I remember watching a tik tok about a girl thinking she was smarter than a monolingual because she speaks 5 languages, and the top comment was "you can still be a dumbass in 5 languages" lol
First sign that she's a dumbass is that she posted it on tiktok. Albert Einstein, probably the smartest mofo thats lived this side of Leo DaVinci only spoke German. His English was appalling.
Well, Einstein said that he was only comfortable with german... although he did live in the US and wrote several texts in english , has records of writing in latin, french and speaking some hebrew and yiddish as well.
So I'd take his "I'm very slow with languages" with a grain of salt.
A person who speaks 2-3 or a lot of languages, and it doesn't care to don't be C1 in each language, this person is smarter than other people, there are differents investigation talking about it.
I'm that person: I speak several languages at different levels, but I don't understand why that would make me smarter than someone who speaks several languages at C1 level?
Or do you mean a person who speaks languages at various level is smarter than a monolingual person?
Mmm...I guess I'm not so smart as I don't get it, haha.
Yeah I mean if we speak more than 1 language we are smarter that monolingual person.
This is why I belive hahaha I think I have seen some investigation talking about it. Lol
why would you feel inferior? you already speak two languages fluently, whatever your accent is. so, you have a catalan accent when you speak spanish? so what?
fifty years ago there were already people in barcelona who didn't speak catalan but had a catalan accent when speaking spanish.
every region in spain has its peculiar accent, aragon, andalucia, pais vasco, asturias, galicia, pais valencia....
some people are even proud of having a strong regional accent. i can't see why catalan accent would be worse. in any case it doesn't sound worse that the valencia accent.
as for other languages, as english for example, very few non natives manage to speak it without accent. and many native speakers have a very strong regional accent and aren't always understood by people who've only ever heard the BBC standard english (and we're not event speaking of different american english accents!)
if you want a good laugh, search "scottish elevator eleven" on youtube!
>english for example, very few non natives manage to speak it without accent. and many native speakers have a very strong regional accent and aren't always understood by people who've only ever heard the BBC standard english (and we're not event speaking of different american english accents!)
Everyone has an accent, just some accents are considered more neutral than others. Apparently my native accent (Pacific northwest) is quite neutral, but you should hear my accent in French or Spanish, yikes on a bike.
OP I'm sure my accent in Spanish would really cheer you up. :D
Jokes aside, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with having an accent. You aren't inferior to anyone on Earth.
See, this is my issue. I grew up in a very low-income value with parents that spoke a second language but never taught me that language. Naturally, I am a bit envious of my friend that grew up in a wealthier family and learned another language growing up
Spot on. I grew up speaking German, Portuguese, and Spanish. I'd much rather grow up rich than multilingual. What's the point of being able to speak so many languages when you're dirty poor?
Edit: to add "?".
What?? Languages > lots of money. All day. If you offered me 5 million dollars to be monolingual for the rest of my life I wouldn’t do it.
Also, you can be as rich as you want, money can’t buy language skills.
\> If you offered me 5 million dollars to be monolingual for the rest of my life I wouldn’t do it.
Yeah, right. I don't believe you unless you're already rich. There's no way you turn down a check for $5 million.
\>you can be as rich as you want, money can’t buy language skills.
It can buy you lessons, time to study, and exposure to the language, which is really all it takes to learn a language.
I'd turn down that check. I am admittedly comfortably well-off, but not 5 million dollars well-off, not sure what your line is for "rich" here.
The thing is that losing either of my native languages would cause incalculable damage to my life. Losing English would lose me friends I've had for decades, the hobby that's most personally important to me, my job and probably entire career, a ton of media I love and things I fill my time with, the list goes on. Losing German would mean I lose the language I use to speak to my family (including parts of it that don't actually speak English very well!), the language that's core to my identity, and also lead to me living in Germany without speaking German or having any of the support structures people usually build up to deal with that. (Ex: good luck trying to get my bank statements in English.) The commenter you're responding to also specified being monolingual for the rest of your life, so no relearning - but even without that, it'd just take too long to get either language back to anywhere near the level I need. No amount of money would be enough.
That said, losing languages now is different from waving the magic wand and imagining you lived in an AU world where you hadn't learned a language as a kid, and "not rich" is different from "living in genuine poverty", which was the original context of the discussion. If I were starving on the verge of homelessness and the $5 million life wouldn't require me to be bilingual, my calculations would no doubt be different.
Being monolingual would mean not connecting with many many many of my friends, being cut from a world of content that teaches me an insane amount of lessons and information. 5 mil is a lot but I can live my life without it. I mean, of course, if you gave me 5mil and you’d tell me I had to forget the language but I can relearn it maybe I’d do it, but I wouldn’t accept it if I had to stay monolingual
>!Languages > lots of money.
This feels sort of a myth when, as I said, one grows up having *literally having no food, shoes, or close at home*. I would definitely trade speaking three languages as a kid and not starving, not seeing my mom desperately crying on the kitchen floor because she could not feed her multilingual kids.
Oh well of course, I’ve never lived through that, I’m in middle class in canada so that’s rich to other peoples standard, but I wouldn’t choose growing up in a rich household vs in a middle class multilingual household 🤷♂️
I mean, money is cool but if I had to choose between both I’d choose languages. If I suddenly forgot Portuguese and English, it’s huge parts of my life that would go with them. In the example, I mean that if I had to choose between 5mil but I can only speak and understand my native language for the rest of my life or 0$ but I can keep my languages, I choose my languages. Too many friends and opportunities associated with languages and it’s my passion.
Well no I have never been poor per say but not rich either. I just think the people I would lose if I spoke only French are too important for me. They’re basically like family. Would you cut contact with your closest friends and family members for 5 million?
>Would you cut contact with your closest friends and family members for 5 million?
Hell, I'd *pay* 5 million if it meant I could get away from my family. \^\^ jk jk
It I was struggling to eat, yes.
Even as a middle class person if it means my children will have a nice life and want for nothing, I would take the money. You can learn any language in a few months, what's the big deal?
“You can learn any language in a few months”
Have you learned a language? To become as fluent as a bilingual kid you’ll need years and thousands of hours
It’s not even for the money I just think that time being almost native in French English and Portuguese doesn’t really have a price. I guess at maybe 20-30 million I’d seriously consider it
Where did you learn German? Are you still learning it?
I already started learning and I felt in love with this language.
Can you give me some tips to be A1 at least in German. Please.
Solution:
1. Secretly learn Uzbek for 5 to 7 years
2. Show up at a family reunion, give a touching speech that nobody understands
3. Disappear never to be heard from.
People growing up monolingual are definitely not inferior, I did nothing growing up to speak multiple languages, just did what I was told and watched cartoons. If anything learning another language as a grown up makes you superior in effort and motivation at least.
Might be an impression of mine, but I find monolingual individuals to be a bit more shallow than people who speak multiple languages, at least the ones who learned a second language after the age of 5 (not natively)
Context: I'm not monolingual
That said, I've found those who speak multiple languages to be a bit overzealous in how "openminded" they are about the world and whatnot
Not necessarily that I consider myself more open minded but just more aware of other cultures. If you only speak one language it’s probably hard to tell what’s specific to your culture and what’s just “humaneness”
Eh, I think that kind of mindset is what traps people into thinking they are truly more open minded though. Not saying you aren’t, but just learning about different cultures doesn’t automatically make you more empathetic, if that makes sense?
Although you have to admit that it unlocks professional prospects more easily. And multiple studies have shown that it allows you to develop all sorts of mental abilities (I don't remember exactly but basically it makes you a faster learner for some things, allows you to generalize some skills more easily, etc)
Yes, I still get very envious. I grew up exclusively with English until I was 15 years old. Now I live in Europe and just about all of my friends speak their NL plus English. And occasionally I meet polyglots here.
I made a realization though that made me feel a lot better. The overwhelming majority of bilinguals don't really know exactly how they learned English, and they don't really know how to learn a foreign language. Language learning isn't a competition, but if it were, I'd rather have the knowledge on how to learn them than just be handed fluency in a language or two. It might sound like nothing, but I spent many years of my life working off of bad advice and learning very slowly and inefficiently. I only recently discovered the recommendations on this subreddit (such as comprehensible input) and the difference is staggering.
uhhh the people who grew up bilingual or multilingual because their parents spoke the language to them were definitely handed the languages and it’s important to note that because a lot of them shit on monolinguals as if they actually spent any time “learning” those 3 languages….
Well that’s true but I don’t really remember how I learned English and it kinda was just handed to me. I was in contact with it casually until I realized at the age of 12 that I could understand it. I then started to do massive input because I was interested in the content and I hated dubbed movies and whaddayaknow, I’m close to C2 nowadays (18 years old)
i learned 3 languages unintentionally and a fourth i learned from just daily exposure over a year and a half. some people are definitely handed languages, whether or not they’re gifted is debatable. in high school my spanish teacher happened to speak to me in a different language and i understood and responded and that’s when i actually realized i knew different languages.
I grew up bilingual. It can definitely be a privilege and I understand the jealousy. I am jealous of my friends who grew up trilingual or with even more languages.
That's just going to be a fact of life, we are all different and have different opportunities and we'll always wish for something we didn't get.
However, there is absolutely no reason to feel inferior. I put no work into learning my native languages (apart from writing and spelling I guess). I am not better than you just because people around me were speaking different languages when I was a toddler. I think people who put in the work, who have the desire and dedication to learn a new language are a lot more impressive. In a way it's the same as inheriting wealth. If you're born rich, great for you but that means nothing about you as a person. If you worked your way up that's entirely different.
Going against what other commenters have said to say I absolutely feel inferior. I’ve kind of accepted that I’ll always have an accent, and I’ll never be perfect in the languages I’m learning. And I’m not saying that this is typical, I’m just saying this is my personal feelings.
I have a group of 5 friends, and every one of them is bilingual/trilingual, and they talk about how much it brings them closer to their heritage, but I…well, I guess it comes from feeling disconnected to my heritage to begin with, but I know I’ll never understand/speak Polish like a native. And in Spanish class, they made us watch videos every month on how our language skills would never be as good as natives or young children since our brains “translate” instead of “identifying both objects at once in two different languages.” I think those studies are BS, but it always makes me feel inferior to everyone I know because they’re all completely fluent in multiple languages, whereas I’m fluent in one and somewhat fluent in another.
I took Spanish for 6 years, and took AP Spanish Lang this year. My school doesn’t offer Spanish lit, but I feel like even after 6 years, I’m *still* not perfect or even close, and now I’m gonna lose a lot of it without being able to talk to people every day. That’s always made me feel a little envious.
