What Learning Multiple Languages Did to My Brain 🧠(ENG SUB)

After learning multiple languages and mastering some of them, I have noticed some subtle changes in my brain. Today I want to share some these changes and my experience with some of the interesting effects of being multiplingual.
===================================================
Follow me on my channel： / @phoenixhou4486
I speak 10 langauges： • Chinese polyglot speak...
English video： • Learning Languages Rui...
Korean video： • How I learned Korean |...
Spanish video： • Chino Hablando Español
Chinese video： • What Learning Multiple...
Japanese video： • なぜ日本語は難しい？７ヶ国語喋れる中国人の日...
My Facebook page: / phoenixhouxq​​
instagram@phoenix_hou_
Weibo@侯雪千Phoenix

[@landonlee5615]

My dad and his brothers and sisters all speak 5 languages, and one time I was sitting at the dinner table with the 4 of them and they were all speaking to each other whilst switching languages here and there. It was so fascinating because they all understood each other, and they would just use the language that best fit what they wanted to convey in the moment. I even heard my aunt use Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Vietnamese, and Hakkanese all in ONE sentence!!

[@phoenixhou4486]

Wow I wish I grew up in that kinda family haha

[@Ferdinand1884]

Same here. Me speak malay, english, mandarin,hokkien and cantonese at the same time with family and friends.

[@midloran]

I grew up in a family that speaks Russian, Arabic, and English, and we also switch from one language to another a lot, we actually mix all words, so no Arabs nor Russian speakers could understand us haha. btw I can speak Russian and Arabic fluently.

[@Ferdinand1884]

@@midloran that is awesome. Mix up all the language into one sentence. That is what we do in malaysia.

[@midloran]

@Fawaz Shaikh I am half Ukrainian and Half Palestinian, it's a very weird mix, and I am weird for both Arabs and Slavs lol

[@AndriyAndriyAndriy]

One of the most interesting effects of being multilingual is not being able to express yourself in one language because concept that you want to express exists only in another language.

[@artugert]

Yes, especially when the language you can't express yourself well in is your mother tongue!

[@matteando1490]

It is bad.

[@SuperGuitarboyz]

@@artugertso true hahaha

[@delphinoula62]

true, but some concepts are easier to express in some languages than other, or are faster. It is an advantage.

[@marialikia.127]

I'm greek-italian bilingual, and I also speak english, french, and I'm learning russian and mandarin chinese. One thing I experience is that the most accurate word comes to mind for what I am trying to express, regardless of the language I am speaking in said moment -but the person I am speaking to obviously does not always speak that language, so a few embarrassing moments pass until I translate what I am trying to say. Or maybe my brain gets lazy, and just remembers the word I want in another language randomly, and not in the language I am using at the moment, as if it's just grabbing the word that was stored on it's lowest shelf ! The thing about messing sentence structure also occurs, generally I relate to all the experiences you have

[@essennagerry]

I experience this too: the most accurate word comes to mind regardless of the language. Then I have to painfully force myself to word the whole phrase or sentence differently so I can convey what I want as accurately because obviously just putting that word as a puzzle piece in the puzzle won't work if the target langauge just doesn't have that word. (Btw my mother tongue is Bulgarian, I learned English on the internet and German in school and then by living in Austria.)

[@Leroy91]

Indeed. I speak German but because I hear and speak a lot of English too I have noticed that sometimes my German sentences are formed in an English kind of way ...which sounds odd....

[@erturtemirbaev5207]

Привет из Кыргызстана 🇰🇬

[@marialikia.127]

@@erturtemirbaev5207 Привет из Греции!

[@erturtemirbaev5207]

@@marialikia.127 как долго вы учите русский?

[@almatrzabayev]

The TOT is real! It happens to me a lot. Though I speak three completely different languages from different language families (Kazakh, Russian, English) I somehow manage to mix them up sometimes.

[@G.F.SF55]

OMG! I met another Kazakh on the vast lands of English speaking side of the internet! Ha, and the struggle is indeed so real! :D

[@bruja_cat]

This happens to me too! I know multiple languages & it’s like looking for the correct file or trying to correlate the root word to translate from Latin based languages into their Spanish/French counterparts. Or trying to remember the grammatical structure of a language while I’m speaking it or remembering how to place my tongue for the correct accent. It’s like ten different things going on just to get one sentence out.

[@hamidalharbi5939]

You must have a unique political views because you’re seeing both perspectives in great detail.

[@Diamond-rl2on]

Me too

[@eresoup7229]

I'll apply the odd usage of certain verbs from English in Hebrew and people will be so confused...

[@nelsitcho]

I can't believe I had never thought about it this way... That explains a lot! I keep forgetting words in my mother language, while knowing it in English x.x Spanish is being quite tricky to learn because there are so many almost identical words in Portuguese, they usually diverge 1 letter or just the pronunciation... To be honest, I am a bit afraid that I'll start making mistakes in PT when I get more used to ES.

[@baphometic8767]

I'm an american living in Brazil, originally from the Bronx, NYC. I grew up studying spanish (and around a lot of spanish speakers) and had a decent grasp on it. Then I moved to Brazil in 2018 and have gotten better in PT than any other foreign language...when i visited back home i tried speaking spanish but only pt came out! i had to think and use portunhol in order to get my puerto rican, dominican and cuban friends to understand me!

[@countryballspredicciones5184]

I speak perfect Spanish and Portuguese, don't be scare bro!

[@Ms.FortuneTeller]

@@baphometic8767 Por que se mudou pra cá? Geralmente, as pessoas querem sair daqui, não o contrário.

