foreign languages

Even though I am american, I used to believe that I spoke English and all my friends spoke "American." I don't really know why I thought this, maybe something my mom told me. I thought this in pre-school

MPB

I used to believe that other languages were like codes and to learn a language you just had to work out what the code was (i.e. every English J translated to an French U, or something) and then you'd be set.

What a surprise I got when started leaning French when I was 11!

Ruby

When I was younger I had this book on how to speak arabic. In the book it had the english alphabet and what letters they would be in arabic along with how to say that letter. Using an english word like "cat" I would go to the book, look up the "c", "a", and "t" and then put the arabic letters and how they sounded for that. I would then go to my step-dad who speaks arabic and speak in this sad made up language. He would look at me like I was crazy. One day he asked what I was doing. I said I was speaking arabic. I explained to him how I had got the sentance. He spent at least five minutes strait laughing.

Anon

Up until about age nine I believed that people would think i was chinese if i immitated the language. I would 'speak Chinese' in shops, on holiday, in school. I thought people stared at me bacause they were impressed!

Cath

When I was like 5 and "got" a Mexican cousin, I thought that his tongue would actually be only able to pronounce in Spanish, but that he was in fact thinking in French (which I speak), because the one real language was French.

Mariane

I used to believe that the whole world spoke the same language- English.

Anon

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

I used to think that when gangsters on TV said stuff like "bada bing" and "fuggeddaboudid", I thought they were speaking a foreign language.

Anon

I`m from Norway and I thought that everyone spoke their own language,but inside they where thinking norvegian all the time.

Akasha

I used to believe that learning foreign languages was simply a case of swapping letters in the alphabet. So in french the letter 'a' would be the english letter 'c', and so on. It was going to be so easy.

Gareth

When I was young and I saw a sign with the words "Newly Wed" I didn't understood what it was saying.
In sweden we call it "Ny-gifta". "Ny is like the english word "new", but the other part "-gifta" is not like the english word "married". In Sweden "gift" is the same as poison.
So when I saw these signs of "Newly Wed" I thougt that somebody have spread poison all over the area infront of the sign.

Asa Andersson

I used to believe that if I spoke with whatever accent a language was in, I was speaking that language...

Renae

My aunts and uncles used to find it hilarious that I assumed because I had grew up in Ireland that I spoke Irish. So at family parties or just in front of their mates they would ask me to "speak English" at which point I would launch into gibberish, their laughter only convinced me that I was gettting better at it!

Steve

I used to think it was really cool, after visiting France when I was younger, that they all spoke in code (French) so suggested to my cousin that we make our own up! He was 4 years older than me and I think he realised it was French but he still played along, we still use it today- about 15 years later!

Jen

I used to believe that, no matter what language other people spoke, that everyone thought in English

Anon

This one girl in my spanish class thought that "Caliente" was a bad word for some reason ... she would go around screaming "CALIENTE! CALIENTE! You're a caliente"

pood

when i was younger i thought everyone who spoke a language other than english, actually heard english when they spoke that language. just the rest of us could not understand it

Tori

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

When I was little I believed that people who spoke a foreign language were translating to and from English in their minds.

Anon

I used to think that people who spoke in foreign languages thought their words in English first before translating it into their own language.

Helen Yates (UK)