Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby tarvos » Sun Jan 15, 2017 12:54 pm

Voytek wrote:
tarvos wrote:
Voytek wrote:
tarvos wrote:What did happen is that I didn't speak Dutch so much for a few years because I was abroad, and this means that my thought process doesn't necessarily start or finish in Dutch, but it does so in other languages (most commonly English, but often also Spanish or different languages). Actually it's quite common for me not to think in Dutch at all but directly in my TL or in English.


Did you use some method to start thinking in English (or any of your TLs) or it came naturally to you?
I`m asking because I `ve heard many times claims that its the best thing to start thinking in your TL for better its acquisition.


Mostly willpower in the beginning, but nowadays it's quite natural. It's a habit you pick up with practice. Also, when it comes to English, I've always partly thought in that language - I've spoken it since childhood, and as such it's semi-native.


So at the beginning of your language journey you forced yourself to think in TL (I don`t mean English but your very first TL). Ssorry, but I`m just very curious. :)


My first TL was French, and yes I did that, even back when I was about 11 and couldn't speak much French at all.
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Sun Jan 15, 2017 1:51 pm

Voytek wrote:
So at the beginning of your language journey you forced yourself to think in TL (I don`t mean English but your very first TL). Ssorry, but I`m just very curious. :)


So you don't think in the TL?
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby Voytek » Sun Jan 15, 2017 4:41 pm

vogeltje wrote:
Voytek wrote:
So at the beginning of your language journey you forced yourself to think in TL (I don`t mean English but your very first TL). Ssorry, but I`m just very curious. :)


So you don't think in the TL?


No, I always translate my Polish thoughts into English words when I`m speaking or writing English. But a couple years ago when I was at a integration camp for 7 days I was thinking only in English, but not right off the bat. So it seems to me that I need an enviroment which forces me to use English constanlty.

And what`s your method, mate? :)
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Mon Jan 16, 2017 1:57 am

Voytek wrote:
vogeltje wrote:
Voytek wrote:
So at the beginning of your language journey you forced yourself to think in TL (I don`t mean English but your very first TL). Ssorry, but I`m just very curious. :)


So you don't think in the TL?


No, I always translate my Polish thoughts into English words when I`m speaking or writing English. But a couple years ago when I was at a integration camp for 7 days I was thinking only in English, but not right off the bat. So it seems to me that I need an enviroment which forces me to use English constanlty.

And what`s your method, mate? :)


My method is difficult to describe and I hope that it won't sound weird. I will try!!:

I think in the language I'm thinking in, or writing / reading / talking. I've always done this, and I don't think that it would be possible for me to translate because I can't think in 2 languages at the same time, or not exactly at the same time. I find translating really difficult.

The conversations and commentaries change often, for example the sentence is half complete and a new one starts which maybe is in a different language. In my head there are many fragment sentences as well, which are mostly in French, Dutch and English now, but before we moved to England, they were mostly in French, Ducth and German. I think there are 3 levels so I mean one which is deliberate, one which is possible to control and one which isn't controlled by me. One type is also my practice conversations, so what I will say if a certain situation takes place, I do this a lot. I speak this half, so pronouncing it as well, which the other levels don't.

When I speak to a person then I don't change languages like that, but sometimes I make a mistake and speak the wrong language and don't notice. For example at the moment, it's possible that I think that I'm speaking English but it's Dutch or vice versa. Before, I did this with Ducth and German. Thank goodness, the people weren't nasty, but said sorry that they didn't understand (in London I mean, or to a German speaker).
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby Chung » Mon Jan 16, 2017 3:17 am

Voytek wrote:I wonder, if you noticed any changes in your native tongue fluency caused by a foreign language study. Sometimes, I have got a feeling that it affects it negatively and I encounter minor problems with my fluency. How abou you?


What I've learned from several languages has influenced how I use English in a few instances, but I wouldn't say that my fluency has been affected much. My energy level or blood alcohol level are the strongest factors to affect my fluency in English (and just about that in any other language).

On November 2, 2010 at 00:32 in “Languages changing your native language”, Chung wrote:
Tyr wrote: Has anyone else ever experienced languages they're learning influencing their use of their native language?
For me I do believe Swedish has done this rather a lot.

Firstly- I suppose I've become more gramatically correct and started talking of 'one' being able to do things rather than 'you' being able to do things.

Secondly- My word order is a bit more archaic. 'Should I happen upon' rather than 'If I should find'. That's the only example I can really think of right now but I'm sure there's more examples of that... and more examples of other stuff beyond!

Anyone?


Sure have...

1) Because of the influence from German, I maintain the subjunctive in English (i.e. "If I was..." sounds incorrect to me and I cringe inwardly when hearing it from other native-speakers. Since we say: "Wenn ich wäre..." I get enough reinforcement to say "If I were...")

