#like english is my native language but i'm close to bilingualism in spanish

[air--so--sweet]

The TUA brainrot has reached new levels. I noticed in S1E2 when Diego is speaking to several people as he crosses the gym that one guy responds to him in Spanish. All he says is one word, 'Sí', a word most people, regardless of whether they speak Spanish or not, know the meaning of, and yet I've spun it into a whole headcanon explaining why Diego speaks Spanish like a native speaker.

Because I've seen people point out that Reggie teaching the Umbrellas the languages related to their cultural backgrounds doesn't explain Diego speaking Spanish with a Mexican accent and using regional slang when he speaks. However, if there are Spanish speakers who work in or frequent the gym maybe Diego started speaking Spanish with them, picked up slang and other markers of 'home Spanish', and developed more of an accent through speaking with them over time. In fact, I love to think they intentionally tried to help Diego with his Spanish and sounding more like a native speaker because he was embarassed that he sounded like someone who spoke it as a second language despite being of Latin American descent.

And you might be thinking, 'Okay the guy speaks to him in Spanish, but Diego speaks to him in English', but stuff like that isn't at all uncommon in bilingual friendships. I'm a native English speaker, and I lived in Lanzarote for 6 months in 2012 on university placement. While I was never completely fluent in Spanish, I got pretty close in that time. I had friends and roommates who were native Spanish speakers and were also fluent in English. We mixed and changed and combined languages all the time. When I first moved there I was so determined to improve my Spanish I would more or less only speak Spanish, even when people spoke English to me which meant I regularly had conversations with friends where we were speaking separate languages. I was so used to switching languages when I moved back to Ireland more than once i said something in Spanish before remembering no one around me spoke it. So Diego speaking English in that moment doesn't mean they don't also speak Spanish together. It just means they probably speak a mix of English and Spanish.

(Yes I know the real reason Diego speaks Spanish like a native Mexican speaker is because he is played David Casteñada who is Mexican, and the scene where he argues with Ben was improvised, but I will never not overanalyse and create headcanons for this show, especially if they explain plotholes)

[amyred]

Sooo, here's the pinned post that no one asked for!!

Status:

Questions - Closed, for now.

Commissions - I don't make drawings XD

Current Fandom(s) - Hollow Knight, Undertale/Deltarune, Undertale Yellow, Pokemon, Sky: Children of the Light, Miraculous Ladybug, Murder Drones, AvAM, Arcane, My Little Pony, The Legend of Zelda, Star Wars, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Honkai: Star Rail, Epic: The Musical.

About me:

Haaaiiii, I'm Amy!! My pronouns are she/her, and I am trans bi! I'm an amateur fanfiction writer, but I've had writer's block for a long time 💔

Although I am already of legal age and I like both biological sexes, please refrain from making very explicit jokes or directly showing me NSFW things, as it is uncomfortable. I can tolerate light teasing like that, but nothing too strong.

Although I can technically be considered bilingual, English is still my second language and I am still learning the beautiful grammar of this language! I usually rely on Google Translate when I don't feel able to write in English fluently (Like now), but it's on rare occasions, so if you don't understand me that's why lmao. My native language is, of course, Spanish.

This post will be updated as I do more things, like writing, and learn new skills, like drawing.

Tags:

[lorz-ix]

Okay, so my own experience as someone who can speak two languages natively and can communicate in english competently. There are a few cases I can distinguish.

Case #1: I know some people, mostly family members, who I frequently talk to in either of our 2 native languages, and we can basically switch them mid-conversation, or talk each in a different language while perfectly understanding each other.

Case #2: for most people, there's a single language I associate with them because it's the one they use the most, even if they know other languages. For that reason, trying to speak to them in any other language, for example in english, feels very awkward and forced, so I use the main one exclusively.

Case #3: anyone who knows a native language other than english can probably relate to this one, but I will sometimes forget about a word or phrase in day-to-day conversation (or find a word with no exact translation) and will bring up the other language simply to fill a void in vocabulary.

Case #4: sometimes you just make jokes in a different language for whatever reason. Often it's quoting memes, often it's just "saying ay dios mio right now would sound kinda funny".

So yeah maybe it's just how I structure languages in my brain or whatever, I expect other people to have a different way they do things, but I do find that media trope of the foreign character who randomly switches languages, often for the sake of comedy, to be annoying, stereotypical and not very realistic and often lowkey racist. I personally wouldn't say random spanish words while I'm speaking english to people who wouldn't understand them unless I'm explicitly trying to make a joke.

