My friend Alex went on exchange to America (from England where we live), and upon arrival in the US, he was asked by one of the students, who knew where he was from, "Do you speak English?"
Hmm.. English... England... no connection there?! Obviously not.

Jesi

Until i was in high school I always thought that sign-language was a language that was spoken (or signed) in a country some where, and that's what all spoke (signed). I always wondered how they got the attention of people that weren't looking.

Bill Torkewitz

I used to think that every state in America spoke a different language and California (where I was living at the time) was the only one that spoke English.

Camille Noire

When I was ten we were in NJ visiting family and my cousin taught me pig Latin. I thought it was so cool! I later told my Mom that I wished we'd never moved from NJ because they got to learn a foreign language in grade school. When I told her what that language was, she said, "Pig Latin isn't a REAL language." and started laughing hysterically. I'd been feeling very superior to my Ohio friends and was very disappointed to learn the truth.

Jennifer

i used to believe that american was an enitrely different language than english. I'm from wales and speak both english and welsh, and i always assumed that this was because england is right next to wales, and the language had kind of "leaked". When i was 10 (i can hear you laughing) a boy from the U.S. came to my school. Everyone thought his accent was totally cool and i said "wow, you already speak perfect english. can you teach me some american?"

bethan

I used to believe that cursive handwriting was French. After all, the French are so sophisticated, and it made sense that their writing would look fancier than plain American (print) writing. However, when I finally learned how to read cursive, I was disappointed that the words weren't different.

Francophile

I used to think that saying "I can't speak Spanish" meant that you literally couldn't make the words come out of your mouth (something like how Jim Carrey couldn't lie in the movie Liar Liar.) I pictured people like grabbing their throats and trying to choke the words out.

Anon

I used to believe that people had a special in-ear translator that converted the language they were hearing into English, so they could understand it.

Sibyana

As a child, I believed that foreign languages were just random babble, like baby-talk, that some adults spoke in because they had never learned to speak properly. I remember feeling sorry for them, never learning such basic stuff. I figured that maybe they were just "mentally challenged" or something. It always confused me, then, that they seemed to understand each other perfectly. Maybe they had telepathy or something to compensate for their defective speech patterns. I thought that this sounded pretty cool, and envied them in this aspect. I was an odd kid.

Confused about foreigners

I used to think that one letter in English ment one letter in another language. So I thought that "A" would be "h" in French or something like that. I was so stupid!

Bradley

i used to ask my mom how people laughed in diferent languages!

Anon

When I was a kid, I used to think that every single person in the world spoke English...since that's how it was on television. I was flabbergasted when refugees from central America started pouring into my school and started speaking English with an impenetrable accent. Turns out they were speaking Spanish ;-)

texasbabe

I used to think that to speak any other language besides English you had to be some kind of genius. I used to be so amazed when six year olds spoke French.

Eleanor S

I used to believe that you can only speak one language and didn't allow to speak another one.My language is Turkish and i worried i wouldn't have a chance to speak a foreign language.

Arwen Undomiel

When I was five, everytime I played "karate" with my little brother we would always speak in mock-Chinese. We really thought that was how they speak it. So on the first day of school I was delighted to find a Chinese person in my class. I went up to him and started speaking in mock-Chinese. This went on for days and I thought I was making progress - until it came to a point where he was so fed up that he just walked away and ignored me for the rest of the year.

Ray T.

I used to believe that if you spoke to someone in their language they would actually hear it in English.. for instance If you said to a French person "Bonjour, Comment allez vous" They would actually hear you say "hello, how are you".

Jiggly x

I used to think that people that spoke different languages just made up jibberish as they went along in a converstion.

None

My grandmother's native tongue was Japanese and she pronounced English words very poorly. Up through college, my mom would say and even write in papers "asuna" as a word, not realizing that that's how her mother pronounced "as soon as."

nihonjin

I used to believe that "Hazchem" was a German word meaning "danger" (hence the signs up at factories etc).

I was 21 before I figured out, all by myself at least, that it was an abbreviation for "hazardous chemicals".

Christina

I`m from Norway and i used to think that Norwegien was the main language in the world.So when people spoke for example english i thought: Why are they kidding around

Elin Norway