foreign languages

As a child I could never understand how kids in other countries could manage to learn their languages. I figured it must be much more difficult than Norwegian (my own language) since it sounded like gibberish.
I also wondered why not everyone could speak Norwegian, since it was clearly much easier than other languages, in addition to it being so practical since we could understand each other that way.

Later in life I attempted to study Latin. Even though I was an adult by then, I almost caught myself wondering how the hell the Romans managed to make sense of anything. I was so frustrated by the cases and lack of sentence structure, that I made up a joke theory of how the Roman empire collapsed because of confused communication.

Christer

I used to believe that no matter what language any other person spoke i thought they would understand me if I spoke my english slower! Of course i have now found out that that isnt the case.

Polly Dolly

It was only at the age of 5-6 that I understood that to translate a verse into a foreign language you have to reconstruct it completely and it's impossible to translate word for word

Mary

i grew up speaking spanish. and when i was little, i used to think that english words were the same spanish ones, just spelled backwards.

padawan

As a child, I thought everyone else in the world was so special, because they spoke more than one language, and that english was just a made-up language having only bits and parts of other languages in it...

English, the chili of all languages.

Andreas Harris

When my sister and i were younger, we both tried to impress each other and our parents by speaking chinese. Of course, neither of us knew how to speak chinese, so we both started to make strange "ching, chong, chang" sounds in an attempt to sound authentic.

Shannon

I used to believe that even though people may have spoken different languages, we all thought to ourselves in english in our heads.

Liz

As a child, I believed that anyone who spoke a foreign language had to translate it into English in their heads in order to understand it.

Nicole

I used to think Spanish was just English spoken backwards.

nomi

I used to believe that words that rhyme in my languaje must rhyme in other languages too!

Tonatiuh

I remember one time my friend said "What's the tille?" and I asked him what it meant, and he said that 'tille' meant 'time' and I assumed it was just a more grown up word. He used to say it all the time.

I never heard anyone else ever say it so one time I asked him where he got the word from. He said, "it's French .... Quel est le tille? .... it means 'what is the time?' "

I was 11 and had started French by then. He felt a bit stupid when I told him it was "Quelle heure est-il ?" (What hour is it ?)

Mux

My mother used to teach (she's a teacher) at a school in Greece. A graduate from the school went to a university in America and when he told some girls he was Greek, she asked him something along the lines of, "So you speak Grecian? And do you still wear togas? Those sheet things?,". I wonder where she got that from.

Dark Ridley

I belived that foreign people thought English in there heads.

Mr.X

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

After WW II, when my friend was 4 yrs old, he emigrated from Europe to the U.S. His 4 older siblings were in school and rapidly learning English, and his father was learning it at work. But his stay-at-home mom spoke only her native language. One day my friend went to the house next door to play with his little friend, but he was told his friend couldn't come out, and he should come again some other day. My friend said he went home wondering why he had to wait until "some Mother's Day" to play with his friend!

Anon.

When I was little, I just couldn't get my mind around the concept of people from other countries speaking anything other than English. Yet I knew it had to be true because I personally knew people who spoke Czech, Italian & German. My solution to this dilema? I was firmly convinced people spoke other laguages, but thought in English!

Diane

I used to believe that everyone thought in English, regardless of what language they spoke.

Samantha

Once I told the teacher "I'm almost done!" Thinking I had just let her know I was as finished as I can be, I was quite confused to hear her say" Well go and finish it up then, Suzie." I learned quickly what "almost" meant. This was in kindergarten, I was still kind of new to English--even though strangely teachers had no idea it was my 2nd language--I heard a kid using the word "almsot" and I liked it.

Soo

I used to believe that until I was 6 that all people, no matter what language they spook or read, spook and thought words in English in their head. I remember looking at a Spanish picture book, and thought "Silly people, why don't they just speak English instead of speaking this stuff. It would be a lot easier."

Anon

When I was maybe four, I believed that English was THE real language, and people who didnt speak it were just speaking some secondary language.

Anon