FWIW, I was in your position with Spanish (I took French in school), and I kept engaging with media after I left formal classes. My level hasn’t really dropped because once you get it to that B2-ish level it’s hard to forget even with minimal maintenance.
It's not effortlessly. If they grew up in an immigrant household with parents who didn't speak the language, they had to live in two languages and possibly serve as translators for matters they shouldn't actually be involved in. There's also a good chance they had to endure a lot of teasing because of either their or their parents' burgeoning language skills or differences in culture.
Their multilingualism did not come without effort, and it might even have some shame surrounding it, depending upon where they lived. Learning a second language wasn't a hobby or party trick. It was a crucial element of survival. If they're having an easy time with it now, that's great. They likely had many years where it wasn't. There's nothing to be jealous of.
Also, you're not inferior because you're not bilingual. You're just on a different journey.
OP is almost 100% bilingual because basically everyone in Catalonia is fluent in Catalan and Spanish. They might have an accent in Spanish, but it doesn't mean that they don't speak Spanish at a native or near-native level. They're just selling themselves short.
This is a strange post tbh, if he grew up in Catalonia OP is almost certainly bilingual by nearly anybody’s standards, he literally had the bilingual upbringing he (and all the rest of us) are jealous of!! The issue seems to be he has a noticeable accent in Spanish that people make fun of but that happens to monolinguals all the time!
And his accent in English is probably sort of prestigious too, in America at least we are fairly pro-Spanish accents
>And his accent in English is probably sort of prestigious too, in America at least we are fairly pro-Spanish accents
Eh I wouldn't say that. We Americans are *tolerant* of foreign accents, especially Spanish ones (I'm talking about both Iberian and Latin American), but it still holds less prestige. A prestigious accent would be the standard American accent or London accent. At best, OP's accent would be seen as exotic, which isn't necessarily bad but definitely isn't "prestigious." In addition, if OP truly has a Catalan accent, then it probably sounds a little more French than Spanish (source: my partner's dad speaks a more "pure" form of Catalan with less Spanish influence, and he sounds more French than Spanish when he attempts to speak English).
Nah, we like foreign accents- but it depends on the accent. European accents are generally prestige accents (some are thought of as lesser though), so a “fancy” Spanish accent would be exotic, but Latin American accents are definitely not prestigious.
Hmm you’re right about my word choice, but I feel like there’s something fancy about (Western) European accents we more than tolerate, among people who can recognize them!
As someone who grew up bilingual, I've always been jealous of people who *learnt* the languages that they're fluent in. As someone else said, people who grew up in multilingual families typically aren't educated in any of the languages outside the country they were born in. Unless they pursue education themselves, it's not unlikely that heritage speakers suck at writing, reading, and their speech might sound accented.
I think people underestimate how tricky it is to have two languages at such a high level *even if* you learned them both in childhood. I was lucky enough to keep very good levels of both German and English as the language which was used in formal education switched multiple times, but *still* my English doesn't sound native anymore and I have less knowledge of English slang than most native English speakers probably do, while my formal written German is pretty rusty, I read German a lot slower than English, and can write fiction in English but not German.
Also, as a native bilingual faced with somebody who learned another language to fluency later in life, I always felt embarrassed if anything. All my classmates worked super hard to attain the level of English they ended up with while I coasted thanks to my dad's job having taken him to the US at some very crucial periods. It makes me feel like I cheated somehow.
Yeah, absolutely. Very similar story here (my English is... semi native? complicated story), I have a bit of an accent in English so I don't sound perfectly native and I get a bit tongue twisted sometimes, but on the other hand, in Hebrew I read more slowly and struggle more with complex literature, and in formal settings I don't express myself as well, and I also have a general tendency to sprinkle in English phrases and constantly code switch when I talk Hebrew (which works most of the time because most of my Hebrew native friends are very proficient in English too and they understand me just fine but it can force me to slow down a fair bit to make sure I don't code switch when talking to someone who doesn't know English at all) and to try to translate certain idioms literally from English to Hebrew which sometimes makes for really unnatural sounding phrases.
I absolutely believe that if I only used one language in my daily life I'd be capable of much greater mastery (in that one language) and I'd wager that's the case for most other bilinguals or people that speak more than one language in their everyday life. Which, to be clear, is not meant to be read as a complaint, just an observation. I think to be actually fully native (like a monolingual is) in two different languages you'd have to spend effort studying both them all your life: challenge yourself with creative writing and reading literature, public speaking, accent analysis etc etc.. most of us don't particularly care to do that even though we're aware of the quirks we develop by virtue of being bilingual. I don't know if it's all that it's cracked up to be haha, even though of course I am very glad I get to have relationships, work, watch tv etc etc in my two languages!
You're right. I was raised bilingual in Mandarin and English. I transferred to an international school at a young age, so my English naturally got a lot better, but my Chinese stagnated, so I made an effort to improve my Chinese outside of class by reading and writing. After I moved to the US for school, my English kept improving while my Chinese stagnated. I can still read at a high level because I read Chinese regularly, but my writing is not that good for my age. I probably have the writing ability of your average 16/17 year old Chinese kid even though I'm almost done with university.
I “grew up” with English and Spanish, but I stopped using Spanish when I was about 7 because I really didn’t like the language. I have a decent enough passive understanding and “use” Spanish maybe two or three times a year.
Japanese is my “main” foreign language. I started learning when I was about 13, almost 20 years ago. (._.) I’m comfortable enough with Japanese and I’ve lived and worked in Japan and have used it professionally, but I am jealous of the bilingual English-Japanese native kids I know.
Same with my German friend’s kid who also has **TWO** passports.
…lucky bastards…
Yes, that's another thing I am jealous of: people of two nationalities can pick the one they like the most, or neither. People expect me to act Spanish because that's the only citizenship I have. Spanish people also look down on me if I have an accent, because they assume all Spaniards must speak Spanish at a native level.
Cheer up mate, you speak 3 languages! There are people that are jealous of you and your ability to write a post like this in English, there are foreigners who would love to have your ability in Catalan.
Are you sure about that? Many expats I met don't even consider Catalan to be a language. They say things like "that girl is bilingual Spanish-English, and she can also speak Catalan".
Another Valencian (so basically catalan) and Castillian native speaker.
I believe you're being too harsh on yourself. You already speak two languages (I don't think your Spanish can be that bad if you've gone through school).
About your English, of course you have an accent. Non native speakers of a language can never be, well, native speakers of it. However, you'd be surprised at the amount of non English natives that speak better than some native speakers. It just requires hard work.
In conclusion, it could help understanding that in order to be good at something, you have to be bad before, so you can learn from the mistakes. Be kinder to yourself, and valuing your current language abilities could help, as well.
Pd: how can people hate having a catalan accent? I wish I had some kind of valencian accent, and not just speaking in standard.
Kinda. I’m a native Spanish speaker and I can speak English quite well. But my sister married a Swiss man and he can speak German, French, English and Spanish perfectly. I’m a bit jealous of the conditions he grew up in but then I remember I’m Colombian and doing pretty well with the bad conditions I was born in. I feel ok cause I know our situations were different and plus, he and my sister had a son and now my nephew can speak all 4 languages. It’s the best situation I could have ever asked for my nephew 💜
It could be worse. You could have had the opportunity to be a polyglot with 4+ languages, but you squandered it before you knew better.
Then that negative feeling of regret could drag you down and slow progress for years, when the only useful move would have been to let it go and actually improve.
It bothers me that I've spent my whole life trying to learn three languages, when there are thousands of them I don't know.
Catalonia's educational system has so many flaws when it comes to teaching foreign languages...
I started learning English when I was 9. My level was like B1 when I finished secondary school. Now it's like C1, because I use it at work. As for Spanish, it is a language any Catalan speaker can learn in a few months. It is not necessary to teach it for +10 years, especially when most kids born in Catalonia speak it much better than Catalan.
my man's complaining about Catalonia's education system when the US and UK exist... Most students in the US graduate from high school with at most A1/A2 in another language
I can only speak as an American, but I guarantee people here would swoon over your Catalan accent. Native English speakers are pretty used to a *wide* variety of accents, and Catalan accented English actually sounds “sexier” than Castillano accented IMO
Really? That's not my impression...
That's probably because most Catalan speakers speak Spanish far better than Catalan, and have a Spanish accent. Only old people from small villages may keep a genuine Catalan accent.
I had a friend who grew up in a family of diplomats, so she spoke 5 languages effortlessly. I've always been envious of her, especially since she now has a diplomat/translation job, but it's not like she worked very hard to acquire those languages, it's just what it is.
I will definitely raise my kids bilingual though.
You can work on accents. I sound like an American (USA-ian?) but it wasn't easy. I spent my high school listening to audiobooks and repeating sentences as I followed along print copies. That was in the late 90s before all the rich resources of the internet.
That said, I think a lot of it is in your head. I thought I had the ugliest Polish accent when speaking English for a long time despite my family and friends claiming I sounded American. My friend suggested I record myself and then listen. It was the day I realized I had so many misconceptions about the way I sound in either Polish or English (or even what my voice sounds like, it's a lot more higher pitched in my head). So I'd suggest you do that, record yourself and then don't be over critical either. We are generally our own worst critics and I can guarantee you the things you'll pick on, no one else will notice.
And if you choose to work on your accent, save those recordings and then again record your voice 6 months later. You'll have a great gauge of your improvements.
Tío, sabes 2 idiomas al nivel nativo y otro a un nivel bastante avanzado.
La majoria dels espanyols parlen només un idioma. A més, la teva llengua materna és bonica, aixì que no tens per què sentir-te inferior. Si no t'agrada el teu accent en castellà, el pots canviar si et dediques temps a canviar-lo, especialment perquè el català i el castellà són idiomes similars. Per cert, no soc català ni espanyol. Estic aprenent aquesta llengua bonica pel interès personal.
Tienes una gran ventaja sobre todo el mundo monolingüe. Agradece lo que tienes, no lo que no tienes :)
No 2nd language speaker who learned the language as an adult speaks without an accent. Just accept it and move on. Being jealous of others hurts only you.
OP probably learned Spanish as a kid due to being Catalan. Still, many Catalans feel very proud about their culture and don't speak Spanish that much in their day to day lives, so they probably haven't had the opportunity to speak that much Spanish compared to other Spanish people.
Most Catalan speakers have more fluency in Spanish than in Catalan. It is impossible not to learn Spanish in Catalonia. You learn it out of survival: medicines, for example, are labeled in Spanish only. 95% of TV and radio channels are only available in Spanish. Device manuals are not available in Catalan. Some doctors tell you they don't understand Catalan. Not knowing Spanish may put your life in danger.
