Welcome to being Multilingual

Do you know someone who speaks multiple languages? Do you want to write a character who speaks at least two or more languages? Well, here’s my experience as a multilingual person who is trying to keep up the skills they’ve gained.

I very much admire people who can speak more than one language with little trouble. The skill to speak many languages is tough.

I speak roughly three languages to varying degrees. I also understand some of a forth language - though not enough to make it really count. 

Naturally, as I am writing in English, I can understand it. It’s my native language.

English even popped up a lot outside of English speaking countries (this picture was taken in Iceland)

The other two that I consider myself knowledgeable in are Spanish and Japanese. I began learning them at an early age. So early, that I learned a few things first in them instead of English. Heck, I didn’t know the American Pledge of Alliance in English until I was ten, but I can still recite it in Spanish.

Now, I’ve never lived out of the country, so I picked up these languages from my family and at school. Actually, a lot of my friends growing up could speak two or more languages. The area I’m from was very diverse and it wasn’t unusual to hear two or three languages shouted out in the school hallways. 

I also studied these languages in school: ten years for Spanish (to the point where I often still think and dream in it) and two semesters of college Japanese. Which is why my confidence in them is fairly strong. 

However, it’s been so long since I’ve been in school that some days I worry that I’ll become so rusty, I’ll forget how to speak them. Thus, this year I decided to try practicing in them at least once a day. I’m using a language app (Duolingo) to keep up practice. Though I have also read Spanish books and watched TV in Spanish quite a bit (Telemundo was one of the few consistent channels I got in New Jersey and they showed some good movies). Trying to find similar ways to practice with Japanese has been a little harder for me.

Having the recourses to practice languages outside of school is a great blessing. I can still understand and speak Spanish well enough. While, my Japanese has improved enough that I’m confident in writing in it between myself and my cousins - though I would hate to be asked to speak to someone outside of my family as I am not nearly that confident in practice. 

Now about that forth language...

Years ago, I began learning Portuguese as my roommate at the time was Brazilian. Her family came to visit one holiday season and most of them (particularly her mother) didn’t speak any English. Naturally I took it upon myself to learn a little Portuguese to try and make them feel welcome.

Learning Portuguese wasn’t too hard (not like learning Japanese which has a completely different grammar structure). It’s very similar to Spanish and there are a lot of words that are pronounced the same. I was doing alright with my learning. My roommate thought the app was hilarious and took it upon herself to teach me the Brazilian pronunciation of words.

The challenge came when I tried to speak with my roommate’s family. I would start in Portuguese, get confused or stuck, and switch into Spanish. Also, I found the only phrase I could get out when I was nervous was basically: “I like this.”

I know my roommate and her family appreciated my efforts (they told me). But I was still embarrassed by my poor attempts.

It’s intimidating speaking a new language. Though that hasn’t stopped me from trying. In fact I have a lot of similar hilarious examples of me either trying to speak or understand someone and thoroughly messing up.

Remember how I said that I learned somethings first in a language other than English? Well, I seem to default to thinking my directions in Spanish as that’s the language I learned them in first. This caused a horrible crisis when I was in the middle of a Japanese language exam where I was supposed to be telling the teacher how to get to the library. My mind kept switching from Japanese to English to Spanish, then back to English, finally ending in Japanese. Eventually I got stuck in Spanish and I began freaking out in front of my Japanese teacher... in Spanish.

Thankfully, said teacher also spoke Spanish and could calm me down. I also kept apologizing that all I seemed to be able to think in was Spanish and couldn’t even find the right English words to say (which would have lowered my grade). 

And yes, when I’m trying to speak Japanese, I sometimes switch into Spanish. Just as when I sometimes want to speak Spanish I’ll start thinking only in Japanese. 

Then there are the times where I think I’m following a conversation and it turns out I am way off the mark because I’m confusing a word in one language for a similar sounding word in another.

My Brazilian friends tried to speak English around me as much as possible (not that I minded - it’s easier to pick up a language when it’s spoken around me), but sometimes they’d forget that my Portuguese was terrible. One night, I was near my friends and kept hearing a word that my brain translated as “purple”. So, I stopped and asked them why they were talking about the color purple.

Spoiler alert: they weren’t talking about the color purple.

The word they were saying sounded like the Spanish word for purple, but actually meant boyfriend. They had a good laugh at my expense, I blushed and took the humiliation in stride.  It they didn’t want to discourage my curiously and happily explained my mistake.  I enjoy telling this story from time to time as an example of how to help a person who isn’t a native speaker speak your native language.

Learning new languages is tough. Your friends who can speak multiple languages have an awesome skill. If they mix something up or forget a grammar rule, it’s probably because of all the languages floating around in their head (seriously Japanese grammar is no joke). Don’t make fun of people who try to speak English, at least they’re trying.

Finally, if you want to write a character to be believably multilingual, have them make lots of silly mistakes like forget the word for snail and call them a house less slug or mix up the grammar or substitute two similarly sounding words that mean entirely different things. (A good example in English is the word sheet, my poor fifth grade Spanish teacher always had a room full of laughing ten years olds when he told us to take out a sh*t of paper).

If you’re interested in learning a new language or practicing one you think has gotten rusty, check out an app or a game. There are lots available on Steam and in the app stores. I picked Duolingo because it has exactly what I need to keep practicing, but there may be a better option for you.

Happy practicing.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Until next week.