foreign languages

When I was little, I used to believe that people who spoke foreign languages would think in English. So before they said something they would translate it from English to whatever language they were speaking. Also, when someone was talking to them, they had to translate what they were saying from that language to English. I still find myself thinking that every once in a while but then I quickly correct myself. :-)

Butt Crack Attack

When I was little, I moved, and started at a new school. My new french teacher, Madame Emmanuel, was really scary (at least to a 7 year old). We'd begin every class with her saying "Bonjour Classe!" and us responding "Bonjour, Madame Emmanuel!".

Me, not having much instruction in French, simply assumed that her name was "Madamy Mannuel", and wondered what kind of name Madamy was.

Amanda

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

I used to believe that the sound that we say animals make in English could be translated into other languages, and that's what animals would say in that country.
So, for example cows in France wouldn't say "moo", they would say whatever "moo" meant in France.

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i used to think that the language in cartoons was gibrish (it was English) but it wasnt the spoken language in my country.One day i had an arguement with a boy in my class cause he told me they speak in english(HE was American)and i called him a liar.

Yossi

I used to believe that I HAD to make up my own language and teach it to everyone. I was soo weird.

one day maybe!

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.

Anon

My full name is Ericka Minerva but before I came to the U.S. I was known as Minerva. Nobody had ever called me Ericka before so I wasn't even aware of this being my name. Well, when I started kindergarted, the teacher noticed that I had 2 names and wanted to know which I preferred, so she asked me, "Do you want me to call you Ericka?" I responded with "Ericka?" meaning I didn't understand what she was trying to say so she took it to mean that I wanted to be called Ericka.
So for the first few weeks I would not respond when she would call me because I wasn't aware of this being my name. She finally got frustrated and called my parents(who also didn't know that they were calling me Ericka at school) and asked them why I didn't respond to "Ericka". They finally told me that "Ericka" was also my name and to start paying attention when I heard it. Well ever since then, I have never been called Minerva anymore. Everybody knows me as Ericka and it even sounds funny when somebody calls me by my "old" name!

Ericka "Minerva"

My brother took french all through high school and at a local university in the summers. One time at the end of one of the summer classes they were going to have a class party and everone was asked to bring one item. They asked my brother to bring some baguettes. He replied "bag-ettes of what?" Luckily, he says, they thought he was just joking, so he laughed along with them and asked our mom what they were later.

Carol K

When I was little i used to belive that other languages have to have the same mouth movements as english and rhyme and stuff. so when we were at the mall one day I overheard a woman speaking in spanish to her husband, I said "i know what you are saying" in "spanish" but it came out as "y go but poo far playing" sadly they could speak english 2. oopsies

Stephie

Petit, je croyais qu'en Irlande on parlait et chantait en français !

Garçon Français

When I was little, I used to think that Latin was wriiten because it wasn't a spoken language!!!

Stupid Gal

I used to think Japanese people had funny ears, and that when we said something in Japanese they heard it in English...I also thought their mouths were deformed or something, so that when they spoke Japanese they were actually trying to speak English.

Anon

When i was about 7, i went on holiday to France with my family. After an overnight stay in a hotel, we were saying goodbye to the receptionist. My parents had been teaching me bits of the language on the journey over (because i thought one holiday would result in fluency. heh) so as we left i said "au revoir", and the French lady laughed. I was so embarrassed, under the impression that i had done something terribly wrong, that i refused to speak French again until i had to at secondary school. It was only about 2 years ago that i realised she was laughing because i was a 7 year old English kid trying to speak a foreign language. bless.

c

I used to believe, when I was younger, that people who would speak in different languages were speaking English but only backwards...-__-

Blu

i used to think that franch was actually swearing !!!! until i realised it was just like english lol :P

anon

I used to believe that the whole world uses my linguage (I am from Croatia). I used to believe that everyone think in croatian. :) And then translate it to their linguage. How stupid, ha? ;)

Kuhacha

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 a child I was convinced the white noise on our TV was a language that meant something to someone we just did understand it.

Michael

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!

Anon