Does speaking a foreign language change your personality? | Vlog #24

[@NeIIy]

Yes, I have noticed this quite a while ago. When I'm speaking in my mother tongue - Lithuanian, I'm a shy no-at-all, who is afraid to express her own opinion to others. But when I speak in English, I'm not afraid of debates and I'm not afraid to stick out like a sore thumb because of my way of thinking. It's truly fascinating - I can brake the shackles of one language with another.

[@dedeshikaalabi-mensah9471]

Kornelija Jasiunait that is so interesting for me when I speak Japanese I am very shy and speak super high and sweet. But in English I am brave and speak my mind a lot more.

[@NeIIy]

Dedeshika Alabi-Mensah Yeah, it's a really fascinating thing!

[@konradgotze7554]

Dude same, I hate my personality, speaking german. I'm a much better person speaking english. Some say I'm arrogant in german, but I'm the most loving person in english

[@gabrieleiro4181]

As a native Portuguese speaker, I can tell I have different personality traits when speaking in English. For instance, I say a lot of curse words and slang when speaking in my native languge, but I do never say F words when speaking in English. That's because I learned the language through textbooks and games and neither of these things used such words. So when I talk to a foreign american person (no matter how close we are) I tend to be more polite (and sometimes formal) than when I talk to my fellow Portuguese speaking friends. It took me a while to realize that and since then I'm trying to speak in a more clean way in my native language.

[@mightyduck1459]

oh damn this makes sense for me. when i speak my native tongue (spanish) i’m really closed off and i’m really shy as hell, sometimes to a point where i’d walk away if you were to try and talk to me. but when i start talking in english i’m not shy at all and i have the urge to talk to people around me and try and get to him/her. that’s crazy

[@rubenadorno5353]

I feel like you should have more viewers

[@abdulmoiz8298]

A agree with your opinion as our thought is our personal literature expose our personality by tool of language

[@maryamghareeb4862]

I live in an Arabic speaking country and I am a native French speaker from my mother’s side. I noticed when I speak French with my sister the tone is softer so is my attitude, whereas I use most of the time poor and harsh words when speaking Arabic.

[@mouseboy507]

Ive grown up speaking both dutch and english. Ive noticed that my personality in both is quite the same yet a slight difference exists. In english i notice i am far more assertive and aggressive than i would be in dutch. I feel that has to due with in my youth i was bullied in school alot which took place with the dutch language, while in english i never experienced those memories with that.

[@igorbuarque]

Hello, would you have a good reference (books or articles) to study this subject in specific? Thank you.

[@Crovea]

One thing I experience is when I'm writing with friends, I'll switch between English (which I primarily use) and Danish without noticing. Especially when I want to use a word for which there is no exact equivalent in the other. If someone writes to me in Danish I'll often have half of my text in English and half in Danish. Doesn't happen in speaking though (where I exclusively use Danish) though I can get frustrated when wanting to use an English expression that I don't expect the person to quite grasp. Thinking is about half & half. I don't think I have different personalities since I mix and merge the two languages so much and I do feel like I can't express myself properly if I'm limited to just one, especially in a complicated situation.

[@Morzanhu]

This is called code-switching and it happens with me too. My sister and I really often switch between Hungarian and English because we both speak these languages. Sometimes we even say some things in Japanese just for fun :)

[@ixlovexrain]

It's really fascinating that using a different language can make you more open and willing to say things more freely. The more English I learned, the less I actually liked using my mother tongue and eventually moved to England. In comparison, German sounds so much colder and stiff to me. English has warmer and softer tones and I like how the words feel in my mouth when I talk. So, maybe I like to choose a language that matches my personality rather than changing it for the language. Japanese gives me similar positive feelings which is why I'm also drawn to learning it.

[@Nekorashii]

cmon Alter Deutsch ist cool... cmon

[@vladvdovychenko]

Ja, Deutsch ist 'ne wunderschöne Sprache! Ich, als Ukrainer stimme dazu :)

[@酎ハイ飲んだらいい感じ]

You are a very smart man, I subscribed:)

[@MarcusGPG]

When I was in the Gambia, ppl smoke 3-4 languages at the same time to eachother. Scince they learn their own "tribal language" and maybe either english or french, they mix and match all of these so everybody in the group will understand. Some of the ppl I met sometime didnt even know when they switched.

[@chs0ftan]

When I speak Spanish I'm not shy, I scream and speak a lot. Same when I speak Chinese. When I speak Italian I'm very serious and I almost don't speak and don't show my emotions. When I speak English I'm... Normal? I mean, I'm not shy but I don't speak a lot

[@pigozs]

We think in one or several languages! It struck me years ago after reading 1984, where the party modifies the language to affect thoughts. I am native Italian and in the workplace is now very common to use informal language (i.e. no "lei"). I wonder if Japanese will ever get there, even though it's much harder considering all the politeness and honorifics levels.

[@markhannasch8260]

Yes! I'm seeing this in Spain right now! I can't show the sarcasm that I usually do, and even though I would say I'm relatively fluent, I can't connect on an extremely deep level because I'm not native.

[@curiouspotato73]

I think that's me.