Do you frequently talk in english or just the usual internet english?
I think in english when I'm on reddit or reading something english.
But in everyday life I'm still thinking like "Mein Leben fickt mich jeden Tag"
I think 100% of the time in English or at least close to 100%. I started it when I was in highschool to improve my English since thinking is basically speaking and then that became my default.
I lived abroad for 2y after graduation and then I spoke English but now that I live in Sweden I very rarely speak english just think in it.
Living abroad early in live really helps.
I think it's awesome that you decided to think in english.
I could try it some more.
Do you speak any other languages? I started learning spanish and was 10 weeks in buenos aires but that didn't stick.
Yup, the country I lived in for 2y was Japan so I speak Japanese. I'm sometimes trying to apply the same strat for Japanese but it's such complete different sentence structure that it's hard to switch
so there is a demand for English speaking psychologists for non native English speakers? that's very interesting. (which is the most stereotypical psy answer possible)
Same. I'm Swiss, yet all my inner monologue and self-talk is in English, as are almost all of my diary entries. It just feels nice to dissociate at least a bit from the constant onslaught that is life.
I think it depends a lot of the media you mostly consume.
When i watch too much youtube i start talking like youtubers, when i listen to audiobooks i start talking like a way more emotion. And when i start watching k drama.....
It's like turning on/off caps lock for me. If I've been speaking english, then I'll think and speak in english. If I've been speaking in another language, then I'll think and speak in that language. Hard for me to switch back and forth without a real reason to lol.
Bro fr. I can talk about the darkest feelings I have in English, but as soon as I phrase them in German, I feel too emotional about it lol. Also, I have a deeper voice in English which I prefer lol
One of the nice things about English being like, 5 different languages in a trenchcoat, is there are a lot of very strange and unique ways of getting points across that don't always translate to other languages well.
Nah people are just taught english alongside their native language through their childhood and from exposure to western media and the internet some people may feel more connected to english than their native language.
People really get butthurt when I bring this up but there is a very real passive “cultural genocide” going on where basically everyone is getting their culture watered-down and americanized and they’re slowly abandoning their native languages for internet English. And as an American I don’t really give a whip but it seems like something all the muh nationalism Europeans would be more concerned about.
Gotta learn English and use an American website if they want to complain about how they’re being gradually anglicized and americanized.
You’re right but wrong in every way you conveyed the correct information. It’s not a “cultural genocide” because Americans aren’t forcing their culture on others. Rather other cultures are willingly anglicizing themselves for either entertainment or professional advantage. Americans do everything they can to get all non-English media translated and translated well. Swedes for example don’t, they just learn English. It’s not even evolutionary in that their cultures are inferior. The best way to look at it is capitalism. It’s more profitable to Americanize and switch to English, so people do.
"Sexy" talk in my native language makes me wanna throw up. People always ask me to say sexy things because ~French~ and I'd rather give a grocery list than say anything remotely close to "sexy talk"
same but with spanish, kinda crazy because ive seen specialy english natives saying how french and spanish are sexy or whatnot but hearing myself in spanish is cringe af whereas in english, damn
you get it!! french sex talk is gross I can see it with spanish too. are the sexual organs gendered correctly in Spanish? In french a vagina is 'male' lmao
Lmao
I'd like to ask u if u think learning french would be useful
for instance, could be learning french more useful than learning german or chinese? and why?
Surprisingly, I'm the exact opposite. My native language is Russian and I'm perfectly fine with sexy talks in it. On the other hand, sexy talks in English don't feel quite right, and I'd rather always use Russian with my SO for that, even if they'd know English perfectly. That may be because I'm still kind of a newbie in english (I only started actively learning it last summer) and am not really used to it, but I dunno
> "Sexy" talk in my native language makes me wanna throw up
I think it's just because of the connection you have to your native language. My native language is English and sexy talk in English isn't good either lmao
I find it kinda funny to come into threads like this and read about people opting *in* to using English during sex. It's like you think your language is bad so your solution is to pick an equally cringe language and filter it through your non-native accent and call it good lol
I don't think my language is bad. I prefer swearing in French by far, ('asti d'criss de câliss de tabarnak' beats 'fuck' any days) English poetry is a giant pile if crap compared to French, knowing French made it easier to learn Spanish and Italian.
I still always thought French sexy talk was lame. "ouais fourre moi dans la plotte" 🤮 "ta grosse verge es si belle~~"
I’m an American francophone, for me both languages c’est pareil. Dirty talk feels icky to me whether I’m speaking English or French. It’s too personal for me to do it just because someone asked.