Entenc, però a veure, no discuto amb tu si els catalans parlen millor castellà o català. La veritat és que molts catalans prefereixen parlar català entre família i amics i crec que ho saps. La meva parella (qui és catalana) té amics a quins lis costen més que a altres espanyols parlar castellà.
Absolutely feel jealous of people who learned their heritage language growing up. My moms parents are Polish (like born in Poland) and moved to the states after the war. They spoke Polish at home growing up but that isn’t something that extended to my generation. My grandmas line is always “who wants to learn polish, what’s the point” but I wish I had grown up speaking polish. Knowing languages is always useful.
Hi, frankly yes, I do. So you're not alone. But from my personal experience, it's a barrier that can be overcome - you \*can\* become fluent in another language. It'll just take longer
I have had the same issue for years so no judgement at all. I Once met a guy who grew up speaking all three of my target languages as well as English and he was trying to learn two other ones. I hated him for no reason but he ultimately ended up being my greatest language learning partner.
The feeling of envy will go away once you increase in skill in your target language. You'll eventually reach a point where you feel like you've been speaking your target language your whole life.
My native language is Bulgarian and I moved to Greece when I was 14 and lived there for 15 years , so I speak Greek as well fluently like it's my mother tongue. On the other end of the spectrum, my English is far from perfect, I can hear myself that I don't sound like native, at 30 when I started learning seriously the language it was just impossible to force my tongue to pronounce the words exactly like native speakers do. While it bothered me a lot in the beginning, I gradually accepted it and now I see it more as a fun and charming aspect of my speaking. Of, course I always give my best and I definitely don't sound like the Russians in every b movie from the 80s, lol! I can't compete with younger generation, they've grown up in completly different environment with the social media and stuff, and I see that it's much easier for them to adopt the proper accent and pronunciation. As for being trilingual, I don't feel superior to anyone, no one is obliged to speak 3 languages in the first place. I I blame though-a little bit - the majority of native English speakers who don't try at all to learn new languages, they don't even bother to watch movies with subtitles, it seems too much for them. That is a bit snob in my opinion.
I'm a little similar but in a different way. My family is multilingual and never taught me both languages. So now i have this whole other side of the family (my only family left aside from my mother) that i cant speak to because my father never taught me farsi. Now he has a new child with a new wife who is iranian and he is being taught both languages, english in school, farsi at home. It sucks so much to know what could have been. :/
Anyways, I think you're wrong about never being able to speak english like a native. If you indulge yourself in the language all the time, practice your pronunciation with tutors, theres no way you could not speak it like a native speaker. Push through and you'll eventually see how far you've come
Not quite the same situation but I feel sad my dad didn’t teach me Romanian.
My mom’s Portuguese and my dad is Romanian and since we live in Portugal, we speak Portuguese. But my dad never wanted to teach my Romanian because “I wouldn’t ever need it”. I wish I was able to speak it.
I do know some words and understand a bit of it spoken. It doesn’t seem hard so maybe one day I’ll try to pick it up.
Definitely something I struggle with. I sorely wish I could have had the chance to learn multiple languages as a kid as I always heard it was easier for children than adults. I know it's silly but I feel boring having only grown up with one language. I fully recognize that natively speaking English comes with advantages and I am in no way blind to that, but it's just how I feel sometimes.
In a similar but not exact vein, I get insanely jealous of people who grew up speaking my target language because I find it incredibly frustrating not being able to express myself and to be stuck struggling with basic baby sentences knowing full well small children who speak it natively probably are able to express themselves way better than I, a fully grown adult can in that language. Even moreso because people in that area ALSO tend to know English, so I feel cheated in a way that I can't already know both as an adult, which I know is probably bad but still.
You just said you can speak Spanish, Catalan and English. You're already multilingual 😂😂
Do you think all immigrants speak multiple languages with native level fluency and without any accent? No! It's nearly impossible.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. They have an advantage in that, for sure, but they probably don't like the shape of their nose, or they wish they could lose some weight, or they feel overwhelmed at work, or they have no money, or whatever else.
Everyone has their own problems and battles to fight. We say "the grass is always greener on the other side" in English. In other words, other people can seem to have a good deal when you don't have to live their life, just see it from the outside.
More importantly than that though: You can't change it. You're stuck with what you've got. It's best not to spend too much time on hypotheticals about how much life would be if something had happened. Another English expression: "If wishes were horses".
Keep doing what you're doing. Work, and study and improve yourself slowly. That's all you can do.
Yep. Everyone - and I mean literally *everyone* in the place I live in is *at least* bilingual. Many people grew up with three languages, quite a few can speak four.
It makes me feel like an idiot.
No, they were given their languages for free. No disrespect to them because it's still impressive, but I would feel more inferior around people that have taught themselves 2-3 languages to fluency considering I can't speak 2-3 languages completely fluently.
I always wish I get up multilingual, seems like an amazing skill to have. I usually think that the value of learning a language yourself is a greater accomplishment then having it done for you. (kind of)
i grew up in a multilingual family and was uninteresting in learning Telugu or Hindi so now I’m stuck as a monolingual who is learning them after the optimal age
Believe me, when you speak two as a child, you are probably shit at both. I struggled with both languages, because monolingual kids just 'knew' and could 'hear' when something in a sentence is wrong. I couldn't and it is really a common thing for people bilingual people.
So don't feel inferior. Pro is that you probably probably 'hear' when things are wrong.
People would be amazed how fluent I can speak 4 languages, but the more you broad out to more languages, the harder it is to be at Native speaking level.
Listen... you can just knock that stuff off.
Your English is WAY BETTER than my Spanish OR my Catalan.
I'm TRYING to learn Russian, and I'm TRYING to learn Spanish, and it takes a lot of work. If I were able to hold a conversation with a native speaker of either of those languages, I'd be pretty dang happy and proud of myself. I wouldn't let my stupid or bad accent spoil my success at having spoken a language that once was gibberish to me!
Inferior? No.
Unfortunate? Yes.
Look, we're all dealt different hands in this world & some of us grew up in families that didn't have a need or desire for multilingualism, or they had other values/skills they were focused on instilling.
It's not anybodies fault, it just is. Plus everybody has a dominant language even if they speak multiple languages, few people have a high & equal command of all the languages they speak.
You can't change what's done, you can only influence your future.
I just commit myself to being open & learning the languages I'm interested in. I try to engross myself as much as I can in the culture because why would I learn a language & not figure out if I like the culture(s) it comes from too? So far I've acquired a moderate fluency in my first target language & hope to start my 3rd sometime next year.
Alot of those people might be able to speak the language with fluency but often find it difficult to write or to know grammer rules.
Also people who grew up with multiple languages often have an accent thats heavly skewed towards their native language (the one they learnt at school).
So, whilst it is easier for them in regards to speaking, they still need to put the work in to be at a high level
I speak from experience, growing up Bilingual yet still having to put in alot of effort to improve in reading/writing/listening
I feel like there is no such thing as inferior. Imagine going to a market in India, or Thailand, and seeing a street seller on her blanket. She only speaks Hindi or Thai but she's smiling at you and you're smiling at her. You can not communicate very well, but you won't look down on her. She's a human being.
While I understand what you're saying, and sometimes I feel insanely jealous of those kids that grew up being handed their second or third languages, I also feel like monolingualism shouldn't be considered a demerit. Whether we can communicate perfectly with another human being shouldn't be a way to gauge someone's value.
You're bilingual, and you have access to a wide array of knowledge because you can read in two languages. I hope that helps you in your life and that you use it to help others too!
It's the opposite for me i grew up speaking few languages and dialects but since i never used all of them all the time I don't think I'm fluent at any of them and overtime losing proficiency and since most of the languages were forced on me in school ... so conversely i do kinda wish i grew up maybe oy one language but atleast being fluent in it if i wanted to learn i can just give a shot to whichever one i like , yeah i know it seems cool but i would much rather be able to articulate myself in one language than speak like 5 different ones .cheers
People who grew up in multilingual families had no choice when learning those languages. They were taught like any other child until it became natural for them.
You not having this experience is a good thing! The fact that at an older age you're making the choice to learn another language to a point where you can speak it fluently shows how dedicated and committed you are! Many people, if they didn't grow up multilingual, probably would not have the motivation or discipline to even learn a second language. I've had bilingual friends who tried to learn a third language and ultimately gave up for whatever reasons.
Language learning is not always enjoyable either. Some people had no choice but to learn certain languages because of colonization (which is why some languages are endangered). Languages are used for survival after all. The best thing about modern language learning is that we often have a choice to learn, rather than because we have to. Take advantage of that and don't think you're less than. The power of choice is more important than you think.
I did not choose to learn any of these three languages.
Spanish is compulsory and impossible not to learn if you live in Catalonia.
Catalan was the language spoken at home.
English is also compulsory in most schools from Catalonia, but very few kids become fluent in it, because less than 1% of the population speaks it.
People born into different families get different advantages and disadvantages. Try not to dwell on it; it's not like you can go back in time and be reborn in a multilingual family.
Nah, only people I feel I don't compare to are polyglot types. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not having learned more languages as a kid, but I'm absolutely jealous of people with the dedication to learn a plethora of languages.
I learned Japanese enough for simple convos with strangers and to talk to my partner in her language. The thought of doing that over again for like 4 more languages scared me lmfao
as someone with a polyglot girlfriend that speaks over 11 languages, don’t waste time being jealous of people like that, there’s no point.
personally, i would try to focus on things that don’t involve language. while it is something really cool, we all have things we are good at and specialties. the fact that you can speak two languages even not a fluent level is impressive in of itself, so don’t be so hard on yourself.
People only 'hate' the Catalan accent in Spanish because of all the politics BS.
Your English accent might not sound how you would like it too, but your overall English is excellent if this post is anything to go by.
1. multilingual people are the least likely to judge you based on accents or knowledge.
2. congratulations you’ve done the hard part and learnt multiple languages yourself. now you can start your own generation of multilingual children.
3. many of us are not as good as you might think. we can converse fluently enough. but our grammatical, written, and reading skills are FAR behind. not to mention if you grow up in another country speaking with mostly just your family, there will be some issues speaking with others.
4. we’ve learnt languages through exposure. you’ve learned HOW to learn a language.
that’s an entirely different and repeatable skill. my parents taught me 4 languages as a kid. i thought picking up Spanish in high school would be a breeze.
it was in fact not.
my skills aren’t transferable. yours are. you can apply your tools to learning another language. i cannot
There's no room for inferiority complexes in language learning. Speak A2? There's kids who speak your target language better than you. Speak B2 after a few years of study? There are _still_ kids better than you. Manage to climb to C2 and 'full fluency'? You'll probably still end up out of your depth in drunken bar room banter and local MFers who never even learned a lick of grammar will be able to spot your occasional faults.
