Who hasn’t mixed two, or more, languages while learning a new one?
Whether we’re talking about a bilingual child or simply an adult learning a second or third language this is something that occurs frequently and may bother, specially, the adult learner.
Why does this happen, anyway?
In this article we will be focusing on adult learners who are faced with language mixing when learning a second or third language.
It is hard to imagine mixing Japanese, Russian or English because these languages are form different families, although it has happened in the past, but it is very common for this to happen with Spanish and Italian, for example, English and German or Polish and Russian, because they belong to the same families – Latin, Balto-slavic and West Germanic, respectively.
It is more common than we think for this to happen, and many of our students have even mixed Spanish and English or French and Portuguese.
The language mixing eventually happens because a person’s first language forms a very robust widespread neural circuitry that governs that language. A second language is likely to form another circuitry only modestly associated with the first language simply because, languages build on one another.
Both of them have unique as well as common features. Concrete objects like ‘a chair’ and abstract concepts like ‘love’ can have various contexts and representative words. Some of these words have complex connotations in each language, which are not shared by another. So, it becomes only natural, and almost automatic, when both languages are used in one environment. Recent studies have shown that by code-switching (how language mixing is also known) the speaker can emphasize identity, show support for multiculturalism, or even express power, by excluding those who are not familiar with the other language.
But normally this happens in trivial situations, like when you ask for a burger in NY city, and all of the sudden you say, sem (without) pickles, please. Your brain might just be filling a void of a missing word in the language you’re learning, by the word you’re familiar with in your mother tongue. It happens unconsciously because your brain just wants to communicate or simply because you have used a given word more often in one language than the other, even if none of the latter is your native one. Language use and word frequency are just some of the reasons that language mixing can occur. But psycholinguistics is still studying this field, and why this happens to so many students around the world. The point is, it’s something natural and there is nothing to worry about.
How can I avoid this? Easy. By thinking in the new language you want to acquire. “Oh, really? I hear that a lot”, you might be thinking. However, what probably nobody told you before is that studies have found that a “true” bilingual person has a kind of double personality. And how does this answer your question, you wonder? To think in the new language, you need to create a persona. To mimic someone or create a “character” of some kind. You might want to choose a celebrity or someone you admire. I always suggest important people, because you will have easy access to speeches, videos and a lot of information on their social media for you to dive into. And important people, normally, already have easy accents and good public-speaking skills. Try to find a person you are fond of and also share some thoughts with. For some suggestions, we can recommend the former first lady of the USA, Michele Obama, or even Emma Watson, aka Hermione Granger, who is also a ONU ambassador for gender equality. For men, the former president Barack Obama, or even John Legend, famous musician, who is very active on social media, or even Mr. Potter himself – aka, in the real world, as Daniel Radcliff).
This not only helps your brain to compartmentalize the two languages better but it will even help you deal with fear or embarrassment when you need to speak the new language. Because, after all, it’s your persona speaking.
Your accent, the way you produce sounds when you form your words, and even your persona should change when you use a foreign language. Be conscious of how you should pronounce words in your new language. If you need to do some warm-up exercises to get your mouth and tongue ready to enunciate when you're taking language lessons, then do it. This is part of getting comfortable with the new language. The more you practice using it, the less likely you will mix it up with the other ones you know.
But… do you really?
Do you really want to avoid it? I ask, why would you? Embrace what’s different because just like the word in Portuguese “saudade” there are also words in other languages that embrace complete concepts and can’t be translated, and by code-switching you can reach a different level of understanding with a person who shares the same knowledge in languages you do. Like “Cafuné” or “Cheiro” in Brazilian Portuguese which, even Portuguese folks, don’t quite grasp.
In Spanish, for example, the word “Duende” has seen its meaning transitioning from something mythical, into
“the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.”
In Japanese, the “Wabi-Sabi” concept has shed a lot of ink, but in a sentence, one might explain it as a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.
A Dane person would tell you that the word “Hyggelig” would be impossible to translate. If we tried a translation into English we would see words like warm, friendly, cozy and nice, all put together, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s something that must be experienced to be known, and only Danish people understand. (untranslatable words from Altalang.com)
And then again, how awesome it is that, when you’re gathered with friends or family that share the same languages you know, you might be able to complete communicate altercating between languages and being fully comprehended? It’s like having a code of your own! And that’s exactly how new languages come to existence, like ‘pidgins’ and ‘creole’ (blended languages), it happened between 1066 CE and 1600 CE in England, when modern English was born of Middle English plus French. It is happening in America, giving rise to a way of speaking that some call ‘spanglish’ and it is known to exist in the borders of Portugal and Spain, where the two languages are used and everybody seems to understand each other in a wonderful ‘portunhol’.
Jokes aside, language mixing, or code-switching, provides speakers a certain level of ease and edge when expressing themselves as they adjust themselves according to the tasks they have to perform, the people they have to deal with, the technological devices they have to operate etc.
This does not make them less capable, it just means they know enough of their languages to make the necessary accommodations when necessary.
Bilingual or multilingual individuals have an ability to express concepts in ways that monolingual individuals cannot even fathom. In many cases, you can incorporate idioms from your native or secondary languages in order to bridge some linguistic gaps that may occur in the languages they are dealing with, because different concepts arise when expressing familiar subjects or situations to a foreign person. This is especially true when it comes to vocabulary dealing with technical fields, culture, arts or social-political matters.
Languages are not concrete and fixed, they are fluid, dynamic, and highly complex that have the ability to adapt according to their given environment hence the phenomenon of code-switching.
In conclusion, embrace the languages you already know and don’t apologize for mixing them, we never know if that is an opportunity to learn or teach a whole new concept or if you’re on the verge of creating a new language!