Different languages have different ways to pronounce words, different rules for grammar, it takes a lot of effort to re-wire your brain and literally change the way you think about words if you want to competently communicate, for example, in english instead of spanish in my case. That's why, if it's hard to consciously make the change, it's even harder to do so accidentally.

To close off, I feel like I should mention that I imagine some bilingual people are so comfortable and at such a high level in both languages that they can effortlessly switch them in the middle of a sentence (like I can with my 2 native languages) but I feel like it's less common than the average internet denizen who knows 1 native language and later learns a more universal language like english. And indeed, if someone isn't comfortable enough with their second language yet, it is indeed very likely that they will switch back and forth from what they would speak normally, because they haven't yet breached that barrier of "thinking" in the language you're trying to use at that time.

I know experiences vary, I know technically bilingual people can do the thing they do in media. I just don't think the average media portrayal is written by someone who understands or wants to understand the nuance.

tumblr posts about writing bilingual characters: bilinguals DO NOT change their language in the middle of the conversation! It's unrealistic!

me, who said the phrase "i have beaucoup de friends" this morning:

[wordsbyrian]

Polyglot - USWNT x Reader

Summary: After one odd interview, Kelley, Sonny, and some others stop at nothing to figure out what Y/N has been (not) hiding.

A/N: I’ve been lurking for a while and finally decided to post something. Hope you enjoy it.

It's not unusual for you to find yourself in situations where the team has just found out something about you and then they proceed to act like you had been hiding it from them.

In fact, that is the exact situation you find yourself in right now, the whole team staring at you as walk into the locker room after you finish a post-game interview with a Spanish-speaking outlet.

"Why didn't you tell us that you could speak Spanish," Kelley asks the moment the locker room door closes behind you.

"You didn't ask. Besides, it's not like it's a secret, Ashley and Sophia have known for a while now."

Kelley's head immediately turns to stare at the two women across the locker room, who are just trying to mind their own business.

"You guys knew and didn't say anything," she whines, beginning to stomp her way across the space.

Before she can reach them though, Alex calmly blocks her path and leads Kelley to her own locker, whispering in hushed tones, presumably something about leaving you guys alone so everyone can get back to the hotel.

You think it works because she doesn't bring it up again until dinner later that night.

"So are you going to tell me why none of you ever mentioned that the baby can speak Spanish," she asks, plopping into a seat directly in front of the three of you, Sonnett taking the seat immediately to her left.

At the same time that you mumble about not being a baby, Ashley answers her.

"Once again, no one was hiding it. In fact, we thought that you all knew already, she's been on the team for like two years."

"Of course we didn't know," Sonnett says, "The only times we've ever seen her sit still for more than five minutes, she was asleep!"

"You're one to talk," you say, "The first time I met you, you were wrestling Kelley and Rose in the hotel lobby."

"Whatever, that doesn't explain how you know Spanish," she snarks.

"If you must know, my childhood babysitter didn't speak much English and I spent six days a week with her from the ages of one to 12. Also, I'm not sure if you remember this but I've been living in Barcelona for almost four years."

"Wait, so when did you learn English?"

Kelley mirrors the confused look on Sonnett's face and much to your surprise a few others sat close enough to hear the conversation.

"At the same time," you say, finally looking at them. "It's called simultaneous bilingualism and it's actually really prevalent. It's estimated that half of the world is functionally bilingual and that a majority of that number consider themselves to be native speakers of two languages."

"Sonny, I think the baby just called us stupid," Kelley says, shellshocked.

"She did," Ashley and Sophia speak at the same time and you watch as both Kelley and Sonnett deflate at the plain way they say it.

You thought that was the end of the entire situation until during the next camp a video surfaced online of you speaking French with the media after Barcelona's loss to Lyon in the Champions League final last season.

You had been tagged in the clip what felt like a million times, so it's not surprising that Kelley and Sonentt managed to get their hands on it.

This is how you found yourself hiding in Alex and Kelley's hotel room playing with Charlie, it was the last place the Frat Daddies would think to check. Hopefully, they wouldn't think of it until it's time to leave for the weightlifting session.

"Do you really think that you can avoid them forever," Alex asks, watching as you catch Charlie when she flings her little body off the bed at you.

"No, but I only need to avoid them until we get on the bus because then they'll have to deal with Christen and Sanchez when they try to mess with me."

"If you say so."

"I do."

You're right for the most part, the only time it falters is when Kelley comes back to grab her things before training. That results in the team being treated to the sight of her chasing you down the hallway with Charlie thrown over your shoulder and Alex yelling behind you about making sure not to drop her child.

Outside of that though, it goes off without a hitch with both your best friend and your team mom taking turns glaring at Kelley and Sonnett when they attempt to bother you.