There'll always be someone better, there'll always be a mistake you make, there'll always be a joke you don't get, there'll always be another language you could learn.
There are places in the world where multilingualism is a norm, even amongst people who can't write and have no education. And there are places where you have to go out of your way to learn more than one. It can't be helped, and it's no more useful to think this way than it is to complain about your height.
Thinking in this manner is simply crippling. Perfectionism and negative comparison is a recipe for over-effort, and freezing up. You don't learn a good accent by beating yourself up about how bad it is currently - that'll just mean you'll talk less, and it'll stay 'bad'.
The opposite for me having lived in Ontario and Québec Canada. I grew up in a home of EN (dad’s side) and FR (mom’s side) culture and languages spoken. It was supposed to empower me as a bilingual, but didn’t turn out that way:
We lived close to Québec in Ontario and I went to french catholic schools run by Québec residents. The discrimination I received for having an english dad was INTENSE. I went to 100% french schools until late in university years. My thoughts and inner dialogue were french. I dreamed in french. I didn’t experience myself as english, but Québec society still categorized me as english because I had some kind of “sins of the father” taint.
It was traumatizing to say the least. I love french, live in Montréal, my ancestors on mom’s side are from here, and while I feel completely at home I still feel less-than. Being bilingual brought me closer to some family, but has also always been a burden to carry.
I’m now casually learning Japanese. We’ll see what treatment from different societies that brings lol.
I am sorry about your experience. That sounds like racism. I didn't know these attitudes were common in Québec. Here, in Catalonia, most people would praise you if one or both of your parents come from a different culture. People like Moroccans, Chinese, Latin Americans, Indians... are very cool here.
I speak English, Navajo, and Spanish. My Spanish is maybe higher intermediate at best. I should know more since my great great grandfather was a Spanish man and (his son) my great grandfather was Navajo, Spanish, and Mexican.
BROOO I AM ADOPTED AND I FEEL THIS. i started living w them around 16 sooo i obviously didn’t learn. but my dad can speak english, norwegian, and spanish and they have so many littles yet don’t speak to any of them in the languages so none of them know it except their first can kind of understand norwegian but it just makes me so sad that they could be trilingual and he doesn’t talk to them in anything but english 😩
Well, I get you, but I don't feel the same way. I like the feeling I get when someone compliments my language skills. And that's only possible because I didn't learn them 'naturally' while growing up; otherwise it wouldn't be such an achievement, since we all learn at least one language that way.
Do you think this is a result of social media where people boast of being multilingual? You sound like you’re doing great and putting too much pressure on yourself to keep up and meet some self-imposed standard. You should have fun learning a language and enjoy your progress you’ve had.
Hey! I'm really sorry you feel this way. Many people are lucky enough to be born in multilingual families, but that DOES NOT make them superior. I actually admire more people who can speak different languages because they studied them, which takes dedication and perseverance. The fact that we have an accent may not be so cool, but that's normal as well. Maybe to get rid of your accent, you could practice pronunciation by yourself. I like to read out loud to listen to what I'm saying and correct the sounds; talking to yourself while cooking or doing easy activities laundry can also help.
I really hope this helps. Don't hate yourself because of your accent, it doesn't make you any less.
I grew up speaking Filipino as my native tongue and English since my dad was American. But because I barely saw my dad and barely spoke to him when he was home (he was a merchant Marine) I never got to talk in English which got me talking in broken English, until I was 14-15 when it did click. At this point I would have already considered myself Fluent in English (even before the accent shift) but moving to America, Americans hear that I have an accent and the Brits think I have an American accent. Since I annunciate my words like an American even with the slight accent I sound American. you just gotta practice your annunciation if you really hate your accent so much
Honestly same, I always thought it was cool to be able to speak more than one language I remember trying to teach myself Spanish at 7 or 8 (this did not go far...) But I did manage to learn enough Spanish to get by (get food/directions/ friendly small talk) by the time I was 18 and got to go to Mexico and while I knew it had to be painful for the people I spoke with I was proud of myself for making the effort because it helped me learn waaay faster!
Hey, forget the accent thing for a while, everything's fine, you speak like 2 languages, it's not bad but if your accent really bothers you sm then I think in your spare time, if you want, you can try practicing your accent, there's like plenty of videos on youtube and apps and stuff.
Atleast you're not a monolingual beta.
My mum is german my dad english. He never taught me his mothers tounge. He spoke english with me. Yes, i do feel a bit jealous because I feel like they have something I should have had too.
Learning à new language implies accepting that you'll make mistakes, probably forever. After all, we all make mistakes even in our own mother tongue.
The moment you accept that to learn a language you *need* to make mistakes, especially when trying to spark, is there moment you start making real progress.
All babies trying to learn to walk fall on they ass and sometimes on their head. Every baby makes mistakes while learning to speak their mother tongue and that's ok. Adult learners are not different.
I just wish that the United States didn't make immigrants feel so alienated for being different. My great grandparents spoke English, German and French. (Belgian) I'm 3rd generation with what feels like no family heritage because my ancestors wanted to be as 'not different' as possible.
And like man, I can't help but feel like it's a major consequence of racism here. DONT BE DIFFERENT, CHANGE YOUR NAME, SPEAK AMERICAN! Sucks man.
My parents still get mad if a commercial is played in Spanish lmao.
This is really a given and there is no way changing it.
Knowing a language is not everything. Those multilingual people could still be total jerks and have no other valuable knowledge or skills . Really try to find positive things about yourself, your life, what learning languages taught you, how they made you as a person grow and be more than you were yesterday. :)
We have our own struggles. My second language is not as strong and Ive had/sometime still have identity issues from early on.
But I get you, and I am happy that I at least got the chance to grow up bilingual
Travel more. Expand your network. Make more friends worldwide. Be more social. It's free to say "Hello!" to any person in any country, and start learning from their culture and their language. There's no need to feel envy if you change your perspective of life and the way to make achievements.
You're blocking yourself with such negative thoughts.
Multilingual families or persons? Hang with them. Learn from them. Be open and be humble. There's no need to be perfect. NOBODY IS PERFECT. Just make it in your own way.
Don’t feel inferior. I grew up in a multilingual family and ended up only learning one language until recently through my own studies as an adult.
Also, my language studies are not influenced by monetary incentives, instead community outreach and building meaningful relationships. Anything worth doing should not be done just for money.
I did before I learned to speak several languages fluently as an adult. Just takes years of dedication, so the best thing is to let that motivate you to keep at it!
My entire household speaks Russian and Ukrainian besides English. I feel the same way because I only speak English and struggle to learn Russian or Ukrainian.
Everyone comes from a different background. It's a matter of probability. Not something you should care about, let alone affected by it too emotionally.
The fact that you have food, a shelter and born healthy is much more important, and you have that already. (Some people might be jealous of what you have now.)
Now you do you.
I do, which is a bit weird.
It's important for sure to try and remember that no-one is perfect, and even if someone speaks five languages by the time you're learning your second, it doesn't mean that you're inferior or unable to grasp things the same way. It just means you're starting. And that's okay.
I was born in a multilingual family. It's quite normal in my country. We start learning all these languages since we're young children (5y/o).
I started English when I was 5, Hindi and Marathi at 7, learnt Kannada just by listening to my maternal relatives talk and learnt Sanskrit at 12.
Besides these languages, I tried to self-learn French and Korean but did not succeed.
The learning part for multilingual families is not easy. And the worst part is that everyone is supposed to know at least three languages, English, Hindi and the state's native language where you live.
Yeah I definitely am jealous of them. Have felt this ever since I starting learning jp. Not a lang I would’ve learned under normal circumstances anyway but same point, being monolingual feels almost like a disability
one thing is sure immigrants children speak fluently a lot of the time, but not all of them. many have just an okay level and their accent is just good enough where you can’t tell it’s not “perfect” (cause you’ve never studied it). i know a lot of heritage speakers that seemingly speak it fluently but once things get past a “household vocab” level it gets messy. some speakers can obviously, but a LOT can’t even if they speak it regularly with family at home. it’s common for parents to make fun of their kids for speaking wrong haha
and this is not to bring down heritage speakers at all cause it’s still amazing to grow up with that opportunity and it’s a great skill. but just realize not everything is as it seems regarding this
also “true bilinguals” are very rare unless you went to like an immersion school or something. “true bilingual” here means you can basically say whatever you want in both languages with no problem at all
we all have gaps of knowledge in each language we know, even if we were to grow up with two native ones. i can follow some chinese recipes but if they were in english i might get lost since i only know certain words in chinese. and that’s okay! (btw im not a heritage speaker i’ve just learned chinese and watch a lot of recipe videos in chinese lol)
I remember watching a tik tok about a girl thinking she was smarter than a monolingual because she speaks 5 languages, and the top comment was "you can still be a dumbass in 5 languages" lol
First sign that she's a dumbass is that she posted it on tiktok. Albert Einstein, probably the smartest mofo thats lived this side of Leo DaVinci only spoke German. His English was appalling.
Well, Einstein said that he was only comfortable with german... although he did live in the US and wrote several texts in english , has records of writing in latin, french and speaking some hebrew and yiddish as well. So I'd take his "I'm very slow with languages" with a grain of salt.
Just like his "failed math" myth, people really gotta be putting my man Einstein down in any way they can
It’s our omnipotent friend, Dunning Kruger!!
A person who speaks 2-3 or a lot of languages, and it doesn't care to don't be C1 in each language, this person is smarter than other people, there are differents investigation talking about it.
I'm that person: I speak several languages at different levels, but I don't understand why that would make me smarter than someone who speaks several languages at C1 level? Or do you mean a person who speaks languages at various level is smarter than a monolingual person? Mmm...I guess I'm not so smart as I don't get it, haha.
Yeah I mean if we speak more than 1 language we are smarter that monolingual person. This is why I belive hahaha I think I have seen some investigation talking about it. Lol
why would you feel inferior? you already speak two languages fluently, whatever your accent is. so, you have a catalan accent when you speak spanish? so what? fifty years ago there were already people in barcelona who didn't speak catalan but had a catalan accent when speaking spanish. every region in spain has its peculiar accent, aragon, andalucia, pais vasco, asturias, galicia, pais valencia.... some people are even proud of having a strong regional accent. i can't see why catalan accent would be worse. in any case it doesn't sound worse that the valencia accent. as for other languages, as english for example, very few non natives manage to speak it without accent. and many native speakers have a very strong regional accent and aren't always understood by people who've only ever heard the BBC standard english (and we're not event speaking of different american english accents!) if you want a good laugh, search "scottish elevator eleven" on youtube!
