We all have those days (I think) when we just can’t speak.
The words are there, but it’s just impossible to say them. This happens to me
quite often, when I know what I want to say, I have the words lined up in my
brain, but nothing comes out. I stand there wordlessly, just thinking to myself
“You have the words! Just spit it out!” Sometimes I have the words, just not in
English. One time a while back, one of my friends and I were talking about
something (probably food), and I was trying to say something about napkins, but
I just could not find the word in English. Luckily, this friend speaks Spanish,
and I could say “servilleta, servilleta”.
“You mean napkin?” “Yes.” *sigh of defeat* That was only one of the many days
where I’ve either not been able to find the word in English, or not been able
to say it. Other days, particularly after having a lot of foreign language (French
for me, since I speak the language quite proficiently) exposure, especially in
the hours before I go to sleep, I’ll wake up the next morning and have my
thoughts be in both French and English, but the French will be a half-second
before the English. This can be particularly irritating as no one in my family
knows enough French to converse with me (as far as I know). Sometimes, the urge
to speak in French around English-speakers is so strong that I have to say “Ok,
Elizabeth, English, English, English.”
There was one time a while ago on some sort of international
pen pal website, I was IMing (instant messaging) with probably ten people at
the same time (for at least 3 hours) and half of the conversations were in
English and the other half were in French. I remember in particular that that
night I dreamt in both languages, and for several hours the next day, my
thoughts were in both languages.
The university I attend offers conversation hours for the
foreign languages taught here, and one week I went to the French, Spanish,
German, and Russian ones. By the end of the week, I had been around so many
different languages that my brain was fried. Moral of the story: enjoy other languages, but make sure to maintain a
grip on your own in the process.
(395 words)
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