Re: Similar (was: 'useful') languages

>Is this a common problem?  I had a similar experience a couple of years ago,
>when I was learning Swedish.  I've had semi-reasonable German since I
>learned it in school at fourteen (so twelve years ago), and although I was
>conscious of the similarities between Ger. and Sw. while I was learning the
>latter, I wasn't aware that they could interfere with each other until I
>tried speaking German just after a Swedish lesson.  Result: acute total
>German-aphasia.  Two years on, I can once again speak decent German, but
>only as long as I don't think about Swedish at the same time!
>
>Has anyone else come across this phenomenon?
No exactly the same. But sometimes I tend to use the wrong languge for very short
senteces (or even words). I speak japanese more easily than german, and
sometimes in german i tend to use the japanese for 'no', 'yes',
'why?' and short statements of that kind.

I have a friend, his is french, and is nearly biligual in english. He often
makes something i find funny : he uses literal translations of english
idiomatic expressions in french, which is his own mother language!

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