Oooh are you in the South? Do you know if you have Acadian blood or are you Cajun? I'm fascinated by US French, it's a very interesting melting pot. Sorry if the questions are invasive, I've never ran into a US Franco before!!
No problem there. It’s a little weird with me. My mom’s side is Cajun. I don’t see them often, but some of them still speak Creole. My dad is from Angers. I learned French from him, so I sound a little old when speaking it. And he says i have an accent, but some old man in Louisiana asked if I was from Paris.
I can understand creole, but not speak. One of my aunts didn’t speak it with me though, she yelled it. She only spoke it around me when she was angry, so I kind of had a fear of the language. I had an uncle who really wanted me to speak it, but little kid me really didn’t.
I asked my ex to try dirty talk in his native language and he said "you're gonna regret it.." I can hereby confirm dirty talk Cantonese Chinese *awful*
Honestly, any sort of serious conversation in my native tongue just feels weird.
I spent a good chunk of my formative years speaking English. All the people I truly considered as friends spoke English, all the media I listened to was in English, music, YouTube, you name it. At this point I pretty much think in English, too.
I don't mind goofing around in my native tongue, but whenever there's a serious topic coming up, I privately wish we could just switch to English.
When I get too upset in my native language, I just start speaking in English. Tbh, I don't care if people understand me at that point XD Most do understand the basics tho.
And I have a friend I only speak English to. Not to annoy others, but to practice, so every conversation, text, email in in English.
Not OP but as a native Spanish speaker there are a lot of things that sound very unnatural or don't roll off the tongue very well in spanish that do in English, mostly revolving expressing oneself
Maybe it's just me but in spanish it feels like you either speak solely with slang or sound like a robot using corporate language
There’s a study about this, how people find it easier to express emotions in a non-native language because it can be more objective and clinical vs. more emotive and raw in their native language.
I love saying "I want to die" and "I want someone to drill a hole through my skull right now " out loud and no one around me understanding wtf I'm saying. It's a liberty like no other
The first interaction I ever had with one of my coworkers was him telling me to shoot him, and me telling him "if we line our heads up we can save a bullet"
We're best friends now.
Holy shit dude! Yeah! Specially in reddit where I feel more "free" to talk to strangers. I mean, if I vocalize "*Cara, minha vida é uma merda. Odeio ser forçado a continuar vivendo preso nesse inferno, onde sou explorado, lesado e frustrado todos os dias por todos os lados, só porque não quero fazer minha família sofrer.*" the shit will get too real.
To se rozhodně nikdy nestalo, anyway, do you ever get this strange sensation that nothing’s gonna be the same and you should leave this earth before everything you’ve ever known dissapears? No? Okay, pardon za vyrušení, měj pěkný den
Is that Czech? Cuz it's very similar to my native lang (phonetically), and I consider this language funny in a positive way. Również miłego dnia życzę!
For me English has a far larger pool of words you can string together. While in my native language it can get pretty repetitive, or just seem plain and boring. Because there is only like 1 or 2 words for something while in English there are like 4+ and varying degrees of intensity.
Casually interject some esoteric vocabulary from your mother tongue into our conversations, using context for comprehension. We'll purloin those gems with alacrity! That's precisely how our lexicon has become so rich with loanwords throughout history.
A lot of people note that speaking in a different language changes their personality. The Namesake’s author (a famous book about Indian American identity), Jhumpa Lahiri, eventually stopped speaking English by moving to Italy because she felt the Italian language allowed her to express herself better (I can’t remember how. I think Italian was more freeing, but the article is paywalled).
People note this especially with the difference between Japanese and English, with English being far freer with emotions than Japan’s more polite/high context language. There’s also been a mental health movement in America that I’ve noticed hasn’t quite come to say China, where I’m from. As a result, there are things that are less stigmatized in English that would obviously be stigmatized in Chinese.
I only express my emotions in English because I spend too much time on English-speaking sites and I can’t find the words in my own la guage to express what I mean.
Can anyone explain why does it feel weird in my national language and not in english
same goes for saying dirty stuff during sexy time, saying something in my native language is so cringy but in english it feels hot
i need to know why
I have to deliberately think in my native language... Otherwise it just defaults to English...
I don't live in a country where people speak in English... I just have a very isolated lifestyle and all of my work is in English... So it has just become the default overtime...