[@baphometic8767]

@@Ms.FortuneTeller Pq a minha esposa é brasileira. Eu queria aprender pt e conhecer a familia dela. Eu tambem sempre quis morar num pais tropical, alem do fat q moramos em Brasilia (nao tao perto da praia, tristeza pra mim). Voltaremos pro nova iorque ao fim desse ano, depois de 4 anos aqui. realmente gostei da minha experiencia no brasil, acho que toda pessoa deve passar pelo menos um ano em um pais estrangeiro, se puder

[@Ms.FortuneTeller]

@@baphometic8767 I don't get why foreigners like tropical countries so much. The seasons look the same here. It's either sunny or rainy. It's so cool to tell that time has passed just by looking outside and seeing fallen leaves or snow.

[@brainbored]

Surprisingly I have experienced the same thing when working with different computer languages. While working with python, C++ or C or sometimes matlab comes in randomly. Such a weird coincidence. No wonder since I think the language processing is very similar to coding processing for computer scientists.

[@olivesss_]

I can completely relate with everything mentioned in this video. Sometimes I speak English in the structure of my mother tongue (Tagalog) especially when I am tired. Also, I experienced having dreams in my target languages (Korean and Mandarin). It feels both amazing and scary. It's like I am successfully planting the language in my brain yet a side of me feels like I am diverging from my identity because it's not the language I would usually use when I am talking to myself.

[@clairegittens3707]

I have a hypothesis called “Active Second Language”. I find that if I get stuck in a language, the language I reach for is the second language I feel most connected to. It might be because that language is my highest level, or because I watched a tv series in that language all month long. Another thing that happens is using only conjunctions in the wrong language. Right now I am watching a ton of Taiwanese drama and I have to stop myself from saying Mandarin conjunctions like 还是 and 还有 all day long. I think this is because we tend to pause on conjunctions. And then pause is all my brain needs to fall off the right path. Lol. I also find myself trying to say things that do not exist in the language. Like Japanese genki is not really a concept that exists in English. But it is something I say a lot in Japanese and I always want to say it in English. This happens a lot with proverbs. I will be like… “You know what they say. These are Orinoco things.” And everyone who doesn’t speak Peruvian Spanish just stares at me like I am speaking Greek. I think this is a great argument for how language influences thought, because I never wanted to say these things when I was monolingual. P.S. I find it funny that you think English sentences are long, because I think they are short. I find that Japanese will stick 19 modifiers before a noun and then put that in a 7 clause sentence. Japanese people speaking English try to do the same with English and it doesn’t work. So I guess Japanese is more comfortable with long sentences than English and English is more comfortable than Chinese. Perspective is a helluva thing.

[@LordGrandeur]

What's japanese genki?

[@Freak80MC]

I feel like the "tip of my tongue" phenomenon could explain languages changing over time especially when two languages mix. Like if two people know the same two languages and one forgets a word, they can just keep the conversation going with a word from another language and especially in the past when it could have been harder to search up, maybe the person would just stick to that alternate word when talking to their friends who know what the word means and maybe even shares it with people who don't know the full language, thus causing a more permanent change everyone sticks to. (Idk, just brainstorming here lol)

[@tdot415]

I feel like you might find that answer by looking at the current way language changes and innovates. From my perspective, I think it’s less about keeping a conversation going and more about what’s popular. My hunch is that slang and social status were a big part of innovation. Like in English for example, there are so many loan French words because it once was the lingua franca and considered high class. Also, it’s much easier to use a preexisting word than to create one and spread the meaning from scratch unless you’re the government or smth.

[@someyetiwithinternetaccess1253]

As a person who switches between languages when talking to my parents, this is very accurate

[@joao8145]

I think that the main change in my brain is when I read or watch something in japanese or chinese and then start to speak portuguese with my familly, the word order and grammar point of japanese or even chinese, get stucked in my brain, so sometimes I start to speak a strange portuguese but soon, whe I hear my voice I realize that my portuguese don't make sense LOL. That TOT phenomenon is quite frequently to me too.

[@phoenixhou4486]

My Spanish just wouldn’t leave me alone when I’m trying to speak Portuguese 🤪

[@itslonewolf9070]

I came to this channel when my professor suggested me to watch the video "how learning languages ruined my life" I stayed because I realised that this channel is a goldmine

[@jnny7182]

Thanks for sharing I see it!

[@ggyubari5687]

Same here

[@SaltedMallows]

Listening to this, and you switching between Mandarin, and Japanese dialects with english inflections on words thrown in between is what the Final Boss of Language must sound like.

[@Langaholic]

Even though this is the first video of yours I watch, I can already tell you're the real deal. Your pronunciation for every example word in Japanese, Korean and Spanish was impeccable. This was also a great way to explain language compartmentalisation. Subbed and looking forward to seeing more from you!

[@f.50]

What you are talking about is commonly practised in the sub-continent where urdu/hindi absorbs a lot of english words and they are interchangeably used on a daily basis. I recently learned spanish and what i felt was my brain freezing up more, is actually what you explained, I tend to forget more words now since there is a whole new language in my data base.

[@studentaccount4354]

I was born and live in the USA. I grew up in an area of NY where there were many pockets of people speaking different languages. Little Italy, Chinatown a Greek section are just a few examples. Sometimes my friends forget I can’t speak their language and begin carrying on in Mandarin or other languages. I would like to understand them better.

[@r0c1ndave]

Hola. English/Spanish speaker primarily. Learned Portuguese 2 years ago and now currently working on French. I’m so glad you mentioned the TOT issue! I actually got worried recently, while speaking Spanish (which was my first language) because I seem to always forget which word I want to use that best fits the situation. I often also find myself letting Portuguese sneak in when speaking Spanish and I have to remind myself “that’s Portuguese” 🤪🤪 slowly getting there.

[@Mandarin4All]

谢谢你的新视频, 很有意思的观点, 学会划分语言之间的界限.

[@TheStellarJay]

Been learning Japanese for a couple years now. Japanese people tend to use just a single word to sum up a situation, for example instead of saying "its hot" or "that hurt" they just say "hot" or "pain." This has snuck its way into my English more times than I can count since I really started focusing on it.

