foreign languages

I used to believe you would speak in the country you were in. For example, I'm American, and spoke only english. But if I were to ever go to Russia, I would magically be able to speak russian! How I wish it were that easy.

Ang

When I was young, I though the actors and actresses should be able to speak in all languages, because I had seen the Dallas in Turkish, English, German and Arabic TV...

sel

I thought that everyone knew every lanuage there was in the world. So I used to watch Asian or Mexican TV to see if I could understand it but I couldn't. I asked my dad if he could tell me what they were saying but even he didn't know. So from that point on I thought you had to be of latino desent to speak spanish or asain desent to speak any of those languages. I thought if I was caught trying to learn any other language the States might send me to Japan or Germany or something

Mike

I used to think Chinese people spoke English and just had accents to make them Chinese, because Godzilla was dubbed.

Allie

When I was young, I used to love Sesame Street and the small bits of Spanish they taught you. So when I was about five I knew that 'hola' meant 'hello'. So one day I asked my mom if there were any more ways to say hello. So she explained to me that almost every country had it's own language and own way to say hello. She then gave me examples of other languages...in Germany they speak German, in Japan tey speak Japanese, and so on. I listened intently, and replied: "Oh. We just speak regular here, right?"
Typical American kid :-)

Jacki

i used to think that even though foreign people spoke their language, they thought in english, otherwise how would they understand themsleves?

Sylvie

I used to believe that people who spoke foreign languages had to translate it into English before they understood what it meant

Anon

My cousin & I were the 2 oldest, we began speaking our own language he was 11 and i was 7. We really thought we understood eachother, and we really thought we were speaking spanish. To this day we don't know what the heck it was! Our family loves to tell that story.

sl

I grew up as a foreign national in the United States. At home we only spoke our language. Since my dad worked, I rarely went out in the neighbourhood with him, so at three years of age, I concluded that my dad couldn't speak English. I never heard him speak a word of it, so that meant he couldn't speak English!(My mom could - I had heard her talk to the neighbours, etc.) One rare time my dad was taking me to the park and we were approached by a neighbour, and I got all set to translate, so imagine my shock when my dad started speaking English!
Kids...if it is outside of our little view of reality, we simply conclude it can't exist!

green card

When i was about 6 i though that english was a mix of all the languages in the world because in the US they spoke english and people in the US where from all over the world.

figbush

In order to learn another language, one must first learn English. Since both of my parents spoke 2 different native languages and spoke English to each other. They had originally met each other in yet another country and my sister learned that language and translated for them.

Rock and Roll could only be sung in American English. I had never heard R'nR in any other language and further evidenced by the Brits who didn't have their accents when they sang.

This came down like the 'Wall' when at the age of 10 I saw a German-Russian translation book on my grandmother's shelf. I commented that it was a stupid publication because one would still need German-to-English and then English-to-Russian books to use it.

Even 8 years later, with some conversational grasp of 3 languages, I was still amazed to meet people that themselves spoke 3 or 4 languages but we couldn't converse because none of the 7 languages were the same! {How ethnocentric!!! (not in superiority, but can only relation to self)}
Maybe all we do in America _is_ sleep all the time! ;-)---see entry by Sandy (Sydney Australia)

Umami

my sister and i used to make up our own "foreign" language while we would be out shopping. we wanted people to think that we were not born in the states!

Anon

I used to think that every word meaning something had the same pronounciation in all languages-the difference was only with the scripts (Example Mom was always called Mother in English, French, Hindi etc). No wonder than that when i wrote my first Hindi exam using English words and Hindi scripts, my score failed to move beyond zero.

Bala

When I was little, I moved from England to Canada. Before I left, once of my aunts told me that in Canada, everyone spoke a different language, and I'd have to say things like "Keller-eh-teel" (Quelle heur est'il?) and "Bomb sure" (Bonjour)
I was kinda nervous, because I wanted to keep speaking English.

However, years later in French class, I finally figured out what she had been trying to tell me, and it took most of my self-control to keep from laughing. (and showing off my knowledge of a few phrases she'd told me!)

Walks-the-Umbra

I used to believe that, even though people from other countries spoke different laguages, everyone thought in English.

superjill

I used to believe that translating from language into language was only a matter of changing letters ! :)

EwS