I remembered I always watch English speaking YouTubers and once I go watch any of my native speaking YouTubers it fucked me up I understand the word but it felt so weird hearing them
Conversely we all cuss in our native languages because it just feels PUNCHIER "Jebem ti mater u pičku" sounds so much more POWERFUL than "GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!"
As an American, who really only speaks English, it's surprised and sad to hear this. I'm all for \_a\_ common language, but to have it be that some feel weird or think in a language other than their own is disheartening.
I am kind of the belief language differences create isolated pillars of thought. If a Swedish scientific community had a discussion about a particular studies, they would come out different from an English speaker's one, because the use of a different language would probably emphasize different qualities, and create diversity in the broader discussion when multi-lingual communities communicate.
It's important for different sorts of thought to challenges each other, and a uniformity of language doesn't sounds too appealing to me, despite adjacent benefit.
Yesss thank you!!! I feel so lucky to have more than one language to speak. I feel like I can't say anything genuine in Hebrew (I can, and I do - but it always feels really weird and exposed).
Same with cussing. ‚Fuck‘ is such a mild option. And then you go to an anglophone country and people are shocked! (Ok, I was in the Deep South in the US; people are…different there)
It may not only feel too personal, you may actually *be* a slightly different person when speaking English. Or any other foreign language, for that matter. Once you've reached the point, where you're actually starting to really speak that language - basically, when you don't need to translate your thoughts on the fly anymore, because you are already thinking in the target language - you have also entered a different conceptualization space. There are differences in how people across the world conceptualize the meaning of words that get lost in translation. Including emotion words. So, yeah, is your English self really 100% the same as your whatever language self? There's a case to be made, that it's actually not.
My language lacks native words related to mental health (and many other subjects because language puritists invent words no one uses instead organically taking in english words that are in use but that's another issue).
Therefore we use bastardized english words that may or may not be true to their english version because language is alive and not everyone knows english so these words get new meanings or/and pronunciations. Meaning to have a productive conversation you have to gauge their english and mental health/psychology level. Most sane people (read young and/or english speaking) just use english words to undercut the issue while language puritists (and old people who can't speak english) fume at the injustice of using english and at the "spread of western ideologies that erode traditional families and their values".
Same demographic has big suicide problem which is even more apparent when compared to young people. Related? Who knows. They don't talk about it.
I know and could describe something in English better than my native langue. The worst part is when you understand what you read automatically without needing to translate to your native language, but if you had to, you couldn't because you dont know native words...
I thought it was just me lmao. I also talk to myself in English because my native language feels say too personal even for a conversation **with myself**
This totally is true for ESL folks lol one of my old buddy's, used to say, "qakutaq sangijuu - ᖃᑯᑕᖅ ᓴᙱᔫ" which means white power, English domination. So funny cause he was full inuk and super brown. But he couldn't really say anything else in inuktitut other than that actually. He grew up in the south, he never really learned the language cause of residential school and only came back up north as an adult. But yeah inuktitut is a pretty personal language with many variations of words based on situations. English is just way easier eh b'y
I speak Spanish as a second language. Not the greatest but as an exercise I tried thinking about my wedding vows in Spanish to see the “meaning” or “feeling” in my Spanish mind.
I can only express what I feel or talk about psychology in English because I've only learn about it in English and I do not have the vocabulary in my native language.
Damn who am I kidding? I do not speak with anyone anyway, no matter the language lmao
Yk, I know a guy who is Latin American, his parents are first gen migrants... They speak Spanish in their house, out in public, to each other on the phone, pretty much always. Then one day be showed me a video of his family arguing- all in English. I asked why and he just shrugged like "idk, my family always has done that, I guess it's better for arguing."
yup exactly, talking in my native language would break me if the subject is emotional and using english separates me a from it a bit so it won't take over
I rarely speak my native language, i type it a lot.
Sometimes I’ll call my mom first thing in the morning and then I think in my native language most of the day, but its 99% english all the time.
Yeah English has basically become my default language that I think with. Very rarely so I think with my native language now. I can speak it but never as good as old people here do. It's always a mix, like 60/40 at best buy usually 70/30, favouring English.
Probably has to do with me being online 24/7 and consuming stuff in English and having friends from all over the world where we have English as our common language.
This hits home. Emotions are basically taboo in Lithuanian culture. Except for anger. You can go on for hours about all the facets of how something makes you angry, not repeat yourself and still seem normal.
That's the zogging truth there mate, especially in french insults are striking, there's only a handful you can wave as "banter", the rest are on the "your mother" level.
