foreign languages
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top belief!
When I was nine a boy in my class told me that "Frankenstein," mrant "Frank's monster" in German and I believed him.Later I got really mad at my sister and I thought the most insulting thinh hing to call her was a monster, and I could impress her by speaking German so I yelled "you..you stein" she was somewhat baffled but strangely my new insult caught on until a girl named Stein joined the class and the cunfused teachers put an end to "Steining" people.
Bride of Stein
top belief!
I used to wonder who Mazelle was, and why she was always mad. It wasn't until we had French class I realized it's mademoiselle.
top belief!
For a while I thought Anon was a name of an ancient philosopher. Probably Greek.
zeforeigner
top belief!
I knew a boy in first grade who didn't think people from England spoke English. As best I can figure it, he figured that accents qualified as other languages.
top belief!
When I was like 4 or 5, I loved those Sesame Street movies where Big Bird visits other countries. I really liked learning Japanese words in "Big Bird in Japan", but unfortunately almost all the words they focused on sounded exactly like English words: "hai" (yes) sounds like "hi", "ohayou" (good morning) sounds like "Ohio", and "ichi, ni, san" (one, two, three), sounds like "itchy, knee, sun." Because of this, I thought for a time that Japanese, and probably other languages besides English, had all the same words as English, but the meanings were just switched around.
Amanda
top belief!
As a child I used to think that everybody speaks the same language, mine.
Eva
My first language is English, and when I was little I thought that everybody in the world could automatically speak and understand English, even though they could speak their own language as well.
I used to complain about only knowing English, that everybody else in other countries could speak it to and how boring it is having a language that everyone in the world could speak.
Then my sister finally explained the concept of languages... hahaha
Gabs
top belief!
When I was a kid I thought the body of a deceased person was placed on the top drawer of a large dresser and a king's crown was placed on top (in Spanish, my first language, coffin and drawer are the same word)
Maria
When I was little, I watched a lot of "Pepe Le Peu" cartoons. I was convinced that French cats meowed in French, for example: "Le meow".
ChristiCo
top belief!
I'm Chinese American and when I was a kid, I lived in the USA, in a small town with no other Chinese people except an elderly lady and her son who spoke a different Chinese dialect we didn't understand so we just spoke to them in English. No one else knew a word of Chinese. I used to believe that 1. Chinese is a rare language. 2. Each Chinese family spoke a different dialect of Chinese.
When i was little i believed that all words were the same in all languages, just that they were pronounced differently.
Terracrafty
I used to believe that people who spoke foreign languages all translated to English in their head before speaking. It wasn't until I took a French in secondary school that I figured it out.
I used to wear hats a lot when I was little. I thought that I would look foreign.
I don't understand why either.... or why I would want to look foreign anyway.
Baggins
My dad can be very silly and is always making up words and saying them over and over again. When I was little, he also used to occasionally say random words in French. Since I had never heard anyone but him say them, I assumed he made them up too.
I used to think that the Chinese spoke Spanish...I was really confused when I found out the truth.
As a child I learned some Spanish (at school) and Greek (from my Greek family), and once my Dad told me he had tried to learn Chinese but thought it was hard. So whenever I heard a language I didn't recognize, I thought it must be Chinese, and that English, Spanish, Greek, and Chinese were the only languages in the world!
I used to believe that everyone in the world spoke the same language (my language) and when they spoke they used the same words but it just came out differently, (depending on which country you were in that moment) , so it sounded like another language. So I could speak to all people in the world and they would understand me!
Cici
top belief!
I grew up in Denmark, where the 2nd language we learn is English, and the 3rd is German. I thought that Denmark was an island in the sea, then England was another neighbouring island, and then Germany was beyond England, etc. And such, all the countries are therefore lined up, with the easiest language (Danish) first, and the hardest last.
Christian
When I was little I asked my mom whether American babies can understand other American babies, and Mexican babies can understand other Mexican babies. I thought babytalk was like adult languages, but only babies could understand it.
anonymous
When I was little my father wanted to teach me Cantonese, I refused to learn because I thought "Oh no, nobody is going to understand me. How will I communicate?"
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