To change my whole posture etc when I speak a different language

[Hoppinggreen]

So I speak 2 other European languages and am learning a 3rd and I have noticed that my tone and body language/posture change depending on which one I speak
Spanish - my voice drops lower and I tend to be a bit more feisty , louder and gesticulate more
French - I kind of slump a bit and use my shoulders a lot and also my eyebrows
German - I sit up straighter and am a bit more formal

I had no idea I was doing any of this until DH took the piss but now he has I notice it. Does anyone else do this or something similar? It’s almost like I assume a character.
Also I tend to use Spanish to bollock the DC and German to issue commands to the dog

I do this too, pretty sure it's normal. I'm fluent in two languages and speak a third, sound different in all of them. I think I have more 'girly' mannerisms in English. Most people I know however only know me speak in one language or the other so wouldn't notice.

It's just normal, you try to adopt the accent of the language you're speaking and the mannerisms naturally follow. You see Spanish as a passionate language so become fiestier because you think that's what Spanish people are like. You think French people shrug a lot so do the same. You're just trying to "live" the language.

I become an angry fishwife when I speak Chinese, and very over-confident in Hebrew!

My son said I use my hands more when I speak Italian. 😂

I actually find it helps to get into “character” too.
DH says even if he couldn’t hear me he would know which language I was speaking 😁

This is so funny 🤣 I speak multiple languages and never noticed but now I'll have to see if I do 😂

Many years ago I read that multi-lingual people use parts of the brain associated with multiple personalities disorder, in effect you are a slightly different person in each language you are fluent in.

This

I've found I speak 3 different sorts of English too: real home English with family, professional English with my posh university accent and European English most of the time. I use my hands loads with the last 2 because they feel like foreign languages to me, and I talk with my hands in all my other languages. I picked up using noises to indicate activities from French and use it in all my languages now which combined with the hands makes me look and sound like an idiot

I've noticed that there are facial expressions that differ between cultures, so I think body language is part of communication.

DH is bilingual, so I'm going to look out for this now.

He learnt fluently as a small child though so I don't suppose he was unconsciously attaching any pre-conceptions to his non-native language.

My Italian friends do use their hands more when they're speaking Italian than English.

Oh there are loads of studies on this. I have bilingual DCs and noticed it pretty much from the start. One is more pronounced than the other, deeper voice and everything. Very interesting.

I speak a 2nd language fluently and a couple of others less so, and i do it too. It's just a language thing, i guess.

I'm sure I once read something about research among Japanese women living in California. I think it was in the 1960s. They were interviewed in Japanese, and then in English. After studying the answers, the research found that in their Japanese interviews, the women gave fairly traditional, submissive answers to questions about their role in the family or society, which was largely in keeping with traditional Japanese views about how women should behave.

When they answered the same questions in English, they were much more assertive and focused on themselves as individuals. This was felt to be more in keeping with the increased profile of the women's rights movement in California at that time.

So, yes, there is evidence that the language you speak affects what you think and how you express it.

It may also affect your personality in other ways. My daughter is growing up bilingual. I can speak both her languages, but English is very much my mother tongue and the other is obviously a second language for me. She already notices that in English I can tell jokes, make puns, improvise stories and do all sorts of fun wordplay stuff. However, in L2, I'm limited to instructions and transferring basic information. So she won't speak with me in L2 because it's 'boring'.

with mine it was that they wouldn't speak L2 to me because that was just wrong. But when they were very small they spoke to all adults in English and all children in L2. That soon stopped as we don't live in an English speaking country (although most adults are very profficient in English)

Then came the phase when they didn't want to speak to me in English, especially if anyone they knew was around. So they alswered me in L2 even though i resolutely always spoke to them in English. Then came homework and concepts that they could only talk about in L2 as that is how they learned them. All fun and interesting stuff, actually, over the years with bilingual DCs.

Sometimes you can pick people out (streets of London) by language they are probably speak, from body language alone. Certain expressions or gestures are just "so Spanish" or "Very Italian" etc.

I knew 2 quiet boring people who turned into lively even sparkling, fun attractive people when they spoke in French.

Absolutely normal for me. I actually think I’m a (slightly) different person in the different languages I speak well. A friend who’d only ever been around me in an Anglophone environment once overheard me on the phone in French and said my laugh was different!

I've just realised I do it too! How funny - never realised

Bizarrely my manager and I were talking about this today! I think she sounds the same when she speaks in English and her native tongue but she says I sound totally different when I speak in a second language. I've never really noticed it before but I think she's right!

Yup I speak in a slightly different pitch in my second language, I think it's fascinating how language shapes us.

My husband always speaks in a far more animated, even aggressive seeming way in his native (Slavic) language. He doesn't smile as much, which is a cultural difference, his friends take the mickey out of him smiling a lot now which he does as used to UK/US culture in which random smiling is not perceived as insincere.

Completely understandable. I speak English (native language) plus two European languages. In one language, the entire mouth shape required for some of the sounds is completely different to English, so I have a very different voice. Also the speed of this language is slower than English, so the body language is different and gestures are slower.

My other language is full of very long words and sentences, and can at times be very formal with an emphasis placed on correct grammar and word order. This means that a good lungful of air is often required before starting a sentence, and a posture that allows this to happen.

And your face wrinkles differently, depending on the language you habitually speak, because of the different facial movements needed.

I’m glad you posted this! I’ve got decent spoken French and my mannerisms also change. Bof!

I can't remember the full details now but there has been research carried out on language learning for dementia sufferers and how they become different personalities. It was fascinating and must find it again.