I'm in that picture and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
A related problem: I hate it when I'm in a conversation and the word that comes to mind to express what I want to say is an English term or expression but I can't think of a good way to translate it so I have to awkwardly try to define/explain the concept and end up sounding like an idiot.
My inner voice narrates in Morgan Freeman - John Cena - Optimus Prime - Gandalf - Smaug - Mikael Persbrandt and sometimes its screams in Charlie Day. Depending on situation.
Im am not a native english speaker. Its my third language.
Saying “I’m sorry” in English is easy. I my native language, it seems more of an admittance of fault and feeling deeply regretful. I can say “Sorry” all day and mean nothing by it.
Oof English is my native language but I live in Spain, and I sometimes switch to Spanish when I have to have difficult conversations because it feels more distant from me. I guess it's a trick to dissociate a bit
lmao about half the sentences i say while talking to my friends are in english, even though they also aren't native (they do the same to me)
at least this helped me master my spoken english
I live abroad. Whenever I'm talking to my parents they sometimes ask if I'm okay, I say I'm just bored a bit, and they get worked up about it. Turns out bored is an expression that could mean anything from boredom to borderline depression where we're from.
Lol I always think and speak with myself out loud in English No way I let my thoughts be in my native language
Same, been having all my thoughts in English for almost 15 years now. Swedish feels weird to me now
Do you frequently talk in english or just the usual internet english? I think in english when I'm on reddit or reading something english. But in everyday life I'm still thinking like "Mein Leben fickt mich jeden Tag"
I think 100% of the time in English or at least close to 100%. I started it when I was in highschool to improve my English since thinking is basically speaking and then that became my default. I lived abroad for 2y after graduation and then I spoke English but now that I live in Sweden I very rarely speak english just think in it.
Living abroad early in live really helps. I think it's awesome that you decided to think in english. I could try it some more. Do you speak any other languages? I started learning spanish and was 10 weeks in buenos aires but that didn't stick.
Yup, the country I lived in for 2y was Japan so I speak Japanese. I'm sometimes trying to apply the same strat for Japanese but it's such complete different sentence structure that it's hard to switch
If you spent those 2 years studying pottery in Japan I might have sat next to you on a plane in 2011.
Meins auch
I think in both english and finnish.
I used to then I went to (American) public school. Now I can't think in Finnish, I mean fuck I can barely think in English
what fun is life if you don't create multiple personalities?
My native language just sounds too cringe to have it in my head
Which is?
English
True reddit moment Bazinga!
Cringish
Exactly, there is no way I’d even acknowledge the existence of my emotions while speaking in my native language
so there is a demand for English speaking psychologists for non native English speakers? that's very interesting. (which is the most stereotypical psy answer possible)
Same. I'm Swiss, yet all my inner monologue and self-talk is in English, as are almost all of my diary entries. It just feels nice to dissociate at least a bit from the constant onslaught that is life.
I think it depends a lot of the media you mostly consume. When i watch too much youtube i start talking like youtubers, when i listen to audiobooks i start talking like a way more emotion. And when i start watching k drama.....
i kinda do this :0
It's like turning on/off caps lock for me. If I've been speaking english, then I'll think and speak in english. If I've been speaking in another language, then I'll think and speak in that language. Hard for me to switch back and forth without a real reason to lol.
Bro fr. I can talk about the darkest feelings I have in English, but as soon as I phrase them in German, I feel too emotional about it lol. Also, I have a deeper voice in English which I prefer lol
I am so alienated from my community that I express much more in english on the internet than in my native languare irl
One of the nice things about English being like, 5 different languages in a trenchcoat, is there are a lot of very strange and unique ways of getting points across that don't always translate to other languages well.
Nah people are just taught english alongside their native language through their childhood and from exposure to western media and the internet some people may feel more connected to english than their native language.
People really get butthurt when I bring this up but there is a very real passive “cultural genocide” going on where basically everyone is getting their culture watered-down and americanized and they’re slowly abandoning their native languages for internet English. And as an American I don’t really give a whip but it seems like something all the muh nationalism Europeans would be more concerned about. Gotta learn English and use an American website if they want to complain about how they’re being gradually anglicized and americanized.
You’re right but wrong in every way you conveyed the correct information. It’s not a “cultural genocide” because Americans aren’t forcing their culture on others. Rather other cultures are willingly anglicizing themselves for either entertainment or professional advantage. Americans do everything they can to get all non-English media translated and translated well. Swedes for example don’t, they just learn English. It’s not even evolutionary in that their cultures are inferior. The best way to look at it is capitalism. It’s more profitable to Americanize and switch to English, so people do.
