foreign languages

When I was little, I thought people who speak foreign languages think in English, they just use different words when they spoke. I couldn't figure out why everyone didn't just speak English since everybody thought in English

Anon

I belived that foreign people thought English in there heads.

Mr.X

I honestly used to believe that English was the world's official language, and all other languages were secondary.

Hola Kitty

I used to think Spanish was just English spoken backwards.

nomi

when i was a kid i used to think english was another language

greg

I didn't exactly believe it but I suspected that my language (German) was an invention by my parents and that everyone I ever met were paid by them for talking this artificial language.

I'm still not entirely sure.

slayniac

I used to believe that to people that spoke a different language, they still heard it in English. My philosophy was that their ears translated their foreign language into English, and my ears didn't have that, so I couldn't understand them.

Anon

Since my grandmother spoke only Spanish and I spoke only English I used to believe different languages were generational and English was created by my cohorts

Chris Ayala

I used to believe that everyone spoke English and that they just used translator devices in their ears.

Anon

When I was a child I was convinced the white noise on our TV was a language that meant something to someone we just did understand it.

Michael

When I was little I used to think foreign languages don't exist and that people just pretend. That they, in fact, translate each word from my language into another in their head and then speak out. That the world essentially only has one language. Mine, of course. I'm a linguist now :-)

Ana

I was just reading some beliefs and I was getting a little curious about this "Anon" that kept posting (and I wasn't sure if that person was man or woman)..so I clicked on the name and it said "I'm sorry this is an ANONymous post"!!! (english is not my native language!). LOL!!!

josefina

Both my parents were born and raised in Cuba, so as a little girl in the U.S. my first language was Spanish and I learned English while learning to read and write (required for my preschool) and at first I only wrote LIKE THIS IN ALL CAPS. I thought THIS was "Spanish letters" and this was "English letters" Later, I thought the same about cursive and print. Print was "Spanish" and cursive "English" In my defense, my parents did not try to set me straight which led to embarassing moments.

Se.eS

when i was younger i thought everyone who spoke a language other than english, actually heard english when they spoke that language. just the rest of us could not understand it

Tori

When I was a kid, I believed everyone thought in my native language. How else could people possibly understand their own thoughts?

Anon