random language use observation

[ratcreature]

I just had to edit an email because I wrote a German sentence with partly English sentence structure without noticing that while writing it. I put the verb at the wrong place!

I somehow find that weirder than the semi-regular bleed over of very common English idioms I experience. I mean, word order is much more essential than accidentally transferring an idiom. And how embarrassing is it to need a second read-through to put verbs in the correct places in your native language? I either write too many English or too few German emails, it seems.

Though I'd probably need some linguistical or neurological theory or something to understand these weird glitches properly...

Comments

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

Heh.

My younger sister speaks English, French, German, and Spanish (and a little Greek, and she's learning Mandarin). When she was learning Spanish, she already knew English and French, and she said that the weird thing was that sometimes she wouldn't know a word - but she wouldn't know it in any of her languages.

And not complicated words, either; words like "yellow". Which she, obviously, should know in at least the two languages she was fluent in, but which she would find this blank place in her mind for, as her brain couldn't sort out what to produce.