i used to believe that you could communicate with anyone in the world by simply spelling out the English sentence one letter at a time using the pronunciation of their alphabet.

Anon

When I was just learning to read, one of my favorite books was Babar. Because I couldn't read it (my mom had to read it out loud to me), and because Babar is French, I thought that the book was written in French and that my mom was really smart to be able to translate it into English for me. It was actually written in cursive.

So, for the longest time, I thought that anything written in cursive was French!

Molly

when i was 13 i believed for a year that Australian was a language after seeing the commercials and being convinced by my brother

Anon

When I was little I found out from someone that the name we call countries is not what they call themselves. Being the smart little bastard I was I started correcting everyone when they said the english version of a countries name. The only problem was that I was telling people "No, its not called Germany, its called doucheland!"

Noone corrected me until I was in middle school...

Rob

When i was very young I thought words in other language are just encoded and you have to know what letter stands for what letter.

Like "hallo" in German means "hello" so in every German word a is replaced by e in English

Lee

I used to believe that when the commercial said "batteries not included" it was the commercial recited again in spanish.

britt

I used to think that foreign people coughed and sneezed in a different language.

Even more stupid

In Brazil the word "twins" is gemeos, same word for horoscope too. I saw in the newspaper I was gemeos and argue with my mom what she made with my other brother.

cruzandar

I'm bilingual, and i can speak english and spanish because my mum always spoke to me in spanish. i couldn't actually speak english for the first few years of my life, and my mum always had to translate what i was saying to my dad. i was quite frustrated that i couldn't speak to my dad so i spoke to him in what i thought was english, but it was just spanish in an english accent!! (my godmother loves telling anyone who'd listen about this story!!)

spanish speaker from London

When I was little, we moved a lot. The first move I remember, I was scared. You see, I was sure that Indiana spoke a different language (all the states had thier own as far as I was concerned), and I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to learn Indianain, and I'd forget the language I already knew.

Anon

When I was about 5 my family went to Puerto Rico where they speak Spanish. I saw these signs that said "No Fumes" everywhere. I though this was short for perfumes and women there weren't allowed to wear it.
It wasn't until I learned Spanish that I realized it was simply Spanish for "No smoking"(pronounced no foo-mace)

Matt

I used to believe that before a baby learns to speak English, the baby is actually speaking a foreign language, and it's parents can't understand it because they don't know that language. When a baby is born in another country where people don't speak English, the baby speaks English at first and it's parents have to teach it the other language.
I thought that parents who spoke English should just swap their baby with a baby from another country so they would be able to understand what their baby is saying.

Sarah

I used to believe that english words were just like the greek, but without or different last syllable. For example: camila=>camel, syllavi=>syllable, athletismos=>athletics
democratia=>democracy

Giorgos, Greece

I´m portuguese and at the age of 6, when my teenage aunt was listenning to the BEE GEES, i used to believe that Howdeepisyourlove was one single word in english, that would mean something, who knows?!
Later on ,when my english skills improved, i felt very foolish. I still laugh whenever i hear that song. By the age of 12, although my english was better, i still couldn't capture what Frank Sinatra meant by I get a kick out of you.
Many years later in our twenty's, my sister's boyfriend (not quite as good in the english department as ourselves) thought she was breaking up with him, when she wrote that in a postcard ...

Susana Costa

I used to believe that everyone could speak and understand English, just some people spoke in different languages for fun.

Gesikah

I was in the school of thought at the age of 4 that when foriegners spoke in their native toungue they were infact trying to speak english, but hadn't quite grasped it yet. I thought that eventually the whole world would just speak english and nothing else as they all learned it.

Jigg

I had a Mexican nanny when I was little who spoke some English but not much. Sometimes my mom would try and speak to her in Spanish, but rather unsuccessfully. I, however, had completely figured out how to translate anything English into Spanish by the age of three. My "translational" method (which I taught to my poor simple-minded mother) was that you just had to say "es" between all of your words. Example: "Felisa, es can you es es make es me es some es pasta es? Es thank es you!" I now understand the puzzled and worried look that she frequently gave me. Heheh, es silly me!

Coral Orchid

i used to belive that when people would speak a different language it was cursing. one time i was walking with my mom and i hear some women speaking in another language i really thought they were going to get in a fight, i was scared.

Lizzy

I used to believe that "Pig Latin" was an actual language that was very rude--hence the name. I thought people only spoke "Pig Latin" when they wanted to insult somebody.

Maeghan Jade

I used to think that if you spoke several languages, you could only do one at a time. So, if something interesting happened when you were in French mode, you wouldn't remember it if someone asked you in English. I believed this for a very long time.

Anon