Are you a different person when you speak a different language?

Interesting article. What do you guys think?

Are you a different person when you speak a different language?

That’s interesting – I think there is a degree of “anonymity” when we are speaking another language. We are able to step outside of ourselves a bit.

Speaking a different language lets you be a different person for a little while, maybe be who you dream you’d be in that life, where you speak that other language fluently and use it to progress there…I’m not sure…but something like that…or not…anyway…

Thanks Jon for the article it was a very interesting read. I myself when trying to speak another language feel like I’m not myself because I’m at such a beginner level with any language besides English. I feel like I’m a little kid trying to learn English all over again. As for what cultural implications come with certain languages, I have never thought of that angle before. But now when I’m looking at an ad I will look into them a little more closely to see what my perception is.

Well we’ll all see through my blog and stuff how I change and sorts when I’m speaking in another language…hmmm I can be a social experiment!

LOL – Kurt you make it sound like Frankenstein! Or Grawp for you Harry Potter fans!

Hmmm…well my old partner at work used to tease me and said my voice goes to a “little girl voice” when I speak Spanish. Weird…

I rarely use foul language, but when I lived in South America, I would make the Colombians blush when I occasionally cursed like a fishwife! They sound so funny, cute and harmless in another language, because I don’t have ownership of them. After a couple of whoppers, I tried to tone it down a bit. I didn’t want my friends to get the wrong impression. They found it pretty funny, thankfully…phew…

It’s funny. I am shy in Arabic, lol. In English, I feel free. Maybe when you learn people’s language, you also learn their way in how to deal in situations. Speaking English makes me more social and crazier, lol, otherwise I would never kiss a bear and hold a chimpanzee. Funny, isn’t it?

But when I speak animal’s language, I am not shy at all, lol. I become very crazy and brave. That’s the hardest language you can ever learn, animal’s language.

Definetly I feel as a different person. It is not only the switching from one language to another, you also change the movements, the way you express things, the intonation, etc. And more than that, when you are originally from somewhere and you go abroad, then you are more free, like you start from zero because, depending on the case, it could be that nobody knows you and you are allowed, and people accept it, even they like it sometimes, to make mistakes. The more you know a language the more you are in a borderline between two cultures, not only between two languages.

I must be having a different experience than each of you in the language department, because I still feel like me…the teacher….me…..the creative seeker of knowledge, but in different languages. Now if I were speaking these languages, English, Spanish, and Mandarin, in a different country, I might feel differently. I have yet to experience that.

Hamdy, I am curious as to how you speak to a chimpanzee. Do you literally go goofy with the ooooh, ooooh,ooooh, oooooh, or do you incorporate the body language of pursing the lips and scratching the head, jumping up and down, when excited, or what? I think we would all appreciate a detailed description.

I have no idea at all as to how one goes about speaking in “BEAR”. Do they have grunts and growls, or do they just lick your face and you pray they don’t eat you in an hour? Hmmmmm….I really wonder!

Well Candy, speaking to an animal is not easy. The Language of Love, that’s the term I should be using. The animal should feel that you are helping it not giving him pain. For instance, some vets just inject the animal and go. Thus, the animal would think that this person give it pain not a medication. I had that experiece with a dog before and luckily,I fixed it after a while. we are friends now!

There is another important thing everyone should know, a wild animal will be wild forever. I mean it can get used to be your friend if you were together while it was young. However, it may become wild later and hurt you. So I never trust a wild animal, although I am crazy sometimes.

Thanks for letting me speak about my experience. I love animal behavior and that’s the best part in animal studies.

Hamdy – I love your photo gallery!

Thank you Sandra. I love yours too ;)

Yes, I have always noticed that I feel different when I speak French, German and English – my first language. Not massively different – just a slightly different version of myself. I think this only happens when you become fluent. Language contains and transmits culture so in order to fit in you change.

I am just beginning to learn Italian so am wondering what I will be like?!
Jacqueline

I do notice that, aside from just tutoring sessions of course. I am a little different when I speak spanish or should I say Spanglish, lol.

Jacqueline,

“Language contains and transmits culture so in order to fit in you change.” – Very important point!

Very interesting discussion…
Although I’m nowhere near fluent in any of the languages I’ve studied, I have noticed different attitude shifts in myself depending on which language I’m (trying) to converse in. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact then when I learn a language, I also learn a lot of the culture and the history of the people(s) behind that language, and possibly allow that to affect my thoughts while I’m speaking it, much as one unconsciencely mimics the different North American accents of English when living in different parts of the States (something I’ve found to be true not only for myself, but many friends as well. I’m a native Texan, but completely lost my drawl while attending college in Michigan, and actually picked up some of their grammatical oddities, i.e. ending a sentence with “with” ).

Another thing to consider is that a language is in fact a very real, living thing, constantly changing and modifying itself with the changes of its speakers. Many of you, I’m sure, have noticed how certain ideas are easier to express in one language than in another, or even that it is possible to say something in one language that is almost impossible to translate fully into another language- “Kartaga delenda est” comes to mind. So it is expected that any language one speaks would carry a lot more weight in it than merely expressing oneself with different words and grammer; those very ideas that one expresses would be shaped and changed, even if only a little, by the language and the centuries of history behind it. So of course a person would feel the change once he or she began to understand and think in that language.

Still, very interesting, I never really thought of this before, but it makes a lot of sense now.

I’m pretty much the same when speaking Dutch or English, as I was raised with the languages. But when speaking Spanish, I’m much more introverted, especially when I was in the beginning stages. I just like to listen when I go out with Spanish friends and make some funny comments now and then.

Hamdy, +1!

I feel free in English, much more than when I speak Russian, for example, which is actually my first language. In general, I felt very different speaking different languages in the past. Even when I spoke Ukrainian (I went to a Ukrainian high school and, of course, I obtained my degree at a Ukrainian University), I felt like a different person. I don’t know why this feeling was so clear and strong, but it was definitely there. Now, I speak English at home with my family, and it seems that this feeling has faded a little. I don’t observe this obvious difference any more.

You know Yuriy, I can say that English has made me more brave and not to be shy like before. I am not saying that English people are not shy, lol. Forgive me Marco and Debbie, haha! I mean when you learn a language, you get influenced by their habits and their way in life somehow.

But I think that it does not change your personlity when you learn a new language. You will be still you.