foreign languages

I used to believe that a foreign language just had a different alphabet, so that all you had to do was learn the new alphabet and translate it from english one letter at a time...

serious kid

I used to believe that once you learned a foreign language that when you heard it, it would translate into english. For anyone who didn't know the language it would just sound like weird words.

Anon

When I was 7 our family decided to move to Dubai for afew years. I thought that I'd completely stop speaking English and I'd start speaking Arabic and Arabic would take over English and I mae my friends swear to teach me English again when I got back

Bianca

I thought that kids who lived in other countries thought in English like we did and had to learn to speak their other language fluently by the time they were five or they'd be sent out of the country. I used to think how amazingly smart they must be to be translating their thoughts from English into a different language every time they said something.

Lyssa

I used to believe that when someone was born, no matter what country they lived in, automatically spoke English, and that their parents would have to teach them their native language.

deborah

I used to believe that if you knew a single word of any language, you were automatically descended from it. So I say, "I'm part English, Arabic, Spanish, Portugese," and the list goes on. That was until Mom correct

Dazed and Confused

I used to think that people who spoke foreign languages only spoke them, but their thoughts were in english like mine.

Amber

I used to think that the only language God knew was English. I was very happy to be American instead of some other ethnicity, because I thought if I was, God wouldn't understand my prayers!

Anon

When I was younger, I used to think that just by saying any random word that one of those words was bound to be a real word in some country.

Kel

When I was a kid, I used to believe that if you knew a language, it would sound like English if you heard it. IE, whenever I heard people speak another language, I thought to them it sounded like English.

Anon

I used to believe that people who don’t understand English can’t talk.

American

I was quite shure that if I just spoke enough "sounds like english but certainly is not", I would speak beautiful english as a grown up.
I did. And now I don´t.

kari slaatsveen, Oslo/Norway

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

Sylvie

When I was in kindergarten, there was a Chinese kid in the class. One time he said something to us in Chinese. I did my best to remember it, and then repeated it to my mom when I got home, demanding to know what he said. She wouldn't tell me (not speaking Chinese, after all). I got quite made at her, thinking she was holding back or that it was a bad word or something.

Jim Thomason...

i used to believe all foriegn languages were greek if you learned greek you could speak them all

pappy 6 27 35

When i was about 6 or 7 i went on holiday to Greece and met a friend from london (im from wales) and i was forever saying "go on, say somthink in london language" and she would say "i speak english the same as you" and i would say "wow..... thats amazing!!!!teach it to me"

hannah (imbarassed at myself)

My mum is from Austria and she never taught me German, I'm embarrassed to say that I thought Austrian was a language and told me teacher that it's a very different language to German, I was about 10, how stupid

Anna

Before I went to school, I used to believe that what ever marks I made with a pencil or pen were words written in another language. I used to scribble on a page in lines from left to right, and then look at it, wondering what in the heck I had just written.

Sharon J

as a child i firmly believed that accents counted as languages. so for the first eight years of my life i spoke Derby and if anyone asked me if i spoke English i would deny it compleatly! i was always amazed at my cousin who could speak both Derby and English lol

kitkat

I used to think that foreign languages were only spoken by people of that nationality and everyone else just had to speak English.

Anon