That might be why it's so surprising when Lindsey is the one who brings it up during movie night as you wait for Sam and Kristie to finish arguing about what movie to watch.

"Y/N, truth or dare?"

"Uh, truth," you answer, not bothering to lift your head from its place smushed into a pillow. You’re comfortably lying between Christen and Tobin, with Mal sprawled over the three of you and moving would definitely ruin that.

"How many languages are you fluent in," she asks.

"Fluency is an arbitrary scale that varies from person to person," is the answer you give, even though you know it won't be enough for them to leave you alone.

“For the love of god, would you please just answer the question so they stop bothering both you and me,” Sanchez groans from her place on the other bed.

“Fine. I speak and read English, Spanish and French. I can read German,” you say, struggling to sit up from under Mal’s body weight. “I can only flirt in Dutch but I’m working on learning to read it. Also, Rolfö is teaching me Swedish.”

The line about flirting earns you multiple pinches from the women in the bed with you, but for the most part, everyone is stunned into silence.

The first person to make any sound is Sophia laughing so hard that she can barely get out her words, “Of course, Y/N/N is learning Dutch to talk to girls, it’s like U17s and U20s all over again.”

While you roll your eyes and wish that the conversation would end there, it doesn’t because Kristie says what everyone is thinking.

“So you, the person who dropped out of high school to play in Spain, speak three languages and are actively learning three more?”

“Yes, but can we stop telling people I dropped out of high school because I didn’t.”

“You being a genius really explains why your people skills are so severely lacking with anyone who doesn’t play soccer,” Lindsey says, ignoring you.

“All in favor of changing the baby’s nickname from ‘the baby’ to ‘baby genius’ raise your hands.” Kelley laughs when she sees you're the only one to keep your hand down. “ Motion passes, Y/N shall henceforth be known as 'Baby Genius'.”

“Don’t call me that, please,” you beg.

“Sorry Baby Genius, I’ve already changed your name in the group chat.” Her statement is backed up by the synchronized vibrating of everyone’s phones.

All you can do is let out another groan and sink back into the bed while everyone laughs.

But the night goes on and the subject ends up being dropped permanently. At least that’s what you think until somehow you find yourself, alongside Mal, being called over to do a post-game interview with ESPN at the end of the game later that week.

Most of the questions are directed at her, unsurprisingly, but eventually, the reporter turns her attention to you.

“Y/N, you guys had your hands full defensively tonight and there was even a moment where you had to track back and clear a ball off the goal line after a mishandling by Naeher. What was going through your mind at that moment?”

“Uhm, mostly a lot of inappropriate language but also the fact that I kinda caused Lys to mishandle the ball and it’d really suck if it went in because of my mistake, so I had to make sure that didn’t happen,” you say, wiping some of your sweat away.

“One more question, Y/N,” she says. “Recently, a ton of videos of you speaking both French and Spanish have surfaced online, is this a new development or have you been hiding this talent?”

“I’ve not been hiding it, most of my interviews since going to Barcelona have been in Spanish but no one in America really asks about it. I’ve been speaking both Spanish and French for a long time now, it’s not that impressive,” you say, unsure if the heat in your cheeks is leftover from the game or because of the spotlight you find yourself forced into.

It only gets worse because Mal takes it upon herself to brag on your behalf.

“She’s just being humble, Y/N spends all of her free time studying languages and is working on three others right now.”

The reporter looks shocked, “Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“A skilled soccer player and a natural born polyglot, you can really do it all. Y/N, Mal thank you for your time.” She turns back to the camera before sending the broadcast back to whoever happens to be in the studio.

As you walk away, Ashley walks over to you, slinging her arm over your shoulder.

“Don’t look so grumpy. We won and now the world knows you’re a genius,” she says.

“She called me a polyglot,” you grumble.

“Ok?”

“I’m not, I only speak three languages.”

Sanchez just sighs and shakes her head, continuing to lead you toward the sidelines where fans are waiting for photos and autographs.

“Don’t worry Baby Genius, we’ll work on your people skills.”

[piers-wifey]

I’m so sorry for bothering you again 😅😅😅

Can you do a headcanon for RE Boys x Reader where the reader is a polyglot/multilingual?