[@trinitygonzalez4902]

Without even touching on Spanglish, I sometimes use Spanish grammar in English?? Like "that makes me afraid" in Spanish would be "eso me da meido" but ill say "that gives me fear" in English lmao

[@kdiaz00]

Hahaha me too

[@breamatt]

I'm learning chinese right now (it's my third language, portuguese is my mother tongue then I learned english and now chinese) and I came across your channel and now I'm loving your videos, they're really encouraging and helpful!!! thank you!! 谢谢❤️

[@revatijagdale8969]

From where did you learn the Chinese language please give me some tips

[@conchanfloflo7012]

Thank you for this great video and content. I am learning Chinese so it is a great practice. Looking forward to more!

[@phoenixhou4486]

I’m really glad it’s helpful! 🤓

[@TriciawiththeTRUTH]

Even though I'm not fluent in any other language than English, the languages that I know the most outside of English still play a BIG role in my language experience. I'll often use specific words outside of English in my head to explain something because it just makes more sense in that other language. And because I speak to so many people in broken English (because that's the only language we share), I start to lose some words in English when I'm talking to a native speaker again. Those lost, more specific words, often turn into longer sentences or creative ways of expressing one word, because the person I'm speaking to just doesn't have the vocabulary. In my series on KZbin of trying to learn a little of every language on the planet, I have definitely verbalized that I feel like my brain is going to explode. Because I like to repeat words, rhythms and sounds in my everyday life, I'll often stop and think...Oh God, what language was that!?!?! 🙃🌏 I'll say a word randomly, but not necessarily remember what language it is or what it means! Most times I remember the meaning, but still a very strange experience to have so many THINGS in your brain 🤪

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

The phenomena you talked about are really interesting!! Love you video!!😍😍🤩🤩

[@lorendra1]

Thanks for your subtitles. I can learn your tips clearly.

[@diannl9908]

I just found your channel and it is helping me describe my complicated relationship with the world. I’m fluent in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. I often get frustrated with the limitations of linear languages and use ASL instead. Most of the time that helps me find a similar, but inadequate, English word. The poor person I’m talking to also gets a 10-minute explanation of the subtle non-verbal components of ASL required to accurately express my thoughts. Often, their eyes glaze over but it gives me an opportunity to increase my understanding of how the language soup in my head influences all areas of my life. At some point, I would love to learn some foreign sign languages but I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to immerse myself in a foreign Deaf culture.

[@danilopablo9848]

1:10 I believe that happens when you know that there is a specific word that fits perfectly that specific situation you are trying to describe, but sometimes you don't realise the perfect word you would like to use is actually in another language, therefore your brain kind of don't bring that up whist you are talking in another language.

[@fohhee]

As a Malaysian Chinese, most of us speak 3 language minimum. Mandarin, Malay and English is the 3 basic language we learn from school, plus Cantonese, Hokkien or Hakka depend where we live, so not a suprise if you meet a Malaysia Chinese than can speak up to 6 language.

[@leticia8588]

the most relatable video EVER!! nunca me identifiquei tanto!

[@captainnerd6452]

俺も！

[@Sanehelle]

Very relatable video! I'm French, my husband is Dutch, we communicate in English and we live in Croatia (we both speak Croatian, I have a decent knowledge of Dutch and he knows some French)... I think only someone who speaks these four languages could understand our conversations hahaha! The TOT phenomenon is so frustrating! Especially when speaking my mother tongue (French) and not remembering a word, while knowing it perfectly well in my three other languages! So phrases such as "How do you say this" and "What do you call it" often come out of my mouth and I have to pause and think hard about the word or the expression I'm looking for... Well, at least they say knowing multiple languages is good for the brain, so there's that! :D

[@raulcarlos1615]

Wow! I'm glad I watched this video! I speak English, Spanish, and Sign Language and started learning Mandarin about 3 months ago. I recently noticed this and thought something was wrong with me. This usually happens while trying to make a point in either Spanish or English to someone who speaks only one or the other, not both. Thanks for sharing

[@yourdadisbad1679]

I think it could be possible to lessen the one effect where words jump from one language to another by learning only one language at a time

[@pastoria3]

Thank you for the great insight. I can’t agree more. When I first noticed it, I thought It was because I did not have a broad vocabulary. While that might be true, I realized no matter how much I try to immerse myself in one language, this phenomenon still exists. The strategy that I use is that I would have to pretend the language I’m speaking at that time is my mother tongue and therefore my brain would tell me to sound more like a local.

[@brojson7656]

That's really interesting, happens to me from time to time, since i speak 4 languages. Btw i will use your videos for my chinese listening skills practice, thanks haha

[@bruja_cat]

Thank you so much for making this video! I’m multilingual and I always thought it was a flaw I had but now I feel more self assured that my brain is just doing backflips and that this is common for polyglots

[@LK-3000]

Thank you for your videos on learning languages and how that changes your brain. In the past, I've worked on trying to learn Japanese but never have been able to become fluent. I chose Japanese because the sounds are very similar to Spanish, which I was raised listening to (but not allowed to speak--long story which I won't go into). I can pronounce Japanese without issue, but I wish I could hold a conversation in it. I think it's amazing to be multilingual and I wish I had the issues associated with it.

[@joeshmoe4303]

The video, especially the intro is perfect.

[@TomiPalese]

I'm only bilingual (Spanish, English), and currently going for a third language (Japanese), but I've experienced the same things in one way or another. On a side note, where I come from, we say "banana" instead of "plátano".

