I grew up in Estonia, speaking Estonian. When I was nine, my dad moved to Sweden and after about 6 months me, sister and mum went to visit him. I knew that in Sweden people spoke Swedish, so I was convinced that once we'd get off the boat in Sweden and met dad we would all speak Swedish to each other and understand it perfectly. And when we returned to Estonia we would speak Estonian again... When we actually arrived I was very confused as to why we still spoke Estonian and, worse, why I couldn't understand what other ppl around me were saying....
A childhood belief about foreign languages
others believed things like this
- Since Germans speak German, I thought Jewish people spoke Jewish.— Lori
- I am from Norway, and when i was a kid I used to believe thet gay people talked swedish!— Norway-Girl
- I used to think Yiddish was pronounced to rhyme with Swedish.Anon
- Growing up, I thought that my family that spoke Yiddish were speaking in cursive.Anon
- I used to believe that if I spoke with whatever accent a language was in, I was speaking that language...— Renae
- I would speak in gidderish, convinced that it was some foreign language I had never heard of— Molly