So, despite English being my native language, I decided that I would write in it today to pose a question.
Does anybody find that while learning other languages the quality of your native language starts to decrease?
It could just be me.
Recently , since I have been putting a lot more effort into learning Spanish, Irish and Urdu, I have noticed that I tend to get a lot more jumbled up with English. While writing, I will question the most simplest things (such as prepositions) and wonder if my English is even making sense. Undoubtedly, I know how to speak English. I think in English and have spoken it all my life. But now I find myself hesitating sometimes. "How do you say that phrase again? Will it be 'of' or 'for'?"
Does anyone else have this issue as well, or should I get this checked out by a doctor :D ?
That's an interesting question. And not so uncommon as one might think. I am a native of Polish, an English teacher/translator of many years. from my experience I can only say that when you spend days on end immersed in the second (or in your case third and fourth) language you tend to copy grammar structures and vocabulary items, sometimes even idiomatic phrases as 1) it's quicker, if you the person you're talking to understands you 2) sometimes it just sounds funny (in a good way). And anyway, being a native speaker does not necessarily mean you know the language 100% - you use it instinctively and it's only when you start learning another language that you start to analyse how a language actually works. So, I wouldn't really worry about it :)))
Hi Faeza, I know this feeling. I watch and read a lot in English. So sometimes I have a certain English idiom on my mind that would fit perfectly although I'm having a conversation in German. At other times I question if I put the right article before a noun and constantly ask myself if its male or female =D
Oh man, same here, I can feel my English getting weird when I've been concentrating on French or Spanish. My language acquisition classes were a couple of years ago but from what I recall (take this with a grain of salt) there's a lot of research right now on L2 effects on L1 (and L3, L4, however many languages you're speaking and learning). You're definitely not imagining it!
I guess it's not as uncommon as I thought, no need to get checked then lol :D Thanks guys for your interesting responses!
I found the opposite to be true, but there's a good reason for it. When I started learning Russian, I immediately got on a site similar to this one, where people posted things and got corrections. So I was not only writing posts in Russian, but also actively correcting other people's English. In so doing, I found myself having to find explanations time and time again for the things we say and why we say them that way. So the result was an in-depth knowledge of not only grammatical English, but also contextual English, which really helped my own proficiency increase.
Yes and no. German has not affected my English at all, Dutch on the other hand. I now say "dat" instead of that, "de" instead of "the", "gek" instead of crazy, and "where sit the plates" instead of "where are the plates". But I like to think that I have gotten more confidence from learning other languages. I believe that learning German has made me more outgoing and more analytical of what I say.
Whoa, I was scared I was the only one with this experience! Thank you for your post, its comforting to know Im not alone, haha!