Gosh I'm really sorry that it took me so long to get to your request Ballo. Work and low motivation really kicked my butt here lmao. Anyway, thank you for your request my friend I hope you like them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RE boys with a polyglot/multilingual s/o

Piers Nivans

Piers fucking loves that you speak multiple languages. He thinks it makes you even more attractive

He was baffled when he heard you say something in a different language for the first time. He wasn't even aware that you were polyglot

You asked him to close the bedroom windows and were surprised when he didn't move an inch and stared at you in confusion

At first you didn't even realized that you had said something to him in a different language and asked if something was wrong

Piers, still dumbfounded by the situation, tried to repeat what you've said to him. Needless to say that he failed miserably

Luckily you somehow managed to understand what he was babbling and couldn't help it but giggle at his attempt. Not in a mean, but adoring way

Piers will definitely learn at least one of the languages you speak, preferably your native language. But if your native language is English, then he'll learn the one you like the most to impress you

Finn Macauley

Finn is impressed by the amount of languages you know and thinks you're super smart and talented

He has always been fascinated by foreign languages. He even tried to learn Spanish a few years back, but had to stop when he joined the BSAA

He has a huge soft spot for people who are multilingual and it really shows

He will often ask you to speak and sing in another language. Simply because he adores the way your voice changes and how melodic and beautiful it sounds

You could tell him to write bread on the grocery list and he'd be a blushy mess

Secretly teaches himself words of endearment and sentences like: "I love you" or "Good morning/night my sweetheart" to surprise you

Chris Redfield

He was amazed when he found out that you speak more than one language

Will ask you all sorts of questions about it. When you started to learn them, how long it took you to become fluent, etc.

He's also interested in the culture and traditions of the country the language is from and wants to learn more about it

Since he's a bilingual himself, he knows about the struggles of switching languages mid-sentence or forgetting a certain word in English and replacing it with the one from another language

Offers you to teach you some terms of endearment and things like "I love you" in the language he knows in exchange for the ones from the languages you speak

Chris isn't really the kind of guy who would show off his partner like some sort of trophy, but if someone asked him where he learned how to speak *insert language here*, he will tell them with a proud smile that it was you who taught him

Leon S. Kennedy

Leon is in complete awe every time he hears you talk

It just amazes him that a person is able to speak in so many languages without a problem. He has met a lot of people who are bilingual and even some who speak a third language, but none of them was as impressive as you are

Leon will definitely ask you to translate a few things for him or help him with pronouncing a certain word or even a whole sentence. And it's not always because he wants to know what this word or the text means. He just loves to hear you talk. This man could listen to you for hours. But since he doesn't want to make it too obvious, he's trying to be sneaky. Spoiler alert: It's not working. You are aware of it, but you decided not to say anything and just play along

He also likes to show you off to his friends. Every time he translates a word they don't know, he tells them that it was you who taught him that. He's just so incredibly proud of you and happy to be the one by your side that he feels obliged to let the world know that you're a gorgeous and smart cookie

Leon may not be the best when it comes to learning a new language, but he's trying his best and very determined to impress you and make you blush. So please don't laugh too hard when he pronounces a word wrong or accidentally uses a wrong word. He really is trying his best

Albert Wesker

He wouldn't admit it out loud, but people who speak multiple languages are very attractive to him

He values intelligence a lot and being fluent in different languages requires both intelligence and skill. So, the more languages you speak, the more he finds himself drawn to you

The first time you called him Love or Darling in a language he didn't understand, he was confused and demanded to know what you were calling him

Over the time he got used to it and finds it even endearing when you call him all those nice names

Albert never asked you to teach him those cutesy names but that wasn't even necessary. I mean you're calling him that on a daily basis so it's no surprise that he memorized them and now calls you that too. His favourite pet name however is and always will be Dearheart

Carlos Oliveira

Carlos is straight up thrilled when he learns that you can speak more than one language

He'll beg you to talk in the other ones more often. It's not that he doesn't like it when he hears you speak English, but hearing you call him "Baby" or "Love" in other languages, preferably your native tongue, makes his heart flutter

Finds it super sweet when you accidentally switch languages or forget a word and, often without even realizing, replace it with the one you know from another language. It happens to him all the time so he's familiar with the struggle. But he'd never laugh at you. He may chuckle and tease you a little, but he'll stop immediately when you tell him or he notices that it makes you uncomfortable

This man is in total awe of you and will literally treat you like royalty every time you say or translate something for him. He just can't believe that he, out of all people, was lucky enough to win the heart of such a smart and gorgeous person

Carlos finds it incredibly hot and even a little scary when you switch languages mid-sentence when you're angry and calling rude or annoying people out on their bullshit

Nikolai Zinoviev

Only slightly impressed by your ability. At least that's what he tells you. You, however know damn well that he is very impressed by that and just too stubborn and prideful to admit it