[@sansenzhao3247]

谢谢分享，同是多语言学习爱好者感到受益匪浅

[@jacobpaint]

Whilst I only know English (primarily the Australian version) I have always been interested in how English and other languages work and differ from each other. I expect that different people have somewhat different processes for learning languages and aspects of their cognitive and emotional functions would affect how the languages co-mingled in their brain. There might even be certain practical things you can do to sure up each language so that they don’t bleed into each other unintentionally. The idea of focusing on one language at a time rather than going back and forth between them as you ironically did (impressively) in this video, is one way but perhaps something like having a vocal or mental exercise you do when switching to any specific language might help have some benefit. As a don’t speak other languages I can’t really imagine what specific processes might work to help with this and what might potentially work for someone like me, may not work for you. At least making such mistakes will generally come across as a humble boast rather than something you might actually feel embarrassed about.

[@blackkatdraws]

I've never really noticed any of these until you pointed it out :0 I know three languages _my mother tongue_ Cebuano, Tagalog and English

[@thatsadanarang]

I was speaking Spanish with my uncle, and went to apologize but forgot the wording I was looking for and my brain switched to Korean haha I thought it was just a me problem. Especially since I've had the TOT issue with English (my first language) for as long as I can remember lol

[@miao9193]

Before I found it difficult to translate between English and Chinese even tho I know both. So I began actively thinking about the translation when learning new vocab. Now I am getting the tip of the tongue symptoms. It seems like I’ve done a bad thing.

[@yuanbuyuan5064]

我正在西班牙读研究生。我的母语是韩语和汉语，大学本科选择了进修英语。我很能理解你说的经常会混淆单词的这种情况。 很有意思的一点是，有时候我和朋友们说韩语的时候，时不时会冒出来几句西班牙语的口头禅，说英语的时候脑子里有时候闪现的都是西班牙语单词，可能是在西班牙待的时间久了，而且身边的语言环境迫使我不得不说西班牙语，久而久之，有时候我竟然会用西班牙语自言自语。 很喜欢学习外语，但是又很想会到中国，回到周围都是母语的环境，回到那种被熟悉感包围的环境。

[@nathanscore]

thank you for existing. you put into words everything i haven't been eloquent enough to express about how i feel learning different languages. one of the weirdest times for me was during a psychotic episode, none of the things i was hearing in my brain made sense. at the ER i tried to write down what i was hearing in my mind to show a nurse or a doctor but then they were like "why is this in english?". upon reading what i wrote on that day with a clear mind, it's a train of thoughts where the most accurate words that i was hearing in my head, no matter the language, appeared in written sentences. the syntax made no sense, there was korean in the middle of sentences in english, and the only arabic was the al-fatiha surat, on repeat. i think being in a crisis about the meaning of words, how to express myself, "what does "meaning" even mean?" made me spiral even deeper. i just hope my future weird brain things related to languages are more on the funny side. these days whenever i lose an item and i try to find it, my brain switches to spanish, but since i'm mostly nonverbal and live alone, the few phrases i can say in a day make no sense to anyone but me, like "어디 es mí puto 핸드폰". language is confusing, funny, beautiful, it's an ocean that gets deeper the more you keep exploring it, and i feel like your channel is a perfect reflection of that. i'm glad i came across your videos today.

[@Presh_Toricah]

I cant believe that all what u actually said is actually happening to me,i keep forgetting what to say whenever i communicate with people and the funniest thing is that i actually knew that particular word-- i know the word by heart but that particular word get stuck that i dont know what to pronounce which seem like am not fluent in that particular language .Thanks for sharing this i really appreciate, i thought i was the only one all this were happening to.

[@programmerbd1486]

​@@Presh_Toricah Me too😮

[@actualmentesinnombre9049]

我精通3门语言，西班牙语，英语和汉语，现在正在学法语。我是中国人在西班牙出生的，所以我有2门母语，而英语是通过不断的学习而掌握的。但是我真的无法想象你居然学了5门以上，值得敬佩。👍

[@Cerina777]

你的中文表述也很清楚，谢谢。

[@nadjib1104]

Now that you explained this way about TOT , I discovered the cause why I found myself losing words when I even speak my mother Language(Tamazight / Berber) , as our culture is so influenced mostly by Arabic and French as a third language in north Africa, all people tend to mix words from each language on daily basis . I tend to learn : French , English and Arabic with its all dialects from a young age with both the academic and Social Languages , Mixing or forgetting words became a real Dilemma , even speaking with my friends whom barely understand French seems a mission impossible , because In my mind I try to recall the right words in Arabic not in English or French . As I Started learning German (deutsh) I get it more frequently.

[@thegiovannimauro]

I haven't fully learned Spanish, hell I'm not even close. But when I was actively learning I caught myself thinking in Spanish at times and nearly using Spanish words instead of English words. Since it's been a while I don't really have that problem, but whenever I decide to continue learning Spanish and/or some other language I'm sure it'll happen again. I would love to be fluent in Spanish and I'd like to learn Japanese at least enough to understand and hold conversations. Edit: Italian, French, Tagalog, and Russian are also some languages I'd love to learn, but they're not as high of a priority to me. I think that the existence of so many different languages is great for diversity and it can really help you better understand a culture and assimilate with foreigners. At times I wish everyone just spoke the same language so we could all understand each other clearly and not have to worry about miscommunication.

[@ntshaupamojela259]

I admire your accent.🙌🏿

[@fekkezaum]

Wow, you speak mandarin so fast! I tried to listen to you at 0.5x and still I needed to read in order to understand. 太快了！

[@phoenixhou4486]

Haha you’ll get used to it

[@azure7687]

I feel like a good way to keep the language fresh in your mind is to read books that interest you in that language. I want to learn to speak Chinese and then Japanese and honestly I don't mind mixing up the words here and there.