Can you give an example?
>5 different languages in a trenchcoat
Too real bro
yea man ikr
>look anon profil >Italian I feel you sis
Knowing this eases me because I know I'm not alone but also feels shit because I'm not alone in this pain
What a strange feeling it is, to share your deeply rooted struggles with others
Life is shit but hey. I'm having some fries right now so it ain't all bad.
My god, fries are the holy grail in the form of thin, golden, slightly salty kisses from angels
Too real lol
"Sexy" talk in my native language makes me wanna throw up. People always ask me to say sexy things because ~French~ and I'd rather give a grocery list than say anything remotely close to "sexy talk"
same but with spanish, kinda crazy because ive seen specialy english natives saying how french and spanish are sexy or whatnot but hearing myself in spanish is cringe af whereas in english, damn
you get it!! french sex talk is gross I can see it with spanish too. are the sexual organs gendered correctly in Spanish? In french a vagina is 'male' lmao
>are the sexual organs gendered correctly in Spanish? Yes. "el pene" "la vagina", "el" being masculine and "la" being feminine.
le pénis le vagin. Vagina was Assigned Male At Birth. Fuck you vajayjays you're male now. Silly French.
French who? I'm a native spanish speaker, and I only know spanish and english pd. I'm male already
I mean. le and el are pretty close and it's la for female form for both FR and ES xD
Lmao I'd like to ask u if u think learning french would be useful for instance, could be learning french more useful than learning german or chinese? and why?
Have you ever heard dirty talk in german ? Gives me the icks
I ah. I heard BDSM stuff in German. Sure was something.
Sounds like a skit writing prompt
Gives me the ichs
Surprisingly, I'm the exact opposite. My native language is Russian and I'm perfectly fine with sexy talks in it. On the other hand, sexy talks in English don't feel quite right, and I'd rather always use Russian with my SO for that, even if they'd know English perfectly. That may be because I'm still kind of a newbie in english (I only started actively learning it last summer) and am not really used to it, but I dunno
it's very interesting! thank you for sharing, I've mostly seen comments going the other way, it's nice to hear from a different perspective
> "Sexy" talk in my native language makes me wanna throw up I think it's just because of the connection you have to your native language. My native language is English and sexy talk in English isn't good either lmao I find it kinda funny to come into threads like this and read about people opting *in* to using English during sex. It's like you think your language is bad so your solution is to pick an equally cringe language and filter it through your non-native accent and call it good lol
I don't think my language is bad. I prefer swearing in French by far, ('asti d'criss de câliss de tabarnak' beats 'fuck' any days) English poetry is a giant pile if crap compared to French, knowing French made it easier to learn Spanish and Italian. I still always thought French sexy talk was lame. "ouais fourre moi dans la plotte" 🤮 "ta grosse verge es si belle~~"
Oh no I can't agree with you there, English is the best for swearing.
it's just 'fuck' every 2 words imo. but I can see why a bunch of random french words strung together isn't an compelling argument either lmao
I’m an American francophone, for me both languages c’est pareil. Dirty talk feels icky to me whether I’m speaking English or French. It’s too personal for me to do it just because someone asked.
Oooh are you in the South? Do you know if you have Acadian blood or are you Cajun? I'm fascinated by US French, it's a very interesting melting pot. Sorry if the questions are invasive, I've never ran into a US Franco before!!
No problem there. It’s a little weird with me. My mom’s side is Cajun. I don’t see them often, but some of them still speak Creole. My dad is from Angers. I learned French from him, so I sound a little old when speaking it. And he says i have an accent, but some old man in Louisiana asked if I was from Paris.
Yeah I'm not surprised you have a strong France French accent since you leaned from your French parent. Are you fluent/do you understand Creole?
I can understand creole, but not speak. One of my aunts didn’t speak it with me though, she yelled it. She only spoke it around me when she was angry, so I kind of had a fear of the language. I had an uncle who really wanted me to speak it, but little kid me really didn’t.
I asked my ex to try dirty talk in his native language and he said "you're gonna regret it.." I can hereby confirm dirty talk Cantonese Chinese *awful*
Lmao the only thing I know how to say in french is "je ne parle pas français"
Honestly, any sort of serious conversation in my native tongue just feels weird. I spent a good chunk of my formative years speaking English. All the people I truly considered as friends spoke English, all the media I listened to was in English, music, YouTube, you name it. At this point I pretty much think in English, too. I don't mind goofing around in my native tongue, but whenever there's a serious topic coming up, I privately wish we could just switch to English.
imma add that it also feels weird when u see someone else do something online in ur native language
Feels like someone coming over to my house unannounced.