Secretly hopes that you speak Russian. And if he's lucky and you do, Nikolai will be delighted. He'll talk to you in Russian all day. Not only does he feel more comfortable speaking in his native language, he can also be way more affectionate and naughty with you without having to worry that people are eavesdropping

If you call him something in another language, whether it's a cute pet name or a funny/harmless insult, he'll sternly demand to know what exactly that word means. And may the gods be with you should he ever find out you called him something embarrassing or straight up insulted him. Not, that you would ever think of doing such a thing

Will eventually get used to the different pet names and even have some favourites among them. He might even pick up on some of them and start calling you that too

But his interest in learning a new language is basically nonexistent. He's quite happy with being bilingual and has better things to do than wasting his time with such nonsense

Billy Coen

I'm going to be honest here. Billy loves it when you speak in another language. He doesn't even have to understand what you're saying. Your voice and the way your tone changes when you speak is already enough to make him feel things

Like, you could say utter nonsense or throw random words into the room and he would still find it hot

Of course he would ask you what you were saying and he would definitely feel like a complete idiot when you tell him that you were talking about how you used to steal your grandma's teeth from her nightstand when you were little. But fucking hell you made it sound so hot; I'm sure he won't be embarrassed by that for too long

Billy feels obliged to show you off to his friends/comrades. I mean hello?? You are fluent in a shit ton of languages, you can literally teach him how to cuss and mock in them and make it sound like the biggest compliment. So how can he not?

Lets you teach him some terms of endearment (deep down this man is a hopeless romantic and wants to show you how special you are to him)

Richard Aiken

Precious boy Richard is head over heals for you and your ability to talk in more than one language

He doesn't even try to hide it

Though he isn't known to brag a lot, Richard just can't resist the urge to show you off to his fellow teammates at least a little bit. Is it endearing? Yes. Does the rest of S.T.A.R.S. tease him for being a little fanboy? Absolutely. But you're just so cool and talented and smart. How can he not fanboying over you?

He will ask you to teach him a little bit of each language you speak. It's both a great way to spend time with you and to learn more about different countries and their cultures and traditions

As S.T.A.R.S communications expert, Richard learned to communicate in both sign language and morse code; which he will gladly teach you in return. But only if you're interested

Masterlist

Tag list: @thatgoblin @bsaa-bitch @dorkyratqueen @finnmacauleys @ravenrune @simpforabba @myangeldustisaesthetic

[narcosmx]

being the arellano baby sister and being into barron would include (pt.1)...

a/n: deep sigh i had half of this done but i'm still getting used to my new keyboard and refreshed the page by accident so thi s is take 2/2 i fuckign hope

aokay so i do this thing with characters in shows and movies who are english second language learners where i score their english skills especially native spanish speakers

that is what the emphasis in my teaching credential is okay

anyways what this is amounting to is that from my research in episode 2 of narcos enedina presents as the one who speaks the best english

i would actually consider her like a 3/4 dependent on her writing abilities of course

anyways like min doesn't even attempt to speak english, mon is like a 1/4 maybe, i imagine pancha picked some up in prison but prison is also very racial and ethnic gang based mostly as a tool for survival

regardless endina speaks the best english and it isn't quite at the level of a native speaker yet

and barron seems to speak spanish well on a conversational basis and is aware of slang and stuff which shows a different level of understanding but it is still clearly a second lmnguage to him

the communication of ideas especially across languages is usually one of he most challenging paerts of language learning

and this can be pretty key while discussing things like strategies and plans you know

therefore, there needs to be the bridge in this relationship between the two languages... a true bilingual and that's where baby arellano comes in

baby arellano grew up when the family was making more money, not narcos money but better off than any of the other sibs growing up

therefore, to private schools you go! in a lot of areas in mexico, private schools are kinda the only options for a quality and priviliged education especially in the english language

so youve been speaking english and spanish ever since you were a child; spanish everywhere else and english at school

maybe you're at this point a native speaker or as close to a native speaker as can be ... regardless you have a command of english that surpasses your siblings and of course you're a native spanish speaker

i have this feeling that your role as the bridge between languages is something you stumbled into or like something you accidently brought on to yourself

i can see it happening as something in passing, let's say it was panchita's welcome home party at roxanne which is the first time you meet barron

okay i'm crying at the idea of barron's eyes immediately locking on to you as soon as he notices you in the club

like he's very quiet and observant, he can keep track of you slyly without anyone noticing but without any of your movements going unnoticed. that's what makes him valuable later

it happens that like barron, ramon, javier and pancha are talking or whatever and you're walking by and leaning over to give pancha a kiss on the top of his head or a slap really depending on how much of an asshole he has gotten to be in his like hour home

