[mr.videomen]

OK I live in Texas. We have a large spanish speaking population. I am always doing my best to learn new stuff especially when it is communication based. I speak very bad Spanish, just enough to get my point across with a lot of pointing and gesturing. So. I start taking kendo....New language right?
Twice now i have attempted to be gracious in receiving compliments from one of my sensei. BOTH time I have said "Gracias". Damn it wrong language. Has anyone else had this problem or is it just me. What have you said to someone in the wrong language.

Yes I know i am just a dumbass trying to speak a foreign tounge, but admitting it publicly is quite cathartic.

[Yfclciak]

i know exactly what you mean. English is my first language but I can speak some French. When I was learning the basics of Japanese, the professor taught us in French because her French was much better than her English.

As a result, when I ask my brain for a French word it often serves up a Japanese one and vice versa. Its maddening.

[MyOwnStyle]

Once upon a time, I was at a factory in Germany playing the role of a translator.

On the right, the Germans to whom I spoke half German and half English.

On the left, a delegation of Chinese who spoke... Chinese.

In the center, yours truly, who's bilingual in English and Chinese, with college-level German.

On paper, this should have been an easy operation. In practice, it was a disaster. I spoke English to Chinese, Chinese to German, and cursed myself in German whenever I spoke the wrong language, which was often.

So, you're not the only one.

[secondmertg]

I couldn't tell you how many times I've used Japanese phrases in spanish classes...

[Misebeita]

I know what you mean. When I just came back from Japan, going to teh convinience store here was messy for me... I had to think in 3 languages what to say (Spansih, English and Japanese). I think I got clearly when and where to use those langauges in Japan, but here was like "I need to concentrate just for answering in my own language".. Like system failure.. damn it! I lost some neurons!

[Gintovtosik]

Ridiculed plenty after a phone call when I answered my aunt in Spain in Japanese. I blame Skype.

http://jp.youtube.com/user/BigDreamsLittleTokyo

[Lxbsvksl]

Sometimes my brain decides to operate in Cantonese rather than English.

This is especially unhelpful in the dojo where things are in Japanese and English. I am sure that sometimes I have the blankest look on my face. I must seem like a space cadet at times to my sensei.

[janeseymore09092]

OK I live in Texas. ..........
Yes I know i am just a dumbass trying to speak a foreign tounge, but admitting it publicly is quite cathartic.

Clearly you have problem enough writing in your supposed first " tounge"


I must confess that the only other language I can speak well enough is German which I leraned from watching videos in my youth.


" I haf kom, to kleen, ze pool.....


(some time later)


Ja, das ist gut,


ooh das ist fantastisch....


ja, munchen mein stumpen"


Ahem

[lopaayd]

My sensei teaches in Japanese, English and Cantonese no problem. I think you get used to switching when you do it regular enough.

I find it harder if you need to carry on a conversation in a group with different language(s) at different levels of understanding. Broken sentences or pen & paper always help...

[chuecalovers]

The biggest problem I see happening when speaking English, being a native Dutch speaker is when I translate things which I have thought up in Dutch and they contain Dutch proverbs..

One way to prevent this is to think in English. The problem when I think too much in English is that my Dutch gets worse as my fiancee is English speaking.

[corkBrobe]

English, the universal language.... well it would have been if we had invaded a few more places...
I find my japanese improves under the influence of alcohol, as does my japanese buddie's english. Alcohol... far better than Babelfish!

[ufUUZCnc]

My mother tongue is Spanish; from very early on I began to study English (I don't want your opinions on that! Don't hurt my feelings!), plus, living until I was 18 relatively near Brazil, Portuguese was kind of background noise that stuck to my mind and I realized that when I went holidays there in the past few years. Now I am learning Japanese, and the idea of taking my initial lessons in Esperanto more seriously is around my head (no, I am not a language freak) .
So, I have no trouble is switching languages, nowadays is second nature to me (it has to be when your own language is of little use out of your country, or your region). The amount of people that speak more than one language is relatively high around here. My wife works at an international call center in three languages, and she has to switch them on the fly.
In the dojo, I prefer to stuck to Japanese commands and voices, in spite of sounding a little snob sometimes, but I think that helps you get ready for wherever in the world you may find yourself swinging bamboo someday.

[SeelaypeKet]

join the club mate... really...

i live in spain, where the official language -as you may have guessed already!- is spanish but then again, a lot of the japanese sensei who come to spain for visits barely know spanish, do usually know some english, but mostly just use japanese. sometimes at seminars, when there's no one else with a more fluent nihongo than me, i have to translate intermixing the 3 languages.... oh the disaster!

now, one thing is screwing up for yourself and saying gracias instead of arigatou..... but screwing up words for a whole bunch of people who is looking at you expecting a 100% accurate translation is really embarrassing!! :P

with my japanese friends here in madrid we often also use an indiscriminated mix of spanish, english and japanese. i even coined a term for it.... spanihonglish® so dear kw forumites, lets give a nice and warm welcome to 1stdan, the new member of the happy club of spanihonglish speakers en el mundo desho hahaha

[Sxedlawb]

join the club mate... really...

i even coined a term for it.... spanihonglish® so dear kw forumites, lets give a nice and warm welcome to 1stdan, the new member of the happy club of spanihonglish speakers en el mundo desho hahaha

Graciarigato............... I love spanihonglish!

[dwestemesse]

spanihonglish®

ahahaha~!


That's Moto Bueno!

[abishiots]

ahahaha~!


That's Moto Bueno!

Muy good desu! (Local dialect...)

[MaraReenece]

I once had a girlfriend whose first language is French, and she would revert back to it when she got excited or fired up about something. So once in a while I'd push her buttons a bit just to get her riled up - and she'd get even more fired up when she'd realize that she was yelling at me in French (which I don't understand a word of).

The main disadvantage is that I lost every single argument we ever had.

[raskrutkaseo]

I once had a girlfriend whose first language is French, and she would revert back to it when she got excited or fired up about something. So once in a while I'd push her buttons a bit just to get her riled up - and she'd get even more fired up when she'd realize that she was yelling at me in French (which I don't understand a word of).

The main disadvantage is that I lost every single argument we ever had.

But the sex was good right?











...Ok then.

Mmmm..Quebec'ers...

[SueveDobe]

For me can pretty much switch between Japanese and English no prob! Get the point across in Japanese, although whether its grammatically correct or not mmm still working on that part lol! On other hand my English has gone a bit down hill since I am in living and working in Japan! Then of course know a few words here and there of other languages but nothing real useful!