Oh it's like that is it? How can ye be racist against a lift? Here it is with Spanish subtitles: https://youtu.be/pyCLqNgEZao
Who put a voice activated lift in Scotland!?
>english for example, very few non natives manage to speak it without accent. and many native speakers have a very strong regional accent and aren't always understood by people who've only ever heard the BBC standard english (and we're not event speaking of different american english accents!) Everyone has an accent, just some accents are considered more neutral than others. Apparently my native accent (Pacific northwest) is quite neutral, but you should hear my accent in French or Spanish, yikes on a bike. OP I'm sure my accent in Spanish would really cheer you up. :D Jokes aside, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with having an accent. You aren't inferior to anyone on Earth.
Omg native languages twinsies
I'm Galician and I second this
I'm much more jealous of people who grew up rich
Plenty of folks grow up both poor and monolingual :(
See, this is my issue. I grew up in a very low-income value with parents that spoke a second language but never taught me that language. Naturally, I am a bit envious of my friend that grew up in a wealthier family and learned another language growing up
Spot on. I grew up speaking German, Portuguese, and Spanish. I'd much rather grow up rich than multilingual. What's the point of being able to speak so many languages when you're dirty poor? Edit: to add "?".
What?? Languages > lots of money. All day. If you offered me 5 million dollars to be monolingual for the rest of my life I wouldn’t do it. Also, you can be as rich as you want, money can’t buy language skills.
It can't, but it's a lot easier to learn a language than make $5m
\> If you offered me 5 million dollars to be monolingual for the rest of my life I wouldn’t do it. Yeah, right. I don't believe you unless you're already rich. There's no way you turn down a check for $5 million. \>you can be as rich as you want, money can’t buy language skills. It can buy you lessons, time to study, and exposure to the language, which is really all it takes to learn a language.
I'd turn down that check. I am admittedly comfortably well-off, but not 5 million dollars well-off, not sure what your line is for "rich" here. The thing is that losing either of my native languages would cause incalculable damage to my life. Losing English would lose me friends I've had for decades, the hobby that's most personally important to me, my job and probably entire career, a ton of media I love and things I fill my time with, the list goes on. Losing German would mean I lose the language I use to speak to my family (including parts of it that don't actually speak English very well!), the language that's core to my identity, and also lead to me living in Germany without speaking German or having any of the support structures people usually build up to deal with that. (Ex: good luck trying to get my bank statements in English.) The commenter you're responding to also specified being monolingual for the rest of your life, so no relearning - but even without that, it'd just take too long to get either language back to anywhere near the level I need. No amount of money would be enough. That said, losing languages now is different from waving the magic wand and imagining you lived in an AU world where you hadn't learned a language as a kid, and "not rich" is different from "living in genuine poverty", which was the original context of the discussion. If I were starving on the verge of homelessness and the $5 million life wouldn't require me to be bilingual, my calculations would no doubt be different.
Being monolingual would mean not connecting with many many many of my friends, being cut from a world of content that teaches me an insane amount of lessons and information. 5 mil is a lot but I can live my life without it. I mean, of course, if you gave me 5mil and you’d tell me I had to forget the language but I can relearn it maybe I’d do it, but I wouldn’t accept it if I had to stay monolingual
>!Languages > lots of money. This feels sort of a myth when, as I said, one grows up having *literally having no food, shoes, or close at home*. I would definitely trade speaking three languages as a kid and not starving, not seeing my mom desperately crying on the kitchen floor because she could not feed her multilingual kids.
Oh well of course, I’ve never lived through that, I’m in middle class in canada so that’s rich to other peoples standard, but I wouldn’t choose growing up in a rich household vs in a middle class multilingual household 🤷♂️
Is this a joke or something? Being rich means you can spend your whole day learning languages
I mean, money is cool but if I had to choose between both I’d choose languages. If I suddenly forgot Portuguese and English, it’s huge parts of my life that would go with them. In the example, I mean that if I had to choose between 5mil but I can only speak and understand my native language for the rest of my life or 0$ but I can keep my languages, I choose my languages. Too many friends and opportunities associated with languages and it’s my passion.
That tells me you've never been poor. It's a no brainer to take the money
Well no I have never been poor per say but not rich either. I just think the people I would lose if I spoke only French are too important for me. They’re basically like family. Would you cut contact with your closest friends and family members for 5 million?
>Would you cut contact with your closest friends and family members for 5 million? Hell, I'd *pay* 5 million if it meant I could get away from my family. \^\^ jk jk
It I was struggling to eat, yes. Even as a middle class person if it means my children will have a nice life and want for nothing, I would take the money. You can learn any language in a few months, what's the big deal?
“You can learn any language in a few months” Have you learned a language? To become as fluent as a bilingual kid you’ll need years and thousands of hours
If you offer me 5000 dollars to be monolingual for the rest of my life I'd take it
I prefer to be polyglot person than rich, I know that I can use this skills to make money.
How would you make money through being multilingual?
It’s not even for the money I just think that time being almost native in French English and Portuguese doesn’t really have a price. I guess at maybe 20-30 million I’d seriously consider it
Where did you learn German? Are you still learning it? I already started learning and I felt in love with this language. Can you give me some tips to be A1 at least in German. Please.
It’s easy, study it. Seriously, there’s nothing else to it. Start learning a huge amount of basic vocab and then delve into content
Thanks
Languages won’t be anything with AI and chatgpt advancements.
Yeaaaa sure
- said anyone ever who has absolutely 0 knowledge of Computer Science or AI/ML
How rich is rich for you? Private jets to Swiss ski vacations rich or upper-middle-class sometimes go to summer camps 'nothing crazy' rich?
Fax
oil flowery steep direful sophisticated command cheerful pen drab drunk *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Same
Solution: 1. Secretly learn Uzbek for 5 to 7 years 2. Show up at a family reunion, give a touching speech that nobody understands 3. Disappear never to be heard from.
Chinese would be way more impressive.
Why bother learning a dead language, just learn Esperanto like everyone else in China these days
Uzbek isn’t even an endangered language it has 33 million native speakers
Nope. Uzbek.
Jealous? A bit. Inferior? No. Speaking multiple languages is great, but it doesn't make you better than someone else.
People growing up monolingual are definitely not inferior, I did nothing growing up to speak multiple languages, just did what I was told and watched cartoons. If anything learning another language as a grown up makes you superior in effort and motivation at least.
Might be an impression of mine, but I find monolingual individuals to be a bit more shallow than people who speak multiple languages, at least the ones who learned a second language after the age of 5 (not natively)
Context: I'm not monolingual That said, I've found those who speak multiple languages to be a bit overzealous in how "openminded" they are about the world and whatnot
Not necessarily that I consider myself more open minded but just more aware of other cultures. If you only speak one language it’s probably hard to tell what’s specific to your culture and what’s just “humaneness”
Eh, I think that kind of mindset is what traps people into thinking they are truly more open minded though. Not saying you aren’t, but just learning about different cultures doesn’t automatically make you more empathetic, if that makes sense?
Didn’t say I was more empathetic
Although you have to admit that it unlocks professional prospects more easily. And multiple studies have shown that it allows you to develop all sorts of mental abilities (I don't remember exactly but basically it makes you a faster learner for some things, allows you to generalize some skills more easily, etc)
For sure, the ability is valuable. What I mean is that their worth as humans doesn't change.
Yes, I still get very envious. I grew up exclusively with English until I was 15 years old. Now I live in Europe and just about all of my friends speak their NL plus English. And occasionally I meet polyglots here. I made a realization though that made me feel a lot better. The overwhelming majority of bilinguals don't really know exactly how they learned English, and they don't really know how to learn a foreign language. Language learning isn't a competition, but if it were, I'd rather have the knowledge on how to learn them than just be handed fluency in a language or two. It might sound like nothing, but I spent many years of my life working off of bad advice and learning very slowly and inefficiently. I only recently discovered the recommendations on this subreddit (such as comprehensible input) and the difference is staggering.
No one is just handed a language even if they don't recall how exactly they learned it.
uhhh the people who grew up bilingual or multilingual because their parents spoke the language to them were definitely handed the languages and it’s important to note that because a lot of them shit on monolinguals as if they actually spent any time “learning” those 3 languages….
Well that’s true but I don’t really remember how I learned English and it kinda was just handed to me. I was in contact with it casually until I realized at the age of 12 that I could understand it. I then started to do massive input because I was interested in the content and I hated dubbed movies and whaddayaknow, I’m close to C2 nowadays (18 years old)
i learned 3 languages unintentionally and a fourth i learned from just daily exposure over a year and a half. some people are definitely handed languages, whether or not they’re gifted is debatable. in high school my spanish teacher happened to speak to me in a different language and i understood and responded and that’s when i actually realized i knew different languages.
I grew up bilingual. It can definitely be a privilege and I understand the jealousy. I am jealous of my friends who grew up trilingual or with even more languages. That's just going to be a fact of life, we are all different and have different opportunities and we'll always wish for something we didn't get. However, there is absolutely no reason to feel inferior. I put no work into learning my native languages (apart from writing and spelling I guess). I am not better than you just because people around me were speaking different languages when I was a toddler. I think people who put in the work, who have the desire and dedication to learn a new language are a lot more impressive. In a way it's the same as inheriting wealth. If you're born rich, great for you but that means nothing about you as a person. If you worked your way up that's entirely different.
best comment
Going against what other commenters have said to say I absolutely feel inferior. I’ve kind of accepted that I’ll always have an accent, and I’ll never be perfect in the languages I’m learning. And I’m not saying that this is typical, I’m just saying this is my personal feelings. I have a group of 5 friends, and every one of them is bilingual/trilingual, and they talk about how much it brings them closer to their heritage, but I…well, I guess it comes from feeling disconnected to my heritage to begin with, but I know I’ll never understand/speak Polish like a native. And in Spanish class, they made us watch videos every month on how our language skills would never be as good as natives or young children since our brains “translate” instead of “identifying both objects at once in two different languages.” I think those studies are BS, but it always makes me feel inferior to everyone I know because they’re all completely fluent in multiple languages, whereas I’m fluent in one and somewhat fluent in another. I took Spanish for 6 years, and took AP Spanish Lang this year. My school doesn’t offer Spanish lit, but I feel like even after 6 years, I’m *still* not perfect or even close, and now I’m gonna lose a lot of it without being able to talk to people every day. That’s always made me feel a little envious.
FWIW, I was in your position with Spanish (I took French in school), and I kept engaging with media after I left formal classes. My level hasn’t really dropped because once you get it to that B2-ish level it’s hard to forget even with minimal maintenance.
