foreign languages

When I was like 5 and "got" a Mexican cousin, I thought that his tongue would actually be only able to pronounce in Spanish, but that he was in fact thinking in French (which I speak), because the one real language was French.

Mariane

When I was younger I used to think that cities, towns, states, provinces, territories, etc. were all just different words for countries. Also, if you lived in a different country, you spoke a different language. No one knew any other languages but their own, and that's just how it was. While we were driving to visit my aunt and uncle in a nearby town I asked my dad why Aunyie Mary and Uncle Dennis didn't speak another language, them being from a different country and all. He just kind of looked at me strangely and told me that they were still in the same country as us, just in a different town. I just kind of ignored what he told me because, of course they're in a different country, and they speak a different language. I thought that since they spoke english, they were doing it illegally, so that's why I never told anyone about it again, trying to protexct them from being arrested.

--A

my mother tongue is not english. and at home my parents spoke this language amonst each other. me and my brother did not have a clue what was going on, but we picked it up slowly. when we didnt know how to speak it, and when we used to play mommy and daddy, we made up our own gobbledygook version and pretended that we knew what it meant and spoke it infront of our parents so they would get jealous!!

Mommy&Daddy Games

I grew up with Spanish being my first language but I picked up English somehow. I used to believe that Spanish was the first language of the world and every language borrowed Spanish words. Then I'd act smug when someone used a cagne. ( ie bicicleta=] bike) Then I learned Spanish was one of the Romantic languages along with English and French and I stoped acting smug.

Anon

Not that I was racist when I was young, but I used to think that Spanish and Chinese were the exact same thing.

JRE1

I used to believe that different languagess were because peoples ears heard things differently. I had never heard anyone speak a different language before...

Aly

I used to believe that the sound that we say animals make in English could be translated into other languages, and that's what animals would say in that country.
So, for example cows in France wouldn't say "moo", they would say whatever "moo" meant in France.

?

I believed that all foreign languages were complete gibberish. Therefore, I believed that if I spoke complete gibberish I was actually speaking a foreign language. I thought these people were trying to figure out the real, English, word for things by complete guesswork.

Trevor

When I was little, I had a friend who was Chinese, and I'm Filipino. When my mother and her mother had a conversation, they spoke the same language. I assumed that people from a certain country could only speak that language and English( because I also thought that English was the primarey language of the world) so I thought Tagalog and Chinese were exactly the same.It turns out that they could just both speak Tagalog! =)

Ciarlene

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?"

queen-without-a-crown

I used to believe that people who spoke a different language laughed differently as well. I thought that they would laugh with an accent or something.

strycc

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.

Gregg

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!

Cath

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

Alan