and you kinda step in at the right moment

lets say mon tells barron something and you can see it in barrons face that he is searching for words, like just going through the catalogs in him mind

and you are casually like "he said ___________, babe" and barron's response is kinda slow, only giving a small semblance of a smile and this like soft nod and thank you

and of course you wink back at him with a shit eating grin which is when pancha like cuts in and is like "this is our baby sister, try not to pay much attention to her. works for me"

but barron isn't processing any of this because he's just taking in you and your energy

and min being the cock block that he is probably sweeps in to lead you away by your arm

but this is where i can jump in to benjamin's original distaste and apathy for barron

as seen in season 2, benjamin is not trusting of barron and essentially calls him a gringo ... an outsider even within his own culture

so benjmain would not be very pleased about barron hanging out with you, around you, in your vacinity but then again when has benjamin being grumpy ever stopped you

you have learned to ignore the like "behave yourself" glares you get from benjamin as you begin to put yourself in more situations where you get to be the language bridge

you hang out more around pancha and ramon, using the excuse that like "fuck i haven't seen pancha in a while, this ugly bitch is my brother too"

and you keep giving yourself the role of this bridge whenever either side is lost for words... and i am just imaging you as bby arellano kinda getting frustrated and more determined

simply by the fact that you don't get a reaction out of barron like you would get out of other men

you're used to batting your eyelashes a few times and getting whatever you wanted

and barron's kinda just nods, smiles and looks away when you wink at him or give him little looks and you're like "UM HELLO"

but barron's not fucking dumb, he knows the importance of this connection to the arellanos and the distrust that benjamin holds

so going after the family bby doesn't really lend itself to that now does it

so he's just left almost stewing can you scream sexual tension because OOF

barron's eyes nearly burning into you and you begin to notice which means you dedicate yourself to making his job as fucking impossible as possible

aka wearing these...choice outfits when you go to the meetings to facilitate the language thing

this is probably when you start seeing barron crack; like hairline fracture...

you can see it in his facial expressions, in the way he looks at you and has this little smirk and shakes his head at you

in the way that his breath changes ever so slightly when you lock eyes with him

i ...just... shit whispered under his breath as he's finally like entertainhing your interactions turning in to like stolen conversations whenever you were well out of min's eyes

having to rush change subjects whenever mon or pancha came around

but this changes after the shooting at the christine

okay so im thinking im going to have to make a whole ass different post where it's like... barron protecting you at the shooting

but this .... is the events that cement's the arellano's and really min's trust in him

and whether it be out of fear, concern or just general over protective brothering, benjamin makes it clear to barron and all of the siblings you don't leave without being in barron's sight

and for the first time in your goddamn life you jump on min's rule like "you KNOW WHAT YES YOU'RE RIGHT"

benjamin is like "you're going out for a run? barron better be driving behind you" and you're literally like say less

and so of course your ass goes to put on your best ass defining leggings and the cutest top and you're like "i'm going for a run", locking eyes with barron and he tries his best to keep his expression under control as he nods, slowly gets up and is like "after you, princesa"

and as he's getting into the car and you walking past him and finally getting to see this fucking smirk on his faceb as he checks you out and is like "you really trying to get me killed, aren't you, baby" and you're just like "enjoy the show" as you staRT RUNNING AND OMG SHOULD I END HERE ILL END PT 1 HERE

[lavenoon]

Hey! Bilingual with English as the second language high five! :D I just wanted to say, omg I know what you mean! Like, I can still read stuff in Spanish without it feeling weird if it was by a known classic author from Latin America or Spain, but it's hard to get into more recent stuff and god I feel so clumsy trying to write fiction in Spanish! It's such a weird feeling where you know good stuff can exist in your language but kind of prefering English because that's where your main entertainment is most of the time. And the struggle of always double checking something that sounds right to you but then you realize something is off and you gotta go google it to make sure you’re not gonna raise any eyebrows when you post it. But it’s very interesting as well, how we interpret everything based on our own languages! How we can apply our native phrases to situations that take place in other languages! (Sorry for rambling, my area of study just has to do a lot with the study of the structure and evolution of languages so this stuff is super inter to me dfgjfhfdgdshg)

DON'T BE SORRY I AM SHAKING YOUR HAND SO HARD

This quote by Yiyun Li, I feel it so hard:

It is hard to feel in an adopted language, yet it is impossible in my native language.