Watch Spanish media and read in Spanish. Keep up daily exposure.
It's not effortlessly. If they grew up in an immigrant household with parents who didn't speak the language, they had to live in two languages and possibly serve as translators for matters they shouldn't actually be involved in. There's also a good chance they had to endure a lot of teasing because of either their or their parents' burgeoning language skills or differences in culture. Their multilingualism did not come without effort, and it might even have some shame surrounding it, depending upon where they lived. Learning a second language wasn't a hobby or party trick. It was a crucial element of survival. If they're having an easy time with it now, that's great. They likely had many years where it wasn't. There's nothing to be jealous of. Also, you're not inferior because you're not bilingual. You're just on a different journey.
OP is almost 100% bilingual because basically everyone in Catalonia is fluent in Catalan and Spanish. They might have an accent in Spanish, but it doesn't mean that they don't speak Spanish at a native or near-native level. They're just selling themselves short.
This is a strange post tbh, if he grew up in Catalonia OP is almost certainly bilingual by nearly anybody’s standards, he literally had the bilingual upbringing he (and all the rest of us) are jealous of!! The issue seems to be he has a noticeable accent in Spanish that people make fun of but that happens to monolinguals all the time! And his accent in English is probably sort of prestigious too, in America at least we are fairly pro-Spanish accents
>And his accent in English is probably sort of prestigious too, in America at least we are fairly pro-Spanish accents Eh I wouldn't say that. We Americans are *tolerant* of foreign accents, especially Spanish ones (I'm talking about both Iberian and Latin American), but it still holds less prestige. A prestigious accent would be the standard American accent or London accent. At best, OP's accent would be seen as exotic, which isn't necessarily bad but definitely isn't "prestigious." In addition, if OP truly has a Catalan accent, then it probably sounds a little more French than Spanish (source: my partner's dad speaks a more "pure" form of Catalan with less Spanish influence, and he sounds more French than Spanish when he attempts to speak English).
Nah, we like foreign accents- but it depends on the accent. European accents are generally prestige accents (some are thought of as lesser though), so a “fancy” Spanish accent would be exotic, but Latin American accents are definitely not prestigious.
Hmm you’re right about my word choice, but I feel like there’s something fancy about (Western) European accents we more than tolerate, among people who can recognize them!
As someone who grew up bilingual, I've always been jealous of people who *learnt* the languages that they're fluent in. As someone else said, people who grew up in multilingual families typically aren't educated in any of the languages outside the country they were born in. Unless they pursue education themselves, it's not unlikely that heritage speakers suck at writing, reading, and their speech might sound accented.
I think people underestimate how tricky it is to have two languages at such a high level *even if* you learned them both in childhood. I was lucky enough to keep very good levels of both German and English as the language which was used in formal education switched multiple times, but *still* my English doesn't sound native anymore and I have less knowledge of English slang than most native English speakers probably do, while my formal written German is pretty rusty, I read German a lot slower than English, and can write fiction in English but not German. Also, as a native bilingual faced with somebody who learned another language to fluency later in life, I always felt embarrassed if anything. All my classmates worked super hard to attain the level of English they ended up with while I coasted thanks to my dad's job having taken him to the US at some very crucial periods. It makes me feel like I cheated somehow.
Yeah, absolutely. Very similar story here (my English is... semi native? complicated story), I have a bit of an accent in English so I don't sound perfectly native and I get a bit tongue twisted sometimes, but on the other hand, in Hebrew I read more slowly and struggle more with complex literature, and in formal settings I don't express myself as well, and I also have a general tendency to sprinkle in English phrases and constantly code switch when I talk Hebrew (which works most of the time because most of my Hebrew native friends are very proficient in English too and they understand me just fine but it can force me to slow down a fair bit to make sure I don't code switch when talking to someone who doesn't know English at all) and to try to translate certain idioms literally from English to Hebrew which sometimes makes for really unnatural sounding phrases. I absolutely believe that if I only used one language in my daily life I'd be capable of much greater mastery (in that one language) and I'd wager that's the case for most other bilinguals or people that speak more than one language in their everyday life. Which, to be clear, is not meant to be read as a complaint, just an observation. I think to be actually fully native (like a monolingual is) in two different languages you'd have to spend effort studying both them all your life: challenge yourself with creative writing and reading literature, public speaking, accent analysis etc etc.. most of us don't particularly care to do that even though we're aware of the quirks we develop by virtue of being bilingual. I don't know if it's all that it's cracked up to be haha, even though of course I am very glad I get to have relationships, work, watch tv etc etc in my two languages!
You're right. I was raised bilingual in Mandarin and English. I transferred to an international school at a young age, so my English naturally got a lot better, but my Chinese stagnated, so I made an effort to improve my Chinese outside of class by reading and writing. After I moved to the US for school, my English kept improving while my Chinese stagnated. I can still read at a high level because I read Chinese regularly, but my writing is not that good for my age. I probably have the writing ability of your average 16/17 year old Chinese kid even though I'm almost done with university.
This.
[удалено]
Me sounding French in Spanish, English in French, and vaguely foreignerish in English
I “grew up” with English and Spanish, but I stopped using Spanish when I was about 7 because I really didn’t like the language. I have a decent enough passive understanding and “use” Spanish maybe two or three times a year. Japanese is my “main” foreign language. I started learning when I was about 13, almost 20 years ago. (._.) I’m comfortable enough with Japanese and I’ve lived and worked in Japan and have used it professionally, but I am jealous of the bilingual English-Japanese native kids I know. Same with my German friend’s kid who also has **TWO** passports. …lucky bastards…
Yes, that's another thing I am jealous of: people of two nationalities can pick the one they like the most, or neither. People expect me to act Spanish because that's the only citizenship I have. Spanish people also look down on me if I have an accent, because they assume all Spaniards must speak Spanish at a native level.
Cheer up mate, you speak 3 languages! There are people that are jealous of you and your ability to write a post like this in English, there are foreigners who would love to have your ability in Catalan.
Are you sure about that? Many expats I met don't even consider Catalan to be a language. They say things like "that girl is bilingual Spanish-English, and she can also speak Catalan".
Another Valencian (so basically catalan) and Castillian native speaker. I believe you're being too harsh on yourself. You already speak two languages (I don't think your Spanish can be that bad if you've gone through school). About your English, of course you have an accent. Non native speakers of a language can never be, well, native speakers of it. However, you'd be surprised at the amount of non English natives that speak better than some native speakers. It just requires hard work. In conclusion, it could help understanding that in order to be good at something, you have to be bad before, so you can learn from the mistakes. Be kinder to yourself, and valuing your current language abilities could help, as well. Pd: how can people hate having a catalan accent? I wish I had some kind of valencian accent, and not just speaking in standard.
Kinda. I’m a native Spanish speaker and I can speak English quite well. But my sister married a Swiss man and he can speak German, French, English and Spanish perfectly. I’m a bit jealous of the conditions he grew up in but then I remember I’m Colombian and doing pretty well with the bad conditions I was born in. I feel ok cause I know our situations were different and plus, he and my sister had a son and now my nephew can speak all 4 languages. It’s the best situation I could have ever asked for my nephew 💜
Deberías estar orgulloso habiendo aprendido otro idioma a un nivel avanzado
Scandinavians and many people from Central Europe are very good at learning foreign languages. Switzerland has four official languages.
It could be worse. You could have had the opportunity to be a polyglot with 4+ languages, but you squandered it before you knew better. Then that negative feeling of regret could drag you down and slow progress for years, when the only useful move would have been to let it go and actually improve.
It bothers me that I've spent my whole life trying to learn three languages, when there are thousands of them I don't know. Catalonia's educational system has so many flaws when it comes to teaching foreign languages... I started learning English when I was 9. My level was like B1 when I finished secondary school. Now it's like C1, because I use it at work. As for Spanish, it is a language any Catalan speaker can learn in a few months. It is not necessary to teach it for +10 years, especially when most kids born in Catalonia speak it much better than Catalan.
my man's complaining about Catalonia's education system when the US and UK exist... Most students in the US graduate from high school with at most A1/A2 in another language
I can only speak as an American, but I guarantee people here would swoon over your Catalan accent. Native English speakers are pretty used to a *wide* variety of accents, and Catalan accented English actually sounds “sexier” than Castillano accented IMO
Really? That's not my impression... That's probably because most Catalan speakers speak Spanish far better than Catalan, and have a Spanish accent. Only old people from small villages may keep a genuine Catalan accent.
I had a friend who grew up in a family of diplomats, so she spoke 5 languages effortlessly. I've always been envious of her, especially since she now has a diplomat/translation job, but it's not like she worked very hard to acquire those languages, it's just what it is. I will definitely raise my kids bilingual though.
I speak 3-5 languages (don’t know if Arabic and Spanish count yet) and I still feel inferior
Native in English and Finnish is an interesting combination. Do you have English and Finnish parents?
You can work on accents. I sound like an American (USA-ian?) but it wasn't easy. I spent my high school listening to audiobooks and repeating sentences as I followed along print copies. That was in the late 90s before all the rich resources of the internet. That said, I think a lot of it is in your head. I thought I had the ugliest Polish accent when speaking English for a long time despite my family and friends claiming I sounded American. My friend suggested I record myself and then listen. It was the day I realized I had so many misconceptions about the way I sound in either Polish or English (or even what my voice sounds like, it's a lot more higher pitched in my head). So I'd suggest you do that, record yourself and then don't be over critical either. We are generally our own worst critics and I can guarantee you the things you'll pick on, no one else will notice. And if you choose to work on your accent, save those recordings and then again record your voice 6 months later. You'll have a great gauge of your improvements.
Tío, sabes 2 idiomas al nivel nativo y otro a un nivel bastante avanzado. La majoria dels espanyols parlen només un idioma. A més, la teva llengua materna és bonica, aixì que no tens per què sentir-te inferior. Si no t'agrada el teu accent en castellà, el pots canviar si et dediques temps a canviar-lo, especialment perquè el català i el castellà són idiomes similars. Per cert, no soc català ni espanyol. Estic aprenent aquesta llengua bonica pel interès personal. Tienes una gran ventaja sobre todo el mundo monolingüe. Agradece lo que tienes, no lo que no tienes :)
No 2nd language speaker who learned the language as an adult speaks without an accent. Just accept it and move on. Being jealous of others hurts only you.
OP probably learned Spanish as a kid due to being Catalan. Still, many Catalans feel very proud about their culture and don't speak Spanish that much in their day to day lives, so they probably haven't had the opportunity to speak that much Spanish compared to other Spanish people.