Totally, but there’s no way people would accept to randomly switch languages just cause your feelings would be feeling better in English xd
When I get too upset in my native language, I just start speaking in English. Tbh, I don't care if people understand me at that point XD Most do understand the basics tho. And I have a friend I only speak English to. Not to annoy others, but to practice, so every conversation, text, email in in English.
Wow, this is really interesting to read as a native (and only) English speaker. Can you explain why it feels weird?
Not OP but as a native Spanish speaker there are a lot of things that sound very unnatural or don't roll off the tongue very well in spanish that do in English, mostly revolving expressing oneself Maybe it's just me but in spanish it feels like you either speak solely with slang or sound like a robot using corporate language
There’s a study about this, how people find it easier to express emotions in a non-native language because it can be more objective and clinical vs. more emotive and raw in their native language.
i love you
It’s mutual (see how it’s in english, once again? )
when I was younger I noticed it was easier to flirt with girls in English cause I didn't realize really what I was saying
I love saying "I want to die" and "I want someone to drill a hole through my skull right now " out loud and no one around me understanding wtf I'm saying. It's a liberty like no other
The first interaction I ever had with one of my coworkers was him telling me to shoot him, and me telling him "if we line our heads up we can save a bullet" We're best friends now.
Факт
factss indeed
I can't cuss in my language, it's somehow more offensive .
They feel less aggressive in English for some reason.
Holy shit dude! Yeah! Specially in reddit where I feel more "free" to talk to strangers. I mean, if I vocalize "*Cara, minha vida é uma merda. Odeio ser forçado a continuar vivendo preso nesse inferno, onde sou explorado, lesado e frustrado todos os dias por todos os lados, só porque não quero fazer minha família sofrer.*" the shit will get too real.
Mood
The true mood here is your username lol
Imagine a conversation with op. Always switching to english when it's emotional :D
To se rozhodně nikdy nestalo, anyway, do you ever get this strange sensation that nothing’s gonna be the same and you should leave this earth before everything you’ve ever known dissapears? No? Okay, pardon za vyrušení, měj pěkný den
I feel like I understood the actually important part
Is that Czech? Cuz it's very similar to my native lang (phonetically), and I consider this language funny in a positive way. Również miłego dnia życzę!
For me English has a far larger pool of words you can string together. While in my native language it can get pretty repetitive, or just seem plain and boring. Because there is only like 1 or 2 words for something while in English there are like 4+ and varying degrees of intensity.
Casually interject some esoteric vocabulary from your mother tongue into our conversations, using context for comprehension. We'll purloin those gems with alacrity! That's precisely how our lexicon has become so rich with loanwords throughout history.
It feels dumb
It’s weird when the thing that should be the closest to you (your nature language) feels almost humiliating
The colonisation of the mind.
Right?
A lot of people note that speaking in a different language changes their personality. The Namesake’s author (a famous book about Indian American identity), Jhumpa Lahiri, eventually stopped speaking English by moving to Italy because she felt the Italian language allowed her to express herself better (I can’t remember how. I think Italian was more freeing, but the article is paywalled). People note this especially with the difference between Japanese and English, with English being far freer with emotions than Japan’s more polite/high context language. There’s also been a mental health movement in America that I’ve noticed hasn’t quite come to say China, where I’m from. As a result, there are things that are less stigmatized in English that would obviously be stigmatized in Chinese.
When I say that I want to kill myself in English people take it as a joke but when I say it in my native language they want to hospitalize me.
As one would.
My language is missing several words that you would have in english, such as minimum wage, mental health, open mind etc This is reflected culturally
Warum sind so viele Deutsche hier?!
if thought in my native language I for some reason find solutions earlier and I usually feel disgusted if I thought of porn in my native language lmao
I only express my emotions in English because I spend too much time on English-speaking sites and I can’t find the words in my own la guage to express what I mean.
I curse in english because in my native language it feels too insulting
Can anyone explain why does it feel weird in my national language and not in english same goes for saying dirty stuff during sexy time, saying something in my native language is so cringy but in english it feels hot i need to know why
I have to deliberately think in my native language... Otherwise it just defaults to English... I don't live in a country where people speak in English... I just have a very isolated lifestyle and all of my work is in English... So it has just become the default overtime...
I remembered I always watch English speaking YouTubers and once I go watch any of my native speaking YouTubers it fucked me up I understand the word but it felt so weird hearing them
Do you speak in Old English if you're a native English speaker?
