language

I used to believe…

Currently, in my 9th grade class, we are studying genes and the like in biology. Well, we briefly touched on it in 8th grade, and I remember reading the word alleles, but never hearing it said out loud. About last week, I heard my teacher say it, but to my surprise she said it 'al-LEELS'. I had assumed it was pronounced "a-LAY-lees". It gets worse, I tried to correct her.

i used to believe that before you were born, your spirit was taught how to speak your mother tongue beforehand lol. when i was 3 or 4 i asked my mum "who taught me to speak?"

I used to belive (in preschool) there were 2 N's in the alphabet. One in H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P and at the end Y,N,Z. I never understood why they put 2 N's in the alphabet, it seemed silly.

I used to believe…

when ever i watched movies i couldn't help noticing how people often used the term "son of a b**ch", except it made no sense to me because i thought they were saying "sound of a beast."

I thought microphones were language specific... a French speaking person couldn't use an English microphone.

I thought speaking with the proper accent was the hardest part about learning a foreign language.

I used to believe…

This isn't mine, but my sister's. My sister is 5 and she recently saw the commercial for genital herpes. Well, I guess she figured "genital" was "genetic," because when my grandparents were over she proudly whispered to them: "I have genital dyslexia."

I used to believe…

When my sister and I were little, we used to think that "stupid" and "shut up" were bad words. So when we heard someone say it or if one of us said it we would say, "OOOOHH!!!! You said the S word!!!" I am now 14, and when my sister or I say those words we joke around and we say that!!!

I used to think that "elemeno" was a letter, as in H, I, J, K, Elemino, P.

I used to believe…

Up until about age nine I believed that people would think i was chinese if i immitated the language. I would 'speak Chinese' in shops, on holiday, in school. I thought people stared at me bacause they were impressed!

I used to believe…

Until second grade I thought that the word recipe was pronounced "re-sipe". I had heard people say "reh-su-pe" but I thought that was a different word that meant exactly the same thing. I wondered why nobody ever used "re-sipe" when speaking.

I believed until about age six that all Black people could speak Spanish.

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.

I used to believe…

at the age of 6 i believed that flush was a color

I never believed that "p*ss" was a swear word. My friend chris tried 2 tell me when i was like 7-

me (very loudly): p*ss isn't a swear word!!!!
chris (in hushed tones): yes it is!!
me: no! its just the sound u make when ur pretending to go to the toilet!
chris: i promise, its a swear word!
me: no it isn't!!
etc.etc.
i just wouldnt believe it! (unfortunately...)

I used to believe…

When I was young, I thought other people's languages sounded like english to them, and english would sound like their language sounds to me, like spanish speakers heard english when I heard spanish, and they heard spanish when I heard english.

I used to believe that when an author's name on a book cover was in bigger letters than the title of the book itself, it was meant for adults. If the title was bigger than the author, it was a children's book. I got this belief by comparing my parents' books to my own.