Re: English and its influence on other languages (was: Re: Aboutlinguistic (in)tolerance)

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Carlos Thompson wrote:

> I'f found myself switching language like changing enviroments in my mind, when I'm
> into the Englsih enviroment I forget my active Spanish.
...

> I wonder if anybody has been in this conjuncture before.
I know the feeling of "setting the swith to another language"; I can
think in English almost as well as in Dutch, and when in the company
of only English speakers I'm completely switched to English - if only
one person speaks Dutch to me I'm "between states" and I speak both
languages with a heavy accent.

I spent a month in North Wales in my late teens, and asked the people
I was staying with to speak only Welsh to me because I wanted to
learn it (in fact is was "either you teach me Welsh, or I'll teach
you Dutch :-). At the end of that month we all went shopping in
Liverpool and someone in a shop spoke to me in English, and I
answered in Dutch, because my brain switched to "the other language".
Of course I'd spoken English in shops in Wales as well, but obviously
I was subconsciously aware of being *in another country*.

   Irina

            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastinay.
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
     http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/frontpage.html (English)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)