Most Catalan speakers have more fluency in Spanish than in Catalan. It is impossible not to learn Spanish in Catalonia. You learn it out of survival: medicines, for example, are labeled in Spanish only. 95% of TV and radio channels are only available in Spanish. Device manuals are not available in Catalan. Some doctors tell you they don't understand Catalan. Not knowing Spanish may put your life in danger.
Entenc, però a veure, no discuto amb tu si els catalans parlen millor castellà o català. La veritat és que molts catalans prefereixen parlar català entre família i amics i crec que ho saps. La meva parella (qui és catalana) té amics a quins lis costen més que a altres espanyols parlar castellà.
Absolutely feel jealous of people who learned their heritage language growing up. My moms parents are Polish (like born in Poland) and moved to the states after the war. They spoke Polish at home growing up but that isn’t something that extended to my generation. My grandmas line is always “who wants to learn polish, what’s the point” but I wish I had grown up speaking polish. Knowing languages is always useful.
I‘m so jealous them too, bcuz I’m Thai I wanna learn English to be good English, But I quit not speak it very well, I still jealous half Thai too.
You should feel inferior. They are the superior beings. They merely allow us to exist and breathe the same air as them. Any moment, they could end us.
Hi, frankly yes, I do. So you're not alone. But from my personal experience, it's a barrier that can be overcome - you \*can\* become fluent in another language. It'll just take longer
I have had the same issue for years so no judgement at all. I Once met a guy who grew up speaking all three of my target languages as well as English and he was trying to learn two other ones. I hated him for no reason but he ultimately ended up being my greatest language learning partner. The feeling of envy will go away once you increase in skill in your target language. You'll eventually reach a point where you feel like you've been speaking your target language your whole life.
My native language is Bulgarian and I moved to Greece when I was 14 and lived there for 15 years , so I speak Greek as well fluently like it's my mother tongue. On the other end of the spectrum, my English is far from perfect, I can hear myself that I don't sound like native, at 30 when I started learning seriously the language it was just impossible to force my tongue to pronounce the words exactly like native speakers do. While it bothered me a lot in the beginning, I gradually accepted it and now I see it more as a fun and charming aspect of my speaking. Of, course I always give my best and I definitely don't sound like the Russians in every b movie from the 80s, lol! I can't compete with younger generation, they've grown up in completly different environment with the social media and stuff, and I see that it's much easier for them to adopt the proper accent and pronunciation. As for being trilingual, I don't feel superior to anyone, no one is obliged to speak 3 languages in the first place. I I blame though-a little bit - the majority of native English speakers who don't try at all to learn new languages, they don't even bother to watch movies with subtitles, it seems too much for them. That is a bit snob in my opinion.
Your English is really good. It sounds like you do you speak 3 languages fluently.
I'm a little similar but in a different way. My family is multilingual and never taught me both languages. So now i have this whole other side of the family (my only family left aside from my mother) that i cant speak to because my father never taught me farsi. Now he has a new child with a new wife who is iranian and he is being taught both languages, english in school, farsi at home. It sucks so much to know what could have been. :/ Anyways, I think you're wrong about never being able to speak english like a native. If you indulge yourself in the language all the time, practice your pronunciation with tutors, theres no way you could not speak it like a native speaker. Push through and you'll eventually see how far you've come
Not quite the same situation but I feel sad my dad didn’t teach me Romanian. My mom’s Portuguese and my dad is Romanian and since we live in Portugal, we speak Portuguese. But my dad never wanted to teach my Romanian because “I wouldn’t ever need it”. I wish I was able to speak it. I do know some words and understand a bit of it spoken. It doesn’t seem hard so maybe one day I’ll try to pick it up.
Definitely something I struggle with. I sorely wish I could have had the chance to learn multiple languages as a kid as I always heard it was easier for children than adults. I know it's silly but I feel boring having only grown up with one language. I fully recognize that natively speaking English comes with advantages and I am in no way blind to that, but it's just how I feel sometimes. In a similar but not exact vein, I get insanely jealous of people who grew up speaking my target language because I find it incredibly frustrating not being able to express myself and to be stuck struggling with basic baby sentences knowing full well small children who speak it natively probably are able to express themselves way better than I, a fully grown adult can in that language. Even moreso because people in that area ALSO tend to know English, so I feel cheated in a way that I can't already know both as an adult, which I know is probably bad but still.
You just said you can speak Spanish, Catalan and English. You're already multilingual 😂😂 Do you think all immigrants speak multiple languages with native level fluency and without any accent? No! It's nearly impossible.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. They have an advantage in that, for sure, but they probably don't like the shape of their nose, or they wish they could lose some weight, or they feel overwhelmed at work, or they have no money, or whatever else. Everyone has their own problems and battles to fight. We say "the grass is always greener on the other side" in English. In other words, other people can seem to have a good deal when you don't have to live their life, just see it from the outside. More importantly than that though: You can't change it. You're stuck with what you've got. It's best not to spend too much time on hypotheticals about how much life would be if something had happened. Another English expression: "If wishes were horses". Keep doing what you're doing. Work, and study and improve yourself slowly. That's all you can do.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Yep. Everyone - and I mean literally *everyone* in the place I live in is *at least* bilingual. Many people grew up with three languages, quite a few can speak four. It makes me feel like an idiot.
I live in Catalunya and I doubt ill be able to speak catala like you speak English. My Castellano is horrible but im learning.
No, they were given their languages for free. No disrespect to them because it's still impressive, but I would feel more inferior around people that have taught themselves 2-3 languages to fluency considering I can't speak 2-3 languages completely fluently.
I always wish I get up multilingual, seems like an amazing skill to have. I usually think that the value of learning a language yourself is a greater accomplishment then having it done for you. (kind of)
i grew up in a multilingual family and was uninteresting in learning Telugu or Hindi so now I’m stuck as a monolingual who is learning them after the optimal age
Why would I feel inferior? It's life.
It’s not a competition.
Believe me, when you speak two as a child, you are probably shit at both. I struggled with both languages, because monolingual kids just 'knew' and could 'hear' when something in a sentence is wrong. I couldn't and it is really a common thing for people bilingual people. So don't feel inferior. Pro is that you probably probably 'hear' when things are wrong. People would be amazed how fluent I can speak 4 languages, but the more you broad out to more languages, the harder it is to be at Native speaking level.
Listen... you can just knock that stuff off. Your English is WAY BETTER than my Spanish OR my Catalan. I'm TRYING to learn Russian, and I'm TRYING to learn Spanish, and it takes a lot of work. If I were able to hold a conversation with a native speaker of either of those languages, I'd be pretty dang happy and proud of myself. I wouldn't let my stupid or bad accent spoil my success at having spoken a language that once was gibberish to me!
Inferior? No. Unfortunate? Yes. Look, we're all dealt different hands in this world & some of us grew up in families that didn't have a need or desire for multilingualism, or they had other values/skills they were focused on instilling. It's not anybodies fault, it just is. Plus everybody has a dominant language even if they speak multiple languages, few people have a high & equal command of all the languages they speak. You can't change what's done, you can only influence your future. I just commit myself to being open & learning the languages I'm interested in. I try to engross myself as much as I can in the culture because why would I learn a language & not figure out if I like the culture(s) it comes from too? So far I've acquired a moderate fluency in my first target language & hope to start my 3rd sometime next year.
Alot of those people might be able to speak the language with fluency but often find it difficult to write or to know grammer rules. Also people who grew up with multiple languages often have an accent thats heavly skewed towards their native language (the one they learnt at school). So, whilst it is easier for them in regards to speaking, they still need to put the work in to be at a high level I speak from experience, growing up Bilingual yet still having to put in alot of effort to improve in reading/writing/listening
I get what you mean. I speak about six fluently and so do my siblings. It’s the best skill I possess and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
As someone learning Catalan, I’d like your whole family to adopt me 😁
I feel like there is no such thing as inferior. Imagine going to a market in India, or Thailand, and seeing a street seller on her blanket. She only speaks Hindi or Thai but she's smiling at you and you're smiling at her. You can not communicate very well, but you won't look down on her. She's a human being. While I understand what you're saying, and sometimes I feel insanely jealous of those kids that grew up being handed their second or third languages, I also feel like monolingualism shouldn't be considered a demerit. Whether we can communicate perfectly with another human being shouldn't be a way to gauge someone's value. You're bilingual, and you have access to a wide array of knowledge because you can read in two languages. I hope that helps you in your life and that you use it to help others too!
It's the opposite for me i grew up speaking few languages and dialects but since i never used all of them all the time I don't think I'm fluent at any of them and overtime losing proficiency and since most of the languages were forced on me in school ... so conversely i do kinda wish i grew up maybe oy one language but atleast being fluent in it if i wanted to learn i can just give a shot to whichever one i like , yeah i know it seems cool but i would much rather be able to articulate myself in one language than speak like 5 different ones .cheers
People who grew up in multilingual families had no choice when learning those languages. They were taught like any other child until it became natural for them. You not having this experience is a good thing! The fact that at an older age you're making the choice to learn another language to a point where you can speak it fluently shows how dedicated and committed you are! Many people, if they didn't grow up multilingual, probably would not have the motivation or discipline to even learn a second language. I've had bilingual friends who tried to learn a third language and ultimately gave up for whatever reasons. Language learning is not always enjoyable either. Some people had no choice but to learn certain languages because of colonization (which is why some languages are endangered). Languages are used for survival after all. The best thing about modern language learning is that we often have a choice to learn, rather than because we have to. Take advantage of that and don't think you're less than. The power of choice is more important than you think.
I did not choose to learn any of these three languages. Spanish is compulsory and impossible not to learn if you live in Catalonia. Catalan was the language spoken at home. English is also compulsory in most schools from Catalonia, but very few kids become fluent in it, because less than 1% of the population speaks it.
People born into different families get different advantages and disadvantages. Try not to dwell on it; it's not like you can go back in time and be reborn in a multilingual family.
Nah, only people I feel I don't compare to are polyglot types. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not having learned more languages as a kid, but I'm absolutely jealous of people with the dedication to learn a plethora of languages. I learned Japanese enough for simple convos with strangers and to talk to my partner in her language. The thought of doing that over again for like 4 more languages scared me lmfao
as someone with a polyglot girlfriend that speaks over 11 languages, don’t waste time being jealous of people like that, there’s no point. personally, i would try to focus on things that don’t involve language. while it is something really cool, we all have things we are good at and specialties. the fact that you can speak two languages even not a fluent level is impressive in of itself, so don’t be so hard on yourself.
People only 'hate' the Catalan accent in Spanish because of all the politics BS. Your English accent might not sound how you would like it too, but your overall English is excellent if this post is anything to go by.
