this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Speaking more than one language. Being from Switzerland, we're required to study 2 languages (+ our native one) at school. So it's not infrequent to encounter swiss people who speak 4+ languages
This is crazy to me. I studied French at school for years and got to a decent enough level, but then when I tried to take Spanish later on I couldn't deal with it. Maybe if they'd been concurrent it would've been a different story but I just couldn't keep the languages separate in my brain. Then years later when I moved to a different country the French pretty much left my head as a new language replaced it.
I guess I've only got one "foreign language center" in my head and only one language can occupy it at any time.
you need to keep using it. Watch a show or read a book in that language every once in a while. It'll do wonders to keep the brain on it.
In Sweden kids learn English from second grade and a third language from fifth grade.
What really annoys me is how many programmers seem to expect us to only be able to understand one language. I much rather have the program made in English than to read a bad Swedish translation.
Only speaking one language fluently makes me feel like garbage regularly, none of my schooling really stuck and I can never commit to language or feel enough confidence to use anything I do learn.
In Germany it's also mandatory - but learning the language at school unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean you can speak it. LucasArts adventures contributed more to my language skills than my first English teacher. I'm always shocked about the lack of English skills in a lot of Germans when I'm back visiting. Rather surprisingly one of my uncles born in the 30s spoke pretty good English, though.
We're now living in Finland - me German, wife Russian, we each speak to the kids in our native language, between each other English. So they're growing up with 4 languages.
It's quite interesting to watch them grow up in that situation. When learning about a new historical figure my daughter always asks which languages they spoke - and few weeks ago she was surprised someone only spoke two languages. So I explained that some people only speak one language - she gave me a very weird look, and it took a while to convince her that I'm not just making a bad joke.
That's a point current generation children are actively working on by following English-speaking streamers, communicating in predominantly English Discords, etc. The worst: my kid chose to prefer American English. Where did I go wrong?
American english is the standard dialect for online content. And without exposure other dialects can be really hard to understand.