International Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
My English is getting terrible
Does anyone else feel like they are losing their mother tongue?
I feel like I am seriously getting worse and worse at speaking and writing in English. It's sad.
Re: My English is getting terrible
LOL it happens to me too with Italian! My BFF and I speak a weird mixture of both languages by now and don't even bother anymore. Words just escape!
MH gets so upset over it. He keeps correcting me... I'd say something like "Mi dai un po' di water?" and he's like "ACQUA ACQUA ACQUAAAAA!!"
But then a few minutes later he goes "Dove'? il remote?" and I go "OMG IT'S HAPPENING TO YOU TOOOOOOO!
Good times
Yes. Why do you think I spend so much time online? It's my escape to my native language!
I wrote an eloquent response on a different forum the other day and I was very proud of myself. It had been a long time since I had written something like that. I had been getting frustrated as how limited my English has become - I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact I wrote the post just after waking up and before getting any Spanish "interference" that day?
Haha! Me too! Every time I have to spell the word "apartment," I can't do it without two p's, like appartamento.
We mix like you guys, Stellina, but it's more English with the Italian words mixed in. Or poor translations, like when we need to stop at the gas station to "make gas."
Ha! I so know what you're saying! Like your apartment/appartamento dilemma I have some words that I really fight with... the first "e" in lavender feels forever wrong to me (it's lavanda in italian) and so do words like academy ... in my mind I go "damn there should be another c in there!" I love the "make gas" translation! LOL
I once knew a girl who taught me a bunch of italian-american lingo expressions that made my ears bleed. Things like "Ho dovuto chiamare o' plummo (the plummer) ma quando ? arrivato non poteva parkare (parcheggiare) so the stimma (steamer) si ? broken.... I laughed so hard I was in tears. TEARS.
OK, sorry about the thread-jack everyone!
I was just thinking this the other day. I have also noticed that when I speak to DH now, I often end a sentence with a French word instead of Spanish (I think because I am more fluent in Spanish now and so paying less attention to what I am saying).
I've also found myself wanting to use Spanish expressions when speaking with my mom because I feel they work so much better than an equivalent in French, although I'm sure it's just from hearing them so often that they come to mind first.
I feel like some expressions just work better in another language. 'No pasa nada,' for example. 'No worries,' kind of gets at it, but only in the UK. And certain words just fire the imagination more than their equivalents in English (equivalents which, let's not forget, are not guaranteed to exist). Some expressions sound more intimate in another language--'bona nit' instead of 'good night,' for instance.
I find myself treating my entire repository of words, regardless of language (or side of the pond), as my vocabulary, words and expressions that I pull out for whatever best suits the situation. It's probably obnoxious of me. But I love language, I dabble in poetry. It's genuinely part of how I view the world.
My Dutch is sort of bad too. I have been here since I was 17 and the only time I speak Dutch is when I am over there or when I talk to my sister on the phone or Skype. I don't email a lot but when I do it is in Dutch. Writing is easier though because I have time to think about how I should or should not say something.
My sister gets a good laugh at my expense on a regular basis because I tend to translate English expressions directly into Dutch. She gets what I'm saying but of course it isn't really Dutch
She has also said I shouldn't be the one teaching my DD Dutch as it will be all wrong
... Good thing since I'm not working much on teaching her Dutch
English? What's that?
I find myself thinking about my HAIRS and cutting THEM or about "doing" a cake tonight and "making" a walk.
I'm supposed to speak English to my students, but 60% of the time it's French
.
HA! Glad I'm not alone!
Jean-Claude Van Damme syndrome, hahahaha! I love that, I'm going to steal this phrase from you
Yep, 'tis happening to me too!
I find myself saying things like this all the time: "Would you like to take a drink?"
Yeah, in Spanish that's how it's said and for some reason I say it that way in english. Also because I speak english with H and I don't always correct him (though I usually do) and sometimes I pick up his incorrect way of saying things.
I've done this my whole life going back and forth between Spanish and English and my parents do it, too, after 40 years in the U.S. Now I catch DD going "how many years have you?" to friends who are bilingual in French and English and the French kids respond, "I have 4 years!" I don't have it in me to challenge the romance-language wiring going on in her brain right now and I figure soon enough, I'll be back in the U.S. and complaining that she's speaking more English than anything else.
There are certain idioms/constructions that just make more sense in one language over the other, though. English is a very not-intuitive language.