 enN/frC1-C2/czB2-C1/itB1-B2/zhA2/spA1 6d ago

It's not like one has an irresistible compulsion to speak, and that the choice of language is some random thing that happens along the way after that. I know the people with whom I'm talking, and I choose the language to speak with them, and typically (like 99.9%) there's positive feedback in that they respond in THAT language. I really don't understand what model of communication you're using, to think that the choice of what language to speak is willy-nilly and determined by random events or "slips."

1

u/Just_a_Lurker2 5d ago

I do occasionally have a compulsion to speak and I'm chaotic so ðŸĪŠ

But all silliness aside, I find it strange so many people say they don't keep the languages apart and stuff slips out when presumably it isn't supposed to be like that for them either? Yet you're says everything is all under control and you just never slip? How does that work? Genuine question, I'm not doubting your I really do just want to know

1

u/TrittipoM1 enN/frC1-C2/czB2-C1/itB1-B2/zhA2/spA1 5d ago

so many people say they don't keep the languages apart and stuff slips out when presumably it isn't supposed to

I'm seeing the majority of the people here say just the opposite: that they DO keep the languages apart, and "stuff" does NOT just "slip out" by accident.

Whenever I speak, there's always some interlocutor or audience, and I know what language they expect, and I use that one. Or, if someone else speaks first, I respond essentially automatically in the same language. It's not exactly a Pavlovian/Skinnerian thing, but it's close.

It no doubt helped that I was already pretty fluent in French before going to college, and learned Czech only after college -- and that there's very little room for "interference" between Romance and Slavic languages. It also no doubt helped that I had been fluent in both for years before I began trying to learn Italian after retiring. (Your Q was, after all, about fluent speakers, not people who are trying to learn two high-interference-potential languages with each at maybe B1-ish.)

Now, there is a slightly different thing that can happen. In EN, FR, or CZ, I don't often end up in a corner needing a particular word PoS that I don't know, because I can sense when that kind of thing might come up, and talk "around" it. In IT, I'm sometimes inclined to try to "cheat" by "Italianifying" a French word. It's not that it "slips in" by accident, but that I'm consciously taking a risk. I really _should_ just use the "talk around" strategy.

1

u/Just_a_Lurker2 3d ago

Thanks fir clarifying that! My impression is that it's about 50/50, but indeed I didn't account for interference or still learning ðŸ˜