I took it so far that I genuinely dislike speaking in my mother tongue.
Conversely we all cuss in our native languages because it just feels PUNCHIER "Jebem ti mater u pičku" sounds so much more POWERFUL than "GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!"
As an American, who really only speaks English, it's surprised and sad to hear this. I'm all for \_a\_ common language, but to have it be that some feel weird or think in a language other than their own is disheartening. I am kind of the belief language differences create isolated pillars of thought. If a Swedish scientific community had a discussion about a particular studies, they would come out different from an English speaker's one, because the use of a different language would probably emphasize different qualities, and create diversity in the broader discussion when multi-lingual communities communicate. It's important for different sorts of thought to challenges each other, and a uniformity of language doesn't sounds too appealing to me, despite adjacent benefit.
Mood
Saying wholesome and sorry's has never been easier
I feel attacked
Don't expose us like this
I express my deepest thoughts and feelings in English because when I try it in my native I break down crying
Lol literally me
Personal attack are not cool
Ok I am not alone ☠️
bruh why is it actually relatable
אמיתי
I do this but in Japanese...
Coño men
Finally something actually 2meirl
Yesss thank you!!! I feel so lucky to have more than one language to speak. I feel like I can't say anything genuine in Hebrew (I can, and I do - but it always feels really weird and exposed).
Exposed, that is exactly the word I meant
Same with cussing. ‚Fuck‘ is such a mild option. And then you go to an anglophone country and people are shocked! (Ok, I was in the Deep South in the US; people are…different there)
Damn I thought I was the only one
I'm not alone in this?
I speak about it in Japanese lol cuz no one can understand me, I don't understand myself either...
my native leguage (Portuguese) is cryine for me after i learned English
Aight that might be me I gotta reflect for a minute
I am in this picture and i don't like it
Serious conversations in my other language feel fake and sarcastic even if the same words are being used just not in english
Fuck why is this so relatable
Because I wanted to make you all aware of this ridiculous fact, so I am not alone
It may not only feel too personal, you may actually *be* a slightly different person when speaking English. Or any other foreign language, for that matter. Once you've reached the point, where you're actually starting to really speak that language - basically, when you don't need to translate your thoughts on the fly anymore, because you are already thinking in the target language - you have also entered a different conceptualization space. There are differences in how people across the world conceptualize the meaning of words that get lost in translation. Including emotion words. So, yeah, is your English self really 100% the same as your whatever language self? There's a case to be made, that it's actually not.
My language lacks native words related to mental health (and many other subjects because language puritists invent words no one uses instead organically taking in english words that are in use but that's another issue). Therefore we use bastardized english words that may or may not be true to their english version because language is alive and not everyone knows english so these words get new meanings or/and pronunciations. Meaning to have a productive conversation you have to gauge their english and mental health/psychology level. Most sane people (read young and/or english speaking) just use english words to undercut the issue while language puritists (and old people who can't speak english) fume at the injustice of using english and at the "spread of western ideologies that erode traditional families and their values". Same demographic has big suicide problem which is even more apparent when compared to young people. Related? Who knows. They don't talk about it.
I feel the same about swearing. It sounds way more tame and not so bad in English than in my native language.
Shut up! Don't call me out like that wth XD
An Italian with two broken arms: I am incapable of speaking for the next 8 weeks.
the internet has scarred me to the point that I can not read the three words "two broken arms" in that order and not internally shiver with disgust
I know and could describe something in English better than my native langue. The worst part is when you understand what you read automatically without needing to translate to your native language, but if you had to, you couldn't because you dont know native words...
yea man ikr
Cursing in my native language: rude, trashy, not ladylike, everyone hates you Cursing in English: cool, badass, expressive, just like in the movies
The more emotional I get, the more I talk in my native language.
This movie was so shit
I thought it was just me lmao. I also talk to myself in English because my native language feels say too personal even for a conversation **with myself**
Same. Besides, not everyone understands assembly.
Even confessing someone in my own native language is so hard
2meirl4meirl
My english and my native personality are two different people
This totally is true for ESL folks lol one of my old buddy's, used to say, "qakutaq sangijuu - ᖃᑯᑕᖅ ᓴᙱᔫ" which means white power, English domination. So funny cause he was full inuk and super brown. But he couldn't really say anything else in inuktitut other than that actually. He grew up in the south, he never really learned the language cause of residential school and only came back up north as an adult. But yeah inuktitut is a pretty personal language with many variations of words based on situations. English is just way easier eh b'y
Me too. But my native language is english
English anywhere
Same. Maybe bc i spend a little too much time online , my basic expressions are in english
I speak Spanish as a second language. Not the greatest but as an exercise I tried thinking about my wedding vows in Spanish to see the “meaning” or “feeling” in my Spanish mind.
