sistermagpie | Speaking in tongues

Today was S's last day in my Saturday ballet class, because she's been transferred back to Germany, which is where she is from. She said she hoped one day to get transferred to India because she speaks Hindi, which I thought was really cool. She said Hindi sounded something like German and English because they're all Indo-Germanic languages.

C, who is also in this class, is from France. So we started talking about speaking different languages and C said that she was much more outgoing about her feelings in English, that she was very shy in French but now sometimes got frustrated speaking to her family or her best friend thinking, "This would be easier if you understood English." She felt she was sort of hiding behind the language but also letting her true self show more...which made sense to me, somehow. I'm sure if I ever finally mastered another language well enough to communicate in it I might feel that way. It also made me think of a discussion about TTT where somebody said it was fake the way Elrond and Arwen switched from English to Elvish in mid-conversation, only to have some multi-lingual people say no, that was very realistic, that they often switched languages depending on the subject. Some things are more easily spoken about in different languages.

So I thought I'd throw this out to the amazingly polyglot people on lj--I know some of you speak more than one language...do you find differences in yourself from one language to another? Do you all often speak English or just write in it? I used to have a bookmark I made that said, "To speak another language is to possess another soul" or something like that--does it seem like that? Does what C said make sense to you?

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(For the record, my foreign languages are French and German. Oh, the good old standbys!)

I have had those 'switch' converations - felt awfully pretentious doing it, but really it's just so you can get your meaning across fully if the other person doesn't understand, or to put across subtleties. And some things just don't translate, or sound stupid in another language other than the original.

C said that she was much more outgoing about her feelings in English, that she was very shy in French

Partly the more outgoing side does come out in another language for me, but mainly I get v. frustrated in my languages - I've studied them to a very high level, but have a natural affinity for writing rather than oral expression, so my oral communication skills are the worst part of it. That doesn't mean I can't hold long conversations on difficult topics, but certain areas like arguing are v. hard for me. They're also hard, emotionally speaking, in English, but somehow the emotions get in the way of language even more in my non-native languages. Gah, it's really annoying.

What I ultimately felt when spending quite some time abroad, was that I couldn't express my personality in another language. It was like I remained on the same surface level and just couldn't break through...partly vocab, partly people, I guess, partly cultural differences... all of those combined made it very isolating. I didn't feel people got the 'real' me, because my personality is so tied to fluency of expression and the beauty of words and feeling at home in them, playing with/on words. Though I love my adopted languages, and the unique words that they contain, which you can't translate into English, well... it sounds awful and cheesy, but - my heart expresses itself in English. I can't change that, and just have to accept it.

"To speak another language is to possess another soul"

Yes - I do feel I change somewhat, different parts of me come to the fore when communicating in another language - and I do feel the ability to do so, adds something to my soul. It's also getting further into another culture, that allows you to share in it and possess something more than the heritage you grew up with.

Just browsing through the comments - the swearing and porn thing is interesting. Since I don't have a problem with swearing in English anyway, it's almost a moot point - but it's very easy to swear in other languages because the words just don't have that instant emotional effect. Porn, on the other hand... When people were trying to help me with career choices, they would say 'Well, you could...write books in 2 languages!' I'd be like, er...NO. I can write creatively in other languages - perhaps it's more practice than anything that I need - but on a regular basis? OMG how the fuck do you people do it? Let alone write porn? For me, part of the joy of writing, and of writing porn, is the weigh of the words, the titillation, the visceral shock of something like 'cock'. Esp. when someone like Snape says it, for whom it's a little incongruous. And that weight is there because I've grown up with English, because I love it and its breadth and depth and wheee! Can't express how much I love it, really. :D

/ramble

That was wonderful! As strange as it sounds, I really *imagine* speaking another language the way you describe, where it's hard to put your personality across and that's so frustrating to me. Two examples I can think of, for instance. One was in high school when I had to give an oral report in French. Usually I've got no problem speaking in front of people, but the first time I tried it I just looked out and felt like nobody was getting a word I was saying and it must be so damn boring for them listen to be talk about nothing and I got so upset I fainted. I still remember this girl Heidi in the front row telling me how I just suddenly sort of looked up and was kind of green and passed out. V. embarassing. The next time I used some visual aids and got through it.

The other time was once doing an immersion weekend. They'd put me in a level that was really too high because I do better on written French, so I was the stupidest person in the group.:-) I was so frustrated all weekend not being able to really take part in conversations (as you can tell from my lj, I like to participate in conversations...). Then sometimes when the instructor would try to help me he couldn't because what I was trying to say just made no sense to him. Like, it was more than just the words, it was just I think he didn't get me either. I will always remember him asking us about food and he was asking me if I liked mushrooms. So I said I had never eaten mushrooms because I was afraid of them. It just happened that this was the true answer, but as I'm trying to say in French, "I am afraid of them because the King of the Elephants in Babar died from eating a bad mushroom and he was healthy in one picture and wrinkled and green in the next and so I never wanted to try them and anyway they seem gross."

I think I got about as far as, "Le roi des elephants...? (if that's even correct--it's been a while) before the guy was looking at me like I was crazy. Such a stressful weekend. Made my skin break out something terrible.

Sweetie! I'm sorry you had bad experiences. Speaking another language does make you vulnerable somehow, esp. when you have to prove yourself in exams and such. And the teacher can make or mar it, too. I've had a wide variety and some of them were great, but mostly too busy, too stressed and too overworked. (Esp. those TERRIBLE ones that put you off learning by laughing at your mistakes or interrupting every single sentence to correct you. You end up with your mouth firmly shut becuase it's too depressing to carry on. Urgh.)

Speaking in tongues

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