2) Because of my exposure to all of the foreign languages that I've encountered, I will use conjunctions or relative pronouns whose use in English is often optional.

For example, I find it to be odd to say something such as "I think she wanted to tell me I'm crazy."

Instead I would use: "I think THAT she wanted to tell me THAT I'm crazy." on the model of several foreign languages.

E.g.

German: "Ich denke, daß sie mir sagen wollte, daß ich verrückt bin."
Hungarian: "Azt gondolom, hogy akarta nekem megmondani, hogy bolond vagyok."
Polish: "Myślę, że chciała mi powiedzieć, że jestem szalony."

English is the odd man out with only optional use of "that" for the subordinate clause. Every other language that I've learned requires a conjunction here corresponding to "that" in order to introduce the subordinate clause.

In the same way...

"The man whom we met is wise." instead of "The man we met is wise."

Czech: "Muž, kterého jsme potkali, je moudrý."
Estonian: "Mees, keda me kohtasime on tark."

Again, the relative pronoun is optional in English but is required in all of the other languages that I'm familiar with, and so I usually carry over the pattern into English.

3) On a related note, my knowledge of Hungarian has also sharpened my use of "who" as a relative pronoun when referring to people. I reserve "that" and "which" for antecedents that are not identifiable with a definitively or unambiguously personal antecedent.

For example, I find it odd to say or even wrong to say: "She's the friend that lives in Europe." I would use "She's the friend WHO lives in Europe. In addition, most of "my" foreign languages regularly decline personal pronouns. This means that I still distinguish between "who" and "whom" as applicable.

It may sound slightly odd to some native-speakers but I consistently use something such as "Whom did you ask?" or "To whom did we talk?" (or "Whom did we talk to?")

By analogy to certain languages I tend to avoid merging "who" and "whom" in English.

E.g.

Finnish:

- Kuka sä oot? = "Who're you?"
- Kenelle soitat? = "Whom are you calling?" / "Whom will you call?"

Saying something such as "Who are you calling?" or like from the song from "Ghostbusters": "Who you gonna call?" seems wrong to me and the influence from foreign languages helps me avoid the common merging of "who" and "whom".

Hungarian:

- Ki az? = "Who's that?"
- Az a lány, akivel tegnap beszéltem. = "That's the girl with whom I spoke yesterday." / "That's the girl whom I spoke with yesterday."

I would correct myself if I were to say: "That's the girl who I spoke with yesterday."

4) I have no reservations about using "I" to begin a sentence in conjunction with other people. For example it is considered "normal" or most frequent for native-speakers of English-speakers to say "My friend and I worked something out." However I sometimes say "I and my friend worked something out." In other languages, it's quite common (and "grammatically correct") to begin the sentence with "I". Even in an English caption for photos, I will use for example "I, [insert friend's name here] and [insert another friend's name here]." rather than "[friend 1], [friend 2] and I".


See here for the rest of the thread on HTLAL.
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby tarvos » Mon Jan 16, 2017 1:27 pm

For that girl I spoke to sentence, I'd actually prefer to say "That's the girl I spoke to yesterday" and completely circumvent the issue of who/whom entirely. That may sound casual or lazy, but that sounds right to me.
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby Bao » Mon Jan 16, 2017 2:54 pm

Ever since I picked up Japanese, I've been doing things to our German compound verbs that make sense grammatically, but are simply not part of our lexicon.
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby amadeus1991 » Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:42 pm

Voytek wrote:I wonder, if you noticed any changes in your native tongue fluency caused by a foreign language study. Sometimes, I have got a feeling that it affects it negatively and I encounter minor problems with my fluency. How abou you?

Well, actually I learned English and I noticed that I start thinking in English while trying to build a sentence in Spanish, but I think it happens to everybody. You need to quickly switch your mind and start thinking with the language you want to talk with.
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby Pres » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:39 am

Living in Japan and speaking primarily Japanese for 2 decades has led to an unconscious "throttling down" of the complexity of my spoken English. To the point that, while it's entertaining to hear native English speakers use high-level/natural constructions, I realize that I’d never use them myself because they'd be more trouble than it's worth to explain. On those rare occasions when I do speak to native English speakers, it's an exotic feeling of freedom to realize I can just let my mouth say whatever it wants to say, and still almost certainly be understood.

More to the topic of the thread, I often find myself in the state of knowing that there's an English word for a concept I want to express, but utterly failing to dredge it out of it's place in my mental backup drive.
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Re: Did a foreign languages study affect your fluency in your native tongue?

Postby Ani » Fri Jan 20, 2017 7:32 pm

My only trouble so far with language study affecting native language fluency has been moments when I am caught off guard thinking in the other language. I don't find the switch particularly easy and a few times a stranger had spoken to me out in public (in quick passing) but I couldn't answer until it was too late because my brain was busy switching over.
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