Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Un melange de langues dans ma tete

So I am currently in Paris, taking an intensive French language course for three weeks. It's been one week, and my poor brain is all discombobulated. I took French in high school, but haven't used it since then. That was 15 years ago, if you must know. Something about re-learning this language that has been hibernating in the back of my brain has also seemed to stimulate all the other languages that I have ever learned in my whole life. The strangest words and phrases pop out when I am trying to speak French:

Suddenly "luggage" is "bagagli" (Italian), "with" is "con" (Spanish), "very much" is "gerne" (German) and "I don't know" is "nemidoonam" (Farsi). First of all, let me tell you that if you try to order a cafe con leche in Paris they just look at you funny. Secondly, I find it strange that I can barely conjure up any of these languages when I am actually trying to speak them. But I try to speak French, for some reason all these other languages come spilling out.

I don't know much about the brain, but from my experiences here, I can pretty much guarantee you that there is some sort of language center in the brain, and that mine has turned into a big 'ol mess, from years of neglect. All those unused languages have been slacking off for years, never called upon for duty, so they just sit around and drink all day long and get all up in each others' business. Losers. How can I possibly whip them into shape within three weeks? Ce n'est pas possible!

1 comment:

Macque Pere said...

The same stuff happened to me too, except it was just french and italian. Fortunately, there's no confusion and mixing of Chinese with these other languages.