[@CaiXiuling]

Hi Phoenix Hou! 我看了您讲英语、西班牙语、葡萄牙语、广东话的视频，尤其让我佩服的是您讲外语的口音和语调。希望您有空的时候可以做一个节目分享您在改善外语口音方面的方法。我现在学葡萄牙语（用pimsleur app学)，我主要是通过模仿巴西圣经朗诵大师Cid Moreira的发音

[@samlosco8441]

I relate to some of this even as someone who can only speak fluently in English but is learning German. I'm not even close to speaking at an advanced level, yet sometimes I will have thoughts in German, and when I'm stressed out or excited about something I will say phrases in German that have no particular link to what I'm thinking about, like some kind of tic. Ideally I would like to be able to learn German, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese, but it's definitely a LOT of work lol

[@ak-9781]

i speak 4 different languages and ive never had that problem. let me teach you a good method. when you speak in a foreign language , adjust your brain to that language, when i speak russian i become serious, when i speak chinese i become childish (dont get me wrong chinese ppl it's just because chinese sounds funny and pleasant to me), when i speak english i become more confident and whe i speak Uzbek (my mother tongue) i become happy. This method really works. 虽然我已经二十五岁了但是我说汉语的时候总是觉得自己不是成人 而是个小孩儿哈哈哈 。哈萨克语，土耳其语，土库曼语，柯尔克孜语，维吾尔语，乌兹别克语都很相似 所以对我来说它们不是外语。

[@cindland]

Agree on this analysis. After becoming fluent in German over 35 years ago but not living among German speakers for over 30, I still think of German words in my need to describe a feeling or situation and can’t think of the English word. Now as a senior adult who took 4 semesters of a French in the last 2 years, I confuse vocabulary with the Spanish I learned in school form 3rd to 12 th grade. I am not fluent in these languages, but the grammatical structure stays with me.

[@ylleshtv4470]

Interesting video! I'm learning Mandarin Chinese for a couple of years also and starting giving tutorials in my KZbin channel...

[@fourarm495]

很有趣，谢谢分享

[@bennettbullock9690]

That's interesting what you say about Mandarin tending to break a sentence up into little tuples. In compositional semantics, you want to turn a sentence into little propositional functions, and the task of dealing with relative clauses, prepositional phrases, and other such things is to flatten a sentence into a series of these propositions. "This is the book my mom bought me" - is(this,book), buy(mom,book,me) ... And then you use tense markers and such to position the propositions in a "world" such as the past, the future, etc. I always suspected that Mandarin, by making tense, aspect, modality, relative clauses optional, was closer to the propositional representation of the sentence, and it was the listener's job to fill in a lot of the temporal and modal context. I always wondered, in a Whorfian vein, if this was the reason Chinese culture placed so much emphasis on the listener figuring out the real meaning of what is said by drawing on often very subtle contextual cues.

[@chloeleo]

i find the mixing up of words happens most often towards the start of learning a language, in the first few years it happened a lot to me but now 5 or 6 years after its pretty rare.

[@hepsima]

my god this mandarin accent is so nice to listen to, im having trouble as a learner myself to sometimes understand what the 南方的人are saying

[@iglunaseesternchen6000]

Well I'm only fluent in german and english, some pieces of french, spanish, italian, and a few others... what I'm experiencing is the tip of tongue as well, or when thinking while explaining something that a word in a foreign language would be more fitting than one in the current one the talk is revolving around to bring the sentence to a full understanding.

[@Mr00dark]

I thought english also was If-Then for relative clauses? We can switch freely between either, but most people I've talked to use a more linear form of speaking. If something comes before something, they say that first, rather than jumping to the result and then giving context for that result.

[@cristiancamilogarciahurtad8468]

That's really true, I've been suffering from tot and I didn't noticed or I didn't know that there a lot of people getting this issue, my natural tongue is Spanish but sometimes I'm capable to thing in different languages, to my isn't hard to comprender every romance languages and I'm learning Chinese and Japanese at time all that before I'd doed by myself. Tot is really confusing.

[@hey-stob-it6247]

i grew up bilingual, german/spanish, and i also speak english. what happens often to me is the TOT thing. i sometimes just sit there in school while trying to explain and often i have to say “sorry, i don’t know how to explain it” because i simply can’t find the words i’m looking for. i am a lot better in expressing myself through writing because i can think a lot longer while writing. this video made me realise that maybe i can’t explain verbally because i speak three languages. btw, i’m also learning italian and korean rn.

[@bruja_cat]

As a Puerto Rican, we actually embrace Spanglish using English words in our Spanish grammar like “parkiando” instead of “estacionando” which means to park your car. Here, we adopted the English “park” but added the Spanish -iando (in English, -ing to create a verb) to create a Spanglish word that is commonly used by Puerto Ricans. There’s a lot of this practice & I think it’s unique to how we understand communication and code switching

[@phoenixhou4486]

I saw in a video that says Spanglish is the only language Hispanic Americans speak fluently haha

[@oryna6078]

LOL! Nice idea on how to not mix up languages. Though, I remember a funny thing about my school. When we were in English class, there was a really intense discussion about English grammar between me, my teacher, and my classmates. All of us were discussing things in 3 different languages! In Russian, Ukrainian, and ofc English. I was the only one impressed by it, but for others, it seemed like a normal thing. Really love being multilingual & can`t wait to mix up Japanese words!

[@DiggerWhoops]

You are an exceptional young man!

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you!

[@DiggerWhoops]

@@phoenixhou4486 Thank you! I've recently began learning German, French, and Swahili. When asked by friends why...especially at my advanced years...I've bumbled around trying to explain, but never could. In viewing your video, it becomes very clear to me. Can't thank you enough. In fact, I've saved your clip and will send it to all those who wonder why this "old fool" is even bothering. Again.... Danke, Merci, und Asante!!!

