foreign languages

Oddly enough, a lot of people seemed to have this belief. I believed everyone in the world thought in english, but people who spoke other languages translated into their language before saying it out loud. I believed this up until 7th grade when my french teacher, who was fluent, told us she sometimes dreamed in french.

Anon

I don't know how I managed this one, but I'm currently a French 3 honors student and, until someone corrected me this year, I believed the word 'Oui' (it means yes) was spelt 'Qui'. I guess I thought this because the u after q rule. I have no idea how I came this far without a teacher correcting me.

Anon

I used to believe that to speak another language all you had to do was speak english with an accent. So if I wanted to speak French, all I would do was speak English with a French accent.

Valerie

When I was about 4 or 5 I used to believe that all black people could speak Spanish.

Anon

English is not my primary language, but I used to believe that people on T.V. uses our country's language, Tagalog.

Herbert R. L.

I'm Irish, and over here we learn Irish in school.

I remember when I was about five asking my mom what country spoke Irish (because we sure as hell didn't).

Toto

I used to think that all babies were born knowing how to speak English and if they lived in a different country their parents had to teach them the native language.

Jamie

Growing up in Southern California, my brother and I used to believe that every foreign language was Spanish and thus anyone not speaking English was speaking Spanish.

Tanda

When I was about 4 or 5 I saw a documentary on the history and mythology of Ireland on tv. So I naturally assumed Ireland was a place where warriors and unicorns and leprachauns went after we got rid of them, and if I learned to speak Irish, they'd let me live with them.
At age 20, I first visited Dublin. And was actually a little disappointed. Then again, I still don't speak Irish, so who knows?

Devilfish

I used to believe that the spanish was spoken in the whole world.

Marce

I used to believe that all languages were based off of english. One day, i saw a japanese girl reading a book in japanese and told her: "you japanese people must be really stupid cuz our language looks nothing like that!" she was very upset and i told her that it wasnt my fault i was american, i was just more special. then she got really mad!

Anon

When i was little i used to think that English was the only language that made any sense and that everyone else just
babbled i always wondered how they understood each other.

Anon

When I was smaller I used to think it was england's fault my friends, family and I spoke english and not welsh and that we were forced to - I was so...diddeall!

LostprophetsLover

When I was little I used to think that everyone spoke english and no other languages

Anon

I used to be afraid to learn Spanish fluently because my native language is English. And I thought that if I learned enough Spanish I would eventually forget English.

:-P

I used to believe that when people spoke a foreign language they were just babbling and I wondered how they could possibly understand each other.

Anon

In the city where I grew up (In the Unites States) there is a golf course named Bonnie Brae Golf Course. I eventually learned that "Bonnie Brae" is Scottish, meaning "lovely hillside", and that it is a common name for golf courses, reflecting the fact that golf originated in Scotland. But before learning that, I went through quite some time thinking that Bonnie Brae must be some prominent local person, and that the golf course was named for her.

Dave

My parents thought it would be cute to teach me the Chinese (Cantonese) word for milk instead of the English one. But they didn't really teach me any other Chinese words. So when I was really little, I thought "naai naai" (or something like that), meant milk in English. Unfortunately, the people at my church's nursery didn't know Chinese. They thought I was trying to say "night-night," and thus stuck me in a crib. They couldn't understand why I got even more unhappy afterwards!

Jennifer

I believed that if you met someone that spoke another language, you could just write it down and voila, instant understanding!

Anon

My mother language is Malay and English is the second. I wasn't good at it through my childhood and kept making my british cousins laugh when I say 'vegetable' or 'their'. I didn't know that I'm not suppose to say them literally as in the written form.

Syakira