I feel like with classic works there's still a certain distance, but with contemporary anything? It's so close, it feels too close, too vulnerable to even try to express yourself and to such a degree that sometimes it's unthinkable that other people can

I sometimes just talk (or, well, write) anything that at some point, I just translated for myself without checking anything official, and the confusion I get in return makes me actually look things up :|

And the interpretations too!! Like, super clumsy/ blunt example, but bread. In the states, it's the ultra soft white bread ppl usually go for and talk about, meanwhile here we call it toast bread bc that's the only thing it's good for /hj /lh. All the jokes about the crust of german bread being capable of killing someone have a grain of truth <3

But I just. I just love thinking about languages like it's all so so fascinating to me, like I mentioned before I love puns, n part of the reason is just that how language works just so so cool! How often puns aren't translatable because of missing cultural context, and how people still try - I love it so so much!

I wish I'd have learned more languages - I learned Spanish for a year and a half in middle school, and tried my hand at Dutch while I was living in the Netherlands, and I did get my latinum certificate in middle school too, which makes reading romance languages at least somewhat possible. But besides English I'm not fluent in any other non German language, and it's a shame, because there's just so much cultural context hidden behind languages!

[the-necessary-unnecessary]

I'm writing a story with a multilingual character. I just know some Spanish aside from English so I'd like to ask for your input, since you know several languages. Can you "rank" your languages? Like which one you can speak and understand best, second best and so on? Or are they on the same level? Do you mix them up at times? Do you have an accent in all or some of your languages? Is there anything else about being multilingual that you think might be interesting? Thanks so much in advance!

ooh I like this! Well first a little disclaimer, I’m native in two languages (Spanish and English) and can get by with a basic level of French so I’m definitely not the most multilingual person on here but I can answers these questions from a mostly bilingual perspective. 

So my ranking would be English, closely followed by Spanish, and then way far down French. For me, although my understanding of both spanish and english is at the same level (ie. I can think in both, dream in both, not be paying attention to conversations and still understand it all and anything else a native speaker of a language does), however my spoken and written English is a bit better. There are a lot of different reasons for this which I won’t get into here but it’s definitely been a bit of a struggle when you’re half half and yet one language dominates your day to day more than the other, kinda like I’m letting down half of who I am. Anyways that got deep very quickly.

Secondly, yes I do mix them up at times. Having grown up in an environment where both my close family and most of my friends spoke both languages means that I’ve grown a bit lazy and will speak in whatever comes fastest to me. As in I’ll be speaking English and just insert a spanish word/phrase in if that’s what my brain thinks of first. Also, swearing comes a lot more naturally to me in Spanish, as does a couple of filler words- as in the spanish equivalents of ‘like’ etc. But definitely not the stereotypical things you read in badly written stories like saying ‘hola’ or ‘amigo’ just randomly.

As for accents, I used to speak with a slight english accent in Spanish which didn’t help my identity problems lol, but I speak with a madrid based accent now so pretty neutral. My english accent is english and always has been, the catch is though that my accent cant be placed because I’ve had so many influences on it. As I grew up mostly outside of the UK my accent is an agglomeration of what I’ve watched, my family, my teachers, friends etc. Someone went as far as to say my accent was Australian, but that’s a reach and a half- it’s certainly english but not specific to a place (again, identity crisis)

Not sure what else to include really other than the fact that I have ‘speciality’ areas in each language. For example, having grown up both playing and watching football in Spanish then I tent to switch to spanish when watching football/other sports (less now though that my footballing influence has become more english on here). Oh and as for French, it was a hell of a lot easier to pick up having a basis in both two languages and especially a latin root language. Hope some of this helps! What sort of story is it if I may ask?

[rivkahstudies]

hey Rivkah! I've seen you post about having career goals related to linguistic anthropology and you've also posted that discrimination, especially linguistic discrimination, is one of the worst things about society your opinion. I was wondering if you had any ideas about how one could counter linguistic discrimination, either as part of a career or on the side. I'm especially interested in hearing your thoughts on how one might be able to do this outside of doing ling anth in academia.

Hi honey! I’m really honored to receive this question because it’s so insightful and dedicated to something I’m incredibly passionate about. It overlaps with sociology, law, and politics. So, first I’ll talk about what I’m personally planning to do outside of/past academia, and then I’ll talk about other avenues one can take, both on a large and small scale.

Right now, my goals are to be either a medical or legal interpreter, and I’m leaning toward the latter. What that means, for those that don’t know, is that I want to go through a graduate degree or certificate program in order to be certified to translate specific languages orally in a highly specialized workplace, namely a hospital or a courtroom.

The reason why I’m so passionate about this job is because, while we have laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (which prohibits discrimination based on “national origin,” which is closely tied to the native language you speak) we still see a lot of prejudice and violence against people who choose to speak their native/a different language on their own terms in public. 