[@2ndfloor401]

Hiligaynon is my first language, english my second, Tagalog (our national language) as my third. i briefly learned japanese when i was in elementary and it would kinda get in a way when i strated to learn korean in college. Then briefly lived in the middle east for 2-1/2 years...and when i try to think or recall a korean word for something..i blurt out the arabic word for it...not much is left of my japanese though.

[@sacc569]

0:42 Surprisingly, this also happens to me. Although I barely know how to speak almost 3 languages, sometimes, speaking in my native language, I want to use sentences in my second language, because in my native language there is no word to describe the concept I want to refer to. And sometimes it's painful to have to omit thoughts because in the language in which I am speaking there is no concept that correctly describes that thought.

[@whyyes6554]

I'm just learning my third and fourth languages, but even now I have noticed that when I summon a concept, the first word to come to mind is from a certain language, not always my first languages. So for example 認真 comes way before "earnest" and I don't think there's even a word in my mother tongue for that.

[@anaisfernandez-laaksonen1506]

i defintely feel the same thing, and I think it's because certain concepts and words are used more in certain languages. like 认真 is a word that is used very often in Chinese and its meaning kinda encompasses the whole sincere, earnest category and is able to be used quite naturally often. like there are just certain words, and concepts in different languages that are expressed better or differently, which of course can be annoying when it doesn't exist in another language (happening more often these days haha) but still a very cool thing to experience as you learn about different languages. I've been trilingual from birth and like quad/multi from 5 years old so I did learn to separate pretty well, but it is definitely something that inevitably happens as you actually learn more about the language and are immersed more contrary to being a mistake you make as you start (so like technically it can happen at any point in the language journey), so often it is something that you cannot really fix (but it doesn't matter cause it is cooler to speak multiple languages anyway)

[@carolineamarante8275]

ever since i moved out of my parents house, i started talking english way more than usual bc of my boyfriend, ever since i've been having some issues with portuguese words, i just can't remember them in my native language, so i always mix them up. it's kinda annoying, cuz not everyone knows english and they think that im trying to be better than them, but in fact my brain works completely different, i can't help it, even at work i do that. when im drunk is when things get REAL, i completely forget that i need to speak portuguese.

[@OurFantasyLife]

I get this, as I'm learning Japanese there are things that just "make more sense" in Japanese, even when I'm speaking in English. Like, for some reason whether I'm using Japanese or English, "わかりました" just comes to my mind whenever I want to say "I see" or "I get it".

[@hexwolfi]

That happens to me a lot, especially right after I've actively been using the language. I always get tripped up by the total lack of 相槌 in English after I've been 日本語-ing for a while.

[@tradejobs3974]

Same thing happens to me, I once shared the meme American bear vs Russian bear to my friend and told him to watch this 'American kuma vs Russian kuma'.

[@hololiveenjoyer5655]

I can speak Tagalog, English and Japanese and it was quite tricky when adapting at the start of learning a new language

[@sandimingyu3898]

my sis and I speak 5 languages, Burmese, English, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean. we always mix all of those in one single sentence unintentionally but still understand each other. TOT always happens to us but I think this is one of the most wonderful parts about being multilingual. altho we were given birth by monolingual parents, it has been our motive to master several languages and become polyglot like you are.

[@revatijagdale8969]

How did you learn the Korean language please give me some tips

[@wrathofgrothendieck]

nice clip on tie dawg

[@captainnerd6452]

I'm glad it's okay to forget some English words now, occasionally, since I've been studying Japanese for a few years now. I also took a few semesters of Russian and German in college, and had two years of Latin in high school, and at 64 I figure my brain is about full so things kind of slip behind the cracks and have to be coaxed out.

[@SeeHang]

one thing interesting about this is that with certain languages a goto word is pretty great for establishing a base of familiarity. in this clip ‘or’ was spoken often, but sometimes not translated. ‘or’ is such a strange word lol

[@VitorMiguell]

I'm only bilingual, but I understand exactly what you mean. the way words are structured in English, is very different from Portuguese. So I sound like an alien sometimes. and it can get convoluted when I'm trying to write down my thoughts about something, and I know the perfect way to convey my emotion in one language, but it's structurally different from one another, so I have to figure out ways to do shortcuts in each language. But at least, I'm really glad that my brain can't switch from one language to another on the fly, it saves me from looking stupid. The only phrase that I ever got mixed up was "wait a minute" with "peraí mi" (colloquial way of saying 'wait' in Portuguese) so I said "weraimi"

[@JeanOY]

厉害了，明明是普通话的视频，下面全是其他语言的评论。羡慕以及佩服各位。

[@wabc2336]

Hahaha for sure, even though my daily life was mostly English, I would have the urge to use Chinese word order after learning it in school. I would prefer Chinese word order as it is very consistent and more logical whereas in English "if" can be before or after the main part of the sentence, and is before in the most logical or mathematical situations but after in common speech. Yes I definitely was having trouble today and losing vocabulary in Kannada but when I hear words I would understand. Moreover I would try to find a word in Kannada and first feel that it was just out of reach, then find the Mandarin word, then find the English word, but maybe after a few minutes remember the Kannada word. But maybe I am just out of practice. Also, I learned to read and write Latin a few years ago. So then when I was learning new languages and trying to think of a word, I would think of the Latin word because my mind thought of it as a foreign language word.

[@earnestlanguage4242]

same here. i also get Latin words with Spanish pronunciation which is probably my brain trying to cover all the bases or something

[@baptista237]

有同感！很多形容人的词，第一反应是日语，而且非常难找到合适的中文词，比如有一天想和朋友说某人有点ぶっきらぼう，硬是想了半天才想到中文要怎么描述

[@VladimirsSilins]

I daily use two languages Russian (native) and Latvian and often mix grammatical structures of both, Russian lacks some tricks that Latvian allows, and those are actually possible in Russian, just sound a bit weird. I tested them on people who don't know Latvian and they mostly understand what I meant. And of course word borrowing happens a lot. As LV and RUS are related some vocab cognates and actually sound more vivid when a word from one language used in another, but with correct grammar. But yes, you have to be cautious when speaking with people who don't know one of these languages. And, no surprise, it all seasoned with lots and lots things from English.

