language: foreign languages

I used to believe that, being American, all the people in the world who did not speak English actually understood the language, and just took the extra time to 'convert' it into their own language so that we could not understand what they were saying. I thought this up through first grade, while we occasionally learned Spanish during that time so that we could also disguise our conversations as well

When I was about 8 years old my mom took me to the shoe store. I thought the woman who attended to us talked funny and I asked my mom why. My mom said it was because she had an accent. (She had a French accent). I missheard what she had said. I thought my mom said 'accident' and for years I thought people who talked funny had been in accidents!!

Even though I am american, I used to believe that I spoke English and all my friends spoke "American." I don't really know why I thought this, maybe something my mom told me. I thought this in pre-school

When I was little my parents would take me and my brother to disneyland which is the place I learned that there are a lot of different languages by listining to people in lines waiting for rides. Me and my brother thought that we could talk to each other and would fool people that we were speaking another language. It probably sounded like "jabba habbla blah bleep". We would nod along in our conversation and thought that every one else would be trying to figure out what we were saying the same way that we were trying to figure out what they were saying.

I am from Scotland and I was told that my country was Scotland so when I was reading about the English and that the English speak English I though English was a foreign lanuage I couldn't understand and I even imagined it sounding wierd! I wouldn't accept that I actually spoke English, how could I; I'm Scottish am I not?

When I was little I thought that when forgien people spoke to eachother in thier language, they would hear it in english, and if they heard someone talking in enlgish, it would sound like Chinese.

I remember one time my friend said "What's the tille?" and I asked him what it meant, and he said that 'tille' meant 'time' and I assumed it was just a more grown up word. He used to say it all the time.

I never heard anyone else ever say it so one time I asked him where he got the word from. He said, "it's French .... Quel est le tille? .... it means 'what is the time?' "

I was 11 and had started French by then. He felt a bit stupid when I told him it was "Quelle heure est-il ?" (What hour is it ?)

I used to beleive that you could change words from English to French just by changing the same letters every time, like it was a simple formula. (e.g. every 'a' in English would be 'h' in French or something).

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...

I used to think that in a sentence in French, no word or beginning of a word can be capitalized. So if i would say, I like Bob. in french, i thought it would be j'aime bob. instead of J'aime Bob. Turns out it was only for dates that capitalising months and days was not allowed.

I used to think that people who spoke other languages had transaltors in their brains that made them hear in english. I was always so amazed when people could speak more than one language.

I used to believe that people from England spoke an ancient language that wasn't English, kind of like how the Irish used to speak Galic, and that the English language was a relatively new language.

When my older sister was learning French at secondary school, she would practice numbers and verbs etc. Somehow I got it into my head that it went un, deux, trois etc up to 13, when I thought it went quatorze, cans, tins, and then I couldnt remember any more numbers! I was repeatedly told by my family this was incorrect, but it wasn't until I got to school was taught the numbers that I had to work really hard to forget cans and tins and continue on to vingt and beyond!

When at school (in wales) we were taught umah was "here" (not sure if thats the correct spelling). So when we moved to england "umah" was a slang for oh dear or you've done somthing wrong.

Ummaahhh. "Yes i know your here."

lol haven't been told otherwise yet. ;)

When I was 7 or 8 I had neighbors that were black and they spoke Spanish so for years I thought all black people could speak Spanish!

i used to believe that people who spoke different languages (like spanish) had different numbers..i believed this till i was 13!