One mund, so many languages.
After a Monday it’ll be a wonder if I can get words down in a comprehensible and monolingual manner. I just... I don’t even know. I love languages, and I love getting to speak them but... wow. Sometimes I feel so tongue tied, so ineloquent in everything. The new Brazilian girl at the Portuguese conversation table asked how I keep my languages straight. The simple answer: I don’t. I would still love to get back into Russian but I think I made a good decision by waiting a little longer for that. After maybe a week of just speaking one foreign language I’m usually pretty good about keeping everything in that one language. Less than a week, it can sometimes be problematic. Here’s a look at why it’s hard for me to keep them straight, especially on Mondays, when I have considerably less than a week to switch between languages:
9am Woke up, wrote an email in Croatian to Jelena about possibly meeting for lunch and chatting tomorrow, while listening to music in Portuguese
11am Went to my office, talked to Ro in Spanish, finished my French homework, and prepared my Spanish class.
1pm Attended my French class, where I spoke and heard only French for an hour
2pm Taught my Spanish class, where I spoke and tried to get my students to only speak Spanish for an hour
3pm Wrote another email in Croatian/Bosnian and finished my Spanish homework.
3.45pm Ran into my French instructor, had a brief conversation in French about why I wasn’t going to the French conversation table because I would be at the Portuguese conversation table
4pm Went to Portuguese conversation table. Spoke Portuguese for an hour and a half with Gen and three Brazilians.
5.30pm Went back to Gen’s office, where I practiced speaking French with her (Gen being a native speaker), helped her with her Portuguese homework, and worked on my French homework.
7.30pm Went to capoeira. Listened to music in Portuguese on the way. Spoke Spanish with Roberto and sang capoeira songs in Portuguese.
9pm After capoeira talked to Mark in Bosnian for a long time.
9.30pm Went to Joan’s with Gen, spoke with Gen in French while Joan made us dinner. Helped both with their Portuguese homework after dinner.
1am Thinking about working on my French homework…
Oh, and I think I spoke some English in there too. If you can call it that. Such as:
“There’s only one mund.” (quoting "Save the Last Dance" and meaning to say “world,” what came out instead was an Englishified version of the Spanish/Portuguese word for world, "mundo")
“That’s what it asts.” (not sure whether to use the past or the present of the verb “ask,” I use neither.)
Joan and Solomon are giving me a hard time about Mark. What, just because he’s a Bosnian-speaking capoeirista who volunteered teaching capoeira at a Bosnian orphanage (I still can’t get over that and will continue to put it in bold), I’m supposed to be in love with him or something? Although... he DID volunteer at a Bosnian orphanage teaching capoeira. Hahaha... kidding... kind of... no, he’s a nice guy and I’m glad he decided to come back.
9am Woke up, wrote an email in Croatian to Jelena about possibly meeting for lunch and chatting tomorrow, while listening to music in Portuguese
11am Went to my office, talked to Ro in Spanish, finished my French homework, and prepared my Spanish class.
1pm Attended my French class, where I spoke and heard only French for an hour
2pm Taught my Spanish class, where I spoke and tried to get my students to only speak Spanish for an hour
3pm Wrote another email in Croatian/Bosnian and finished my Spanish homework.
3.45pm Ran into my French instructor, had a brief conversation in French about why I wasn’t going to the French conversation table because I would be at the Portuguese conversation table
4pm Went to Portuguese conversation table. Spoke Portuguese for an hour and a half with Gen and three Brazilians.
5.30pm Went back to Gen’s office, where I practiced speaking French with her (Gen being a native speaker), helped her with her Portuguese homework, and worked on my French homework.
7.30pm Went to capoeira. Listened to music in Portuguese on the way. Spoke Spanish with Roberto and sang capoeira songs in Portuguese.
9pm After capoeira talked to Mark in Bosnian for a long time.
9.30pm Went to Joan’s with Gen, spoke with Gen in French while Joan made us dinner. Helped both with their Portuguese homework after dinner.
1am Thinking about working on my French homework…
Oh, and I think I spoke some English in there too. If you can call it that. Such as:
“There’s only one mund.” (quoting "Save the Last Dance" and meaning to say “world,” what came out instead was an Englishified version of the Spanish/Portuguese word for world, "mundo")
“That’s what it asts.” (not sure whether to use the past or the present of the verb “ask,” I use neither.)
Joan and Solomon are giving me a hard time about Mark. What, just because he’s a Bosnian-speaking capoeirista who volunteered teaching capoeira at a Bosnian orphanage (I still can’t get over that and will continue to put it in bold), I’m supposed to be in love with him or something? Although... he DID volunteer at a Bosnian orphanage teaching capoeira. Hahaha... kidding... kind of... no, he’s a nice guy and I’m glad he decided to come back.