[@user-vr7wn3oc9n]

I think most bilinguals can relate to the situation wherein one stops to find the right word. I myself speak an 'incomplete' language that forces me to alternatively use english words because the word didnt even exist in my language/long forgotten in the first place. almost every native puts a hint of english in each sentence, unless they have a major in the language, they could use deeper words in order to complete their sentences but that would mean that some speakers wouldnt understand them because they dont know what the word meant. personally I think its an environmental problem since theres english all over the place, even in politics; despite the fact that it should be in filipino instead.

[@bingbong2257]

English is my first language but sometimes when I speak french and I'm using an english word in a french sentence, like the name of an american city or a movie, I say it in a french accent which is weird.

[@ethersecure2432]

I think the learning of languages may be somewhat distinct from other intellectual pursuits whereby you're trying to train yourself often contradictory rules/information, or at most just different ways to convey the same thing. Its always been my belief that the more you learn in other fields of study (e.g. physics, politics, economics, etc), the more the holistic principals reveal themselves and the better your understanding of many OTHER concepts. I believe it naturally snowballs into higher and higher states of intelligence where you begin to be able to intuitively derive novel principles (to us anyways) in the natural world. It is thanks to such individuals that society has advanced to our incredible levels. May primarily apply to the STEM fields, since they are natural, but I would argue that philosophy and politics could easily be grouped in as well. Not to bash language learning, but the Bible does (and I'm merely a scholar of it) seem to imply that we're better off not understanding each other (the parable of the tower of Babel), and indeed one of my university professors did convey the belief among some scholars that the "usefulness" of language was somewhat of a tainted gift, whereby through its adoption as our primary means of communication, its inherent limitations results in us losing our more instinctive, subtle (borderline psychic), and more complex dynamics that the rest of the living creatures on this planet incorporate. To simplistic terms, it is suggested that we have lost touch with our ability to communicate with our feelings. Hence, and I say this as someone who prides themself on being able to communicate in multiple languages pseudo-fluently, perhaps languages should be only viewed as one of many tools we have to share ideas and concepts, and instead our pursuits should lie with USING these tools to better ourselves and the world. For example, instead of learning 20 languages for the sake of impressing people, one should spend the time they're given on this planet to try to ADVANCE mankind in some field, whether it be scientific or cultural. I understand that there is the intellectual gratification of excelling beyond your peers in a given field, but I would suggest that with all the problems in the world, that intellectual pursuits should try to serve society and not just as a means of measuring ourselves in some sort of abstract competition. So now, in your case, you've learned all these languages, you have all these tools, you should find a way to USE those tools in the betterment of society somehow. As you mentioned, embedded in the very structure of languages are unique thought processes that virtually define cultures. As such, polyglots are in a unique position to bridge those cultural divides and would best serve as ambassadors between nations. Ultimately, again, languages can be thought of merely as tools. Imagine a carpenter with the most spectacular assortment of tools ever assembled, but never actually did any actual carpentry work. That would be a shame since, in the end, it is our actions that we will ultimately be judged on.

[@LK-mw7pp]

Muy buena pronunciación 👌 que envidia saber chino y más aún poder leerlo.

[@kotabhi917]

As an Indian who speaks Hindi, Telugu, English and German, I totally get you. I would say the same thing to my German friends when I started learning Italian at the university. I constantly use the first three languages in a variety of mixtures but the beauty of it is that most Indians I interact with, just get it without even noticing it!!!

[@imslackingrightnow9765]

For me, a big annoyance in highschool was that I was often teased for not being the best at my native language, because I'm actually much better at English because of the internet and having moved around quite a bit as a kid. I wasn't even that bad though, it was just a toxic environment. I do gotta admit though, I could form the craziest sentences in English that would make me sound like a genius, and I was so annoyed that I just sounded so average in my native tongue, sometimes making the same grammatical errors you talked about. I would say "værd mere" (worth more) instead of "mere værd" (worth more but grammatically correct) for example.

[@kingjulian1202]

I had a break for the past 2 weeks, and although I'm a German native, I basically communicated for 2 weeks straight in English only, didn't really talk a lot with friends and family. This weekend I went to my dad's place and I always have like long conversations with my dad and I just felt my German had deteriorated a lot in those two weeks, like I remembered the English word first and sometimes I didn't even remember the German word at all... On another note, my Spanish and Japanese, there are barely any common words, but because my Japanese is vastly better than my Spanish, whenever I don't know a word especially verb in Spanish my mind just puts the Japanese one in... Also, every day I have these random thoughts that a word in either english or Japanese just pops into my head and I just keep guessing what it means until I give up and look it up in the dictionary...

[@mesopotamialover905]

I speak Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese. I felt I am forgetting Arabic words when I started learning Portuguese. Have you tried learning Arabic? Would love to hear your opinion about this language, as I think it is unique.

[@phoenixhou4486]

I’m studying Uyghur so I’ve learned the Arabic alphabet but haven’t studied the language. I’d love to after my French and Uyghur reach a decent level haha.

