Limited by language

[TheHomesicknessLanguageBarrier]

I'm at a strange impasse.

I'm starting to think that not only am I hemmed in by my language abilty but by the language itself.

I've lived in Germany twelve years, self taught the language as I moved with babies. I work only in German, I study in German (though I've got a wall 2.5 years into the course). My grammar is wonkey but my language is functional and in speech fairly fluent (written is not so good).

I'm starting to think that even if I spoke perfect German it wouldn't be enough to be myself - the language itself feels limiting, or my thought don't fit within it.

Why is there no word for sky in German except the one which also means heaven?

Am I being silly? Anyone else feel like this about living in an adopted language, especially if you only started learning/ speaking the language in adulthood?

*Ylvamoon
*
'Nice' is a real word in English. What makes you think it's not?

(apologies if that's not what you were saying )

Tbh I'd feel labotamised if I stoped thinking in English. That'd be like sawing off my toes to better fit into a fashionable pair of shoes. It is in no way worth the sacrifice.

I do think the situation for people who move without children is also unrecogisably different. Its always been more important to me to bring up my children as close to perfectly bilingual as possible - which means with English as their mother tongue and German their community language - than it has been to perfect my own German at the expense of their English. I put serious work into the children's English (for example i've been reading aloud in English every night for the last 15 years) and its not something I'll ever sacrifice. My soul is English speaking...

I do think the situation for people who move without children is also unrecogisably different.
I totally agree with this. It also makes a difference if you move somewhere with kids and have in-laws there, or somewhere where English isn't spoken.

I've moved with kids to the country DH is from and English isn't spoken so much. My language came on leaps and bounds!

I moved to a country with kids where English is spoken quite a lot and it's very very hard to learn the language. Not because the language is hard, but because it's hard to find a way to get immersed in the culture in a way you would need to to learn properly - and could if you didn't have kids.

My language prof at uni told me the best way to learn a language was to be in the country with a boyfriend who was a native speaker. I think she was right!

I lived, studied and worked in Spain years ago. I became very fluent in the language but I know what you mean. Humour doesn't always translate the same into another language and I sometimes found myself not making the comments and jokes I normally would in English.

It s a fascinating topic isn't it? English is not my mother tongue and I definitely feel I have an English 'persona' and one in my mother tongue

Read about the trolley dilemma online if you have never heard of it. Basically it looks at moral choices in onw s own tongue and a foreign language and it demonstrates we are less emotional in a foreign language.

I do think in German while at work and at college, but I'd sooner saw off my own arm than actually stop thinking in English. I wouldn't be me, and the petson I would be would be too limited. I will not ever do that, it really doesn't seem to me like something to admire or aim for. The idea that I should be cutting out my core self in order to be more German makes me quite angry - its a suggestion I do hear occasionally IRL and it bothers me.

My husband and children are the only people who speak English to me, but I will never speak German to them. Thats a deliberate choice. We speak German to absolutely everyone else - we live very rurally and its been years since anyone tried to switch to English. It rarely hapoened even when I first arrived here with two babies and about three words of German.

The schools are closed here now, so the next challenge is home schooling in German

OneKeyAtATime I'll have a look.

Thevexam technique tips are good, I think I have to go back to basics there. Its difficult to write in short, simple sentences about complex topics but its what I have to try to do. It puts an extra hurdle in the way but its unavoidable.