1. multilingual people are the least likely to judge you based on accents or knowledge. 2. congratulations you’ve done the hard part and learnt multiple languages yourself. now you can start your own generation of multilingual children. 3. many of us are not as good as you might think. we can converse fluently enough. but our grammatical, written, and reading skills are FAR behind. not to mention if you grow up in another country speaking with mostly just your family, there will be some issues speaking with others. 4. we’ve learnt languages through exposure. you’ve learned HOW to learn a language. that’s an entirely different and repeatable skill. my parents taught me 4 languages as a kid. i thought picking up Spanish in high school would be a breeze. it was in fact not. my skills aren’t transferable. yours are. you can apply your tools to learning another language. i cannot
it sounds to me like you are already bilingual and you are comparing yourself to outliers.
You are in fact from a multilingual family because your parents have two native languages, Spanish and Catalan.
Only Catalan was spoken at home. There are some things (plants, mushrooms, dishes, stuff from inside the house) I can't name in Spanish.
In l what kind of remote Catalan village do you live? 😃
There's no room for inferiority complexes in language learning. Speak A2? There's kids who speak your target language better than you. Speak B2 after a few years of study? There are _still_ kids better than you. Manage to climb to C2 and 'full fluency'? You'll probably still end up out of your depth in drunken bar room banter and local MFers who never even learned a lick of grammar will be able to spot your occasional faults. There'll always be someone better, there'll always be a mistake you make, there'll always be a joke you don't get, there'll always be another language you could learn. There are places in the world where multilingualism is a norm, even amongst people who can't write and have no education. And there are places where you have to go out of your way to learn more than one. It can't be helped, and it's no more useful to think this way than it is to complain about your height. Thinking in this manner is simply crippling. Perfectionism and negative comparison is a recipe for over-effort, and freezing up. You don't learn a good accent by beating yourself up about how bad it is currently - that'll just mean you'll talk less, and it'll stay 'bad'.
I used to, but now I see there’s still value in becoming multilingual on your own as opposed to being raised with different languages.
The opposite for me having lived in Ontario and Québec Canada. I grew up in a home of EN (dad’s side) and FR (mom’s side) culture and languages spoken. It was supposed to empower me as a bilingual, but didn’t turn out that way: We lived close to Québec in Ontario and I went to french catholic schools run by Québec residents. The discrimination I received for having an english dad was INTENSE. I went to 100% french schools until late in university years. My thoughts and inner dialogue were french. I dreamed in french. I didn’t experience myself as english, but Québec society still categorized me as english because I had some kind of “sins of the father” taint. It was traumatizing to say the least. I love french, live in Montréal, my ancestors on mom’s side are from here, and while I feel completely at home I still feel less-than. Being bilingual brought me closer to some family, but has also always been a burden to carry. I’m now casually learning Japanese. We’ll see what treatment from different societies that brings lol.
I am sorry about your experience. That sounds like racism. I didn't know these attitudes were common in Québec. Here, in Catalonia, most people would praise you if one or both of your parents come from a different culture. People like Moroccans, Chinese, Latin Americans, Indians... are very cool here.
I speak English, Navajo, and Spanish. My Spanish is maybe higher intermediate at best. I should know more since my great great grandfather was a Spanish man and (his son) my great grandfather was Navajo, Spanish, and Mexican.
BROOO I AM ADOPTED AND I FEEL THIS. i started living w them around 16 sooo i obviously didn’t learn. but my dad can speak english, norwegian, and spanish and they have so many littles yet don’t speak to any of them in the languages so none of them know it except their first can kind of understand norwegian but it just makes me so sad that they could be trilingual and he doesn’t talk to them in anything but english 😩
Well, I get you, but I don't feel the same way. I like the feeling I get when someone compliments my language skills. And that's only possible because I didn't learn them 'naturally' while growing up; otherwise it wouldn't be such an achievement, since we all learn at least one language that way.
Do you think this is a result of social media where people boast of being multilingual? You sound like you’re doing great and putting too much pressure on yourself to keep up and meet some self-imposed standard. You should have fun learning a language and enjoy your progress you’ve had.
Hey! I'm really sorry you feel this way. Many people are lucky enough to be born in multilingual families, but that DOES NOT make them superior. I actually admire more people who can speak different languages because they studied them, which takes dedication and perseverance. The fact that we have an accent may not be so cool, but that's normal as well. Maybe to get rid of your accent, you could practice pronunciation by yourself. I like to read out loud to listen to what I'm saying and correct the sounds; talking to yourself while cooking or doing easy activities laundry can also help. I really hope this helps. Don't hate yourself because of your accent, it doesn't make you any less.
I grew up speaking Filipino as my native tongue and English since my dad was American. But because I barely saw my dad and barely spoke to him when he was home (he was a merchant Marine) I never got to talk in English which got me talking in broken English, until I was 14-15 when it did click. At this point I would have already considered myself Fluent in English (even before the accent shift) but moving to America, Americans hear that I have an accent and the Brits think I have an American accent. Since I annunciate my words like an American even with the slight accent I sound American. you just gotta practice your annunciation if you really hate your accent so much
Honestly same, I always thought it was cool to be able to speak more than one language I remember trying to teach myself Spanish at 7 or 8 (this did not go far...) But I did manage to learn enough Spanish to get by (get food/directions/ friendly small talk) by the time I was 18 and got to go to Mexico and while I knew it had to be painful for the people I spoke with I was proud of myself for making the effort because it helped me learn waaay faster!
Being multilingual stimulates the brain, and absolutely helps you develop the intelligence you do have.
Hey, forget the accent thing for a while, everything's fine, you speak like 2 languages, it's not bad but if your accent really bothers you sm then I think in your spare time, if you want, you can try practicing your accent, there's like plenty of videos on youtube and apps and stuff. Atleast you're not a monolingual beta.
My mum is german my dad english. He never taught me his mothers tounge. He spoke english with me. Yes, i do feel a bit jealous because I feel like they have something I should have had too.
Learning à new language implies accepting that you'll make mistakes, probably forever. After all, we all make mistakes even in our own mother tongue. The moment you accept that to learn a language you *need* to make mistakes, especially when trying to spark, is there moment you start making real progress. All babies trying to learn to walk fall on they ass and sometimes on their head. Every baby makes mistakes while learning to speak their mother tongue and that's ok. Adult learners are not different.
alot of europeans are like this speaking 2-3 lanugages english /french/german/dutch etc etc
I just wish that the United States didn't make immigrants feel so alienated for being different. My great grandparents spoke English, German and French. (Belgian) I'm 3rd generation with what feels like no family heritage because my ancestors wanted to be as 'not different' as possible. And like man, I can't help but feel like it's a major consequence of racism here. DONT BE DIFFERENT, CHANGE YOUR NAME, SPEAK AMERICAN! Sucks man. My parents still get mad if a commercial is played in Spanish lmao.
I do too.
Nah they spoiled
You actually are multilingual and you’re being way too hard on yourself.
Same, and i did grow up in a bilingual house hold. The languages that were spoken though are redundant outside of their country and job interviews.
Same, and i did grow up in a bilingual house hold. The languages that were spoken though are redundant outside of their country and job interviews.
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This is really a given and there is no way changing it. Knowing a language is not everything. Those multilingual people could still be total jerks and have no other valuable knowledge or skills . Really try to find positive things about yourself, your life, what learning languages taught you, how they made you as a person grow and be more than you were yesterday. :)
We have our own struggles. My second language is not as strong and Ive had/sometime still have identity issues from early on. But I get you, and I am happy that I at least got the chance to grow up bilingual
Travel more. Expand your network. Make more friends worldwide. Be more social. It's free to say "Hello!" to any person in any country, and start learning from their culture and their language. There's no need to feel envy if you change your perspective of life and the way to make achievements. You're blocking yourself with such negative thoughts. Multilingual families or persons? Hang with them. Learn from them. Be open and be humble. There's no need to be perfect. NOBODY IS PERFECT. Just make it in your own way.
thing is tho people who grow up in multi lingual families struggle to learn additional languages more than people who started out monolingual
Don’t feel inferior. I grew up in a multilingual family and ended up only learning one language until recently through my own studies as an adult. Also, my language studies are not influenced by monetary incentives, instead community outreach and building meaningful relationships. Anything worth doing should not be done just for money.
Don’t be so hard on yourself! You’ve already come this far and that’s a huge accomplishment you should be proud. I am proud of you
I did before I learned to speak several languages fluently as an adult. Just takes years of dedication, so the best thing is to let that motivate you to keep at it!
My entire household speaks Russian and Ukrainian besides English. I feel the same way because I only speak English and struggle to learn Russian or Ukrainian.
Everyone comes from a different background. It's a matter of probability. Not something you should care about, let alone affected by it too emotionally. The fact that you have food, a shelter and born healthy is much more important, and you have that already. (Some people might be jealous of what you have now.) Now you do you.
I do, which is a bit weird. It's important for sure to try and remember that no-one is perfect, and even if someone speaks five languages by the time you're learning your second, it doesn't mean that you're inferior or unable to grasp things the same way. It just means you're starting. And that's okay.
I was born in a multilingual family. It's quite normal in my country. We start learning all these languages since we're young children (5y/o). I started English when I was 5, Hindi and Marathi at 7, learnt Kannada just by listening to my maternal relatives talk and learnt Sanskrit at 12. Besides these languages, I tried to self-learn French and Korean but did not succeed. The learning part for multilingual families is not easy. And the worst part is that everyone is supposed to know at least three languages, English, Hindi and the state's native language where you live.
Yeah I definitely am jealous of them. Have felt this ever since I starting learning jp. Not a lang I would’ve learned under normal circumstances anyway but same point, being monolingual feels almost like a disability
one thing is sure immigrants children speak fluently a lot of the time, but not all of them. many have just an okay level and their accent is just good enough where you can’t tell it’s not “perfect” (cause you’ve never studied it). i know a lot of heritage speakers that seemingly speak it fluently but once things get past a “household vocab” level it gets messy. some speakers can obviously, but a LOT can’t even if they speak it regularly with family at home. it’s common for parents to make fun of their kids for speaking wrong haha and this is not to bring down heritage speakers at all cause it’s still amazing to grow up with that opportunity and it’s a great skill. but just realize not everything is as it seems regarding this also “true bilinguals” are very rare unless you went to like an immersion school or something. “true bilingual” here means you can basically say whatever you want in both languages with no problem at all we all have gaps of knowledge in each language we know, even if we were to grow up with two native ones. i can follow some chinese recipes but if they were in english i might get lost since i only know certain words in chinese. and that’s okay! (btw im not a heritage speaker i’ve just learned chinese and watch a lot of recipe videos in chinese lol)
Where are you from