Although I must have known from television and general life that Americans spoke English, I managed to convince myself, and my friends too, that they spoke an entirely different language. My father used to go on frequent business trips to America, and when he came back, I would tell my friends that he had taught me something new about the American language. I even claimed to have been taught several songs in 'American' which I performed for them - they were complete gibberish, of course.
Given the amount of American TV shows we get in the UK I don't know why I thought this would be convincing, nor why the other children believed. It never fails to surprise me, either, that I half believed these fantastic tales myself.
A childhood belief about foreign languages
others believed things like this
- At the age of four I believed I was soooo smart. I spoke TWO languages...English AND American!— Melinda
- I used to believe that, no matter what language other people spoke, that everyone thought in EnglishAnon
- I used to believe that the whole world spoke the same language- English.Anon
- I used to think that adults spoke an entirely different language (not English) when kids weren't around. — Swordfish
- I used to believe that if I spoke with whatever accent a language was in, I was speaking that language...— Renae
- For the longest time I thought Pig Latin was an actual language that they spoke in a part of Europe.Anon