[@mesopotamialover905]

@@phoenixhou4486 If you learn Arabic you will feel the influence of this language on Turkish, Spanish, and Portuguese languages

[@WineSippingCowboy]

This happens to me only in related languages: I sometimes interchange Spanish 🇪🇸 or Italian 🇮🇹 with French. 🇫🇷 Tagalog. 🇵🇭. Luckily, code switching is the norm! 😃 German 🇩🇪, I almost never have problems interchanging this with English. 😃

[@christophersweeney7355]

I first noticed some of these same phenomenon, when studying Russian. About a year into it, I would speak English, but with something like Russian conventions for word order (which is much more loose, but some constructions are more favored than others). I would do this while speaking English, without even realizing it. Fellow students, who were also my friends would ask me to repeat what I had said, thinking I would notice the Russified word order I had used, but more than once, I simply repeated it again the same way: even indignantly, once, because I thought they were messing with me. Actually, I can remember another time earlier in life when another phenomenon mentioned in this video happened. As a child, I lived in Egypt, and learned the Arabic language by immersion. I can remember forgetting the English word, “ball.” I was trying to describe a ball getting stuck in a pinch point to my mother. I got stuck, and kept saying "‏كورة" (“ko-ra” - “ball”). Later, as an adult, there have been times when I have wanted to speak either Arabic or Russian, and I misuse the conjunctions, one to the other. Also, I’ve noticed, at times, my English becomes more broken (even though it’s my native language), when I get in certain moods, and it seems almost as if I am adopting one or the other identity (as an Egyptian or a Russian). 🤷‍♂️ I don’t know; I still like it (languages), and these things hardly ever present a real problem to me or the people I’m speaking to.

[@luciafantin]

Muy interesante! Soy bilingüe, hablo inglés y español y lo que siempre me pasa es que algunas palabras en español se me borran y solo recuerdo la palabra en inglés, a pesar de que el español es mi idioma nativo! Además en mi país (Argentina) muchas veces "españolizamos" términos en ingles, sobre todo los verbos, los conjugamos como si fueran español. Es como, en lugar de decir "intercambiar" podemos decir "switchear", que viene de "switch" en Ingles, y así con muchas palabras. Así que cuando me olvido una palabra en español me viene la palabra en inglés y hago eso jajajaj

[@lalolbc]

Y cuál será el próximo idioma que aprenderás?

[@0505121968]

Seguro a la gente de Argentina le suena muy natural el hablar italiano. Un acento molto parecido.

[@luciafantin]

@@0505121968 en realidad odiamos que cuando alguien imita a un argentino hable con acento italiano, es un falso estereotipo... Si bien hay alguna similitud ya no hablamos así, eso era hace varias décadas cuando fue la inmigración de italianos durante la guerra, pero ya cambió bastante. Y en general no hablamos italiano xD tenemos un par de palabras italianas que usamos de manera informal, como "laburo" (trabajo) o "birra" (cerveza) pero son casos muy aislados. Mi recomendación: nunca digan que están imitando a un argentino y procedan a hablar español con acento italiano, no nos agrada xD jajajja

[@luciafantin]

@@lalolbc Ahora estoy aprendiendo japonés y me gusta mucho :D tal vez para un futuro me interesan el alemán y el italiano. Aunque el italiano se me hace muy gracioso, como que no puedo estudiarlo seriamente porque me da risa xD

[@lalolbc]

@@luciafantin Te da risa? 😆 Si tienes razón creo, si suena un poco chistoso el italiano ahora que lo pienso. Como cuando jugaba Mario Kart y se ponían hablar Mario y Luigi. 😆 Anyway, el aleman y japonés a mi también me interesan pero el italiano la verdad no. A mi mas el francés. 😎

[@stevencha7237]

What is the best language for you to read in? Such as hard texts like classics, or philosophy?

[@emilialuchetti7037]

siento una admiración enorme por quien es capaz de aprender tantos idiomas, yo al inglés lo aprendí "sin querer" por absorción del entorno, por así decir... pero si quiero aprender algún otro autodidácticamente, me es imposible, no tengo la paciencia 😭

[@user-jw3we5mt9w]

非常有意思的视频！！我之前看到另一个关于语言学习的忠告是不要在学一门语言的时候用另一门语言进行翻译，这样到后面熟练应用之后，很容易出现舌尖忘词的现象。我现在说英语很多词汇，脑海里第一反应都是德语词汇，比如说almost是德语的fast，说快了很容易就说成fast了，然后回头想想就蛮搞笑的。但是如果用本语言去释义的话，初学起来真的会非常痛苦而且时间也很漫长。。。这也是我之后学新语言要想办法解决的问题。另外我想问一下你是怎么让每个语言的口语都这么接近母语水平的呀？因为我觉得，似乎多语言之间，对你的口语多少会有影响吧？

[@SixStringOverdose]

I experience all the things u talked about, PLUS one very common which is really annoying. For example if I take 2 languages which I know but are not native to me, lets say French and Bulgarian, although I know French way better than Bulgarian, because I'm currently trying to speak Bulgarian due to living in Bulgaria for the past few years, I tend to not be able to speak French on the spot, as my brain defaults to Bulgarian for all the small, connective words and interjections, prepositions etc. Therefore, I'm much more "fluent" with a language I barely know, compared to another which I'm better at, just because my brain is accustomed to express its reactions and intentions with Bulgarian having priority over French. I would need 2-3 days to re-calibrate for example if I travel to France. And then, after spending a week there, I'd have the same problem in reverse, when coming back to Bulgaria :)

[@mcmerry2846]

well, I actually use more words in all the language including my native, I like to sound original. yeah sometimes i forget about the perfect word or can't translate some phrases ending saying something different between languages...

[@Inst9727]

After learning english i started to notice that is prety weird to try explain concepts you learn in other languages in diferent languages, since a lot of times some words just don't have an similar word in other languages, plus i notice that a lot of times when i'm too imersed in english content, it's pretty common to slip up and say something in english when using portuguese, especialy since i play a lot of games and a some of the terminology carries from one labguage tp another, but bot all of it

[@williamlee7829]

神奇的youtube算法帶領我來到這個頻道, 立即按了subscription。我也有個類似的問題， 我手寫中文字很少會寫了錯別字， 但是如果我用倉頡速成輸入法， 我就會不斷打了錯別字， 例如 「言」字不少心打成「這」字