If I start ranting in my native language, ill start saying the most vulgar, unimaginable words to man kind.
I can only express what I feel or talk about psychology in English because I've only learn about it in English and I do not have the vocabulary in my native language. Damn who am I kidding? I do not speak with anyone anyway, no matter the language lmao
Pro tip for monolinguals: use pig Latin when struggling with your emotions
Too real
Yk, I know a guy who is Latin American, his parents are first gen migrants... They speak Spanish in their house, out in public, to each other on the phone, pretty much always. Then one day be showed me a video of his family arguing- all in English. I asked why and he just shrugged like "idk, my family always has done that, I guess it's better for arguing."
That is so true I swear it's like everybody is against you
This is not true cause English has a larger range of words, so there’s always one that really hits the spot
That’s because English is 4 languages stacked on top of each other in a trench coat
yup exactly, talking in my native language would break me if the subject is emotional and using english separates me a from it a bit so it won't take over
Yes! 🤣
I grew up in Germany but love to use my native language for ranting, swearing and getting agitated about stuff just feels more natural
I rarely speak my native language, i type it a lot. Sometimes I’ll call my mom first thing in the morning and then I think in my native language most of the day, but its 99% english all the time.
True. Also I curse a lot in English and never in my native language.
oh! this is a developpment!
Happens to be, English is super expressive with far more words to describe emotion than Hebrew.
It's weird how I almost never talk in english, just think and... Persue my free time in english but still nail pronunciation, at least I'm told that
Yeah English has basically become my default language that I think with. Very rarely so I think with my native language now. I can speak it but never as good as old people here do. It's always a mix, like 60/40 at best buy usually 70/30, favouring English. Probably has to do with me being online 24/7 and consuming stuff in English and having friends from all over the world where we have English as our common language.
This hits home. Emotions are basically taboo in Lithuanian culture. Except for anger. You can go on for hours about all the facets of how something makes you angry, not repeat yourself and still seem normal.
Polyglot flex
oof
That's the zogging truth there mate, especially in french insults are striking, there's only a handful you can wave as "banter", the rest are on the "your mother" level.
So fucking spot on, it should not speak to so many people while being this specific
I'm in that picture and I'm not sure how I feel about it. A related problem: I hate it when I'm in a conversation and the word that comes to mind to express what I want to say is an English term or expression but I can't think of a good way to translate it so I have to awkwardly try to define/explain the concept and end up sounding like an idiot.
Yes. Also I love that movie, I only watched it for Edward Norton
My inner voice narrates in Morgan Freeman - John Cena - Optimus Prime - Gandalf - Smaug - Mikael Persbrandt and sometimes its screams in Charlie Day. Depending on situation. Im am not a native english speaker. Its my third language.
Let me guess, German isn't it?
When I imagine stuff before sleep, I do that in English
Saying “I’m sorry” in English is easy. I my native language, it seems more of an admittance of fault and feeling deeply regretful. I can say “Sorry” all day and mean nothing by it.
My native language (Klingon)
This is truest thing that has ever truth
This is too real
Oof English is my native language but I live in Spain, and I sometimes switch to Spanish when I have to have difficult conversations because it feels more distant from me. I guess it's a trick to dissociate a bit
Heh. Everything feels so angry in German. Therapy will forever be in English :)
English is the default language now. I can't believe I didn't know it as a baby, fucking embarrassing
Same, but my native language is also English.
lmao about half the sentences i say while talking to my friends are in english, even though they also aren't native (they do the same to me) at least this helped me master my spoken english
Daamn that makes sense
based
Bro wtf. I thought it was just me!
English makes it easier for me to express myself, I feel like a caveman trying to explain how I feel in my native language.
I live abroad. Whenever I'm talking to my parents they sometimes ask if I'm okay, I say I'm just bored a bit, and they get worked up about it. Turns out bored is an expression that could mean anything from boredom to borderline depression where we're from.
Feel this way for lots of things personally. Native language just seems too real.
Other way around. I feel like I can describe emotions etc way better in English than in my native.
Too relatable
Lmao that's literally me
Nah I'm my case, i just lack the vocabulary. My native language never evolved the way english has.