More specifically, what I aim to do is make it easier for non-native English speakers (especially, but not limited to, immigrants) receive the same services all people have a right to but they may have difficulty getting, such as medical attention or accurate legal representation. Interpretation is incredibly high stakes in my eyes because you have to translate automatically, in person, with a lot of pressure on you to do it quickly and accurately. And that’s really scary, but to me, what’s scarier is that someone might not be getting the care they need or be understood in a courtroom, and that could impact their health, their safety, their freedom, or their ability to get justice.

While someone might not necessarily be actively sabotaged in a courtroom or a hospital, those are high profile environments with a lot of pressure, and not a lot of time for patience and forgiveness if you’re trying to get through a case or to the next patient. The odds are stacked against someone who doesn’t have the specific vocabulary needed to accurately describe their symptoms or deliver their testimony. 

And that’s not even counting the ingrained and/or active biases that are found on a serious level in the United States healthcare and justice systems. One of the reasons I’m leaning toward legal interpretation is because I would love to be employed by an organization that protects immigrants from being exploited or abused by our current administration. And that’s so much easier to do when you have bilingual representation to fight with you for your rights.

So, that’s a little background on what I’m specifically studying and fighting for. Here are just a few quick bullets that I always tell people when talking about linguistic discrimination and our role in it.

On a large scale, you can:

Go into a career like mine (law, interpretation, translation, etc) that focuses on combating it.

Support political campaigns and anti-discrimination bill campaigns by volunteering your time to organizations like the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and RAICES (Refugee And Immigrant Center for Education and legal Services)

SPEAKING OF WHICH, if you’re like me and you use Lyft, you can donate to RAICES with each Lyft Ride. They’ll round up to the nearest dollar on your fee and donate that extra. All you have to do is go to the app and opt in under “Donate.”

Attend conferences, meetings, workshops, and rallies that center around this topic and intersecting ones that you may be interested in.

Volunteer your time to places like housing projects. This is something that I’m on an email/calling list to do. Specifically for me, it’s the Boston Housing Authority, and their volunteers send in a resume, state which languages they have high proficiency in (mine is currently only Spanish) and then attend a training to understand how to do it accurately and with cultural sensitivity. It’s great practice if you need to polish your language skills, are planning to go into a career like mine, or want to use highly-specialized vocabulary. I’ve had to pick up a lot of words that have to do with landlords, rent, housing laws, etc. A lot of the people serviced by the BHA are immigrants or non-native speakers and struggle with things such as reading official letters or making appointments with native English speakers. When they struggle to do this, they’re more likely to get taken advantage of by landlords, evicted unfairly, or mistreated.

Support (through volunteering, donating, etc) indigenous or indigenous-helping groups that combat issues ranging from seizure of land in the Amazon to indigenous groups working on their terms to preserve/revitalize their language(s). It’s really easy for indigenous voices to  

On a small (but equally important) scale, you can:

Call out linguistic discrimination that you see, such as people denying individuals service based on hearing them speak in another language, or unnecessarily bothering them in public. Whenever possible, take video of the incident.

Have polite and informed discussions with people who want to know more about it or might not understand why it’s a problem. This is particularly important to have with kids, and while I was volunteering/teaching Hebrew I made sure that it was integrated into the lessons.

Remain informed on cases involving linguistic discrimination.

Call your representatives when cases come up concerning linguistic discrimination or immigration policy.

Vote for representatives who believe in acceptance and equality for people who come from different backgrounds/languages. 

Boycott/denounce companies and organizations that improperly handle workplace/customer discrimination or instigate it themselves.

Follow native speakers, particularly indigenous individuals and/or minority language speakers, as well as linguistic/social activists and journalists/academics, on your social media feeds (my preferred one to check is Twitter) for updates and opinions on issues that may help you get more informed outside of a classroom/professorial setting.

Be aware of the kinds of resources you should reach out to (administration, superiors, HR, etc) should you find yourself experiencing or watching someone experience linguistic discrimination.

Disclaimer: before stepping into any confrontations, make sure you assess the danger of the situation (this where it’s really good to go to trainings to learn how to handle these kinds of situations). Your goal is to always de-escalate and make the person being discriminated against safer, as well as of course keeping yourself safe too. If there’s violence or anyone is in immediate danger, call the authorities and document whatever you can safely. I’ve only ever seen people being verbally abused for their use of their language(s), but it’s a scary world out there right now.

Overall, it’s really important to remember that this kind of discrimination does not exist in a vacuum and almost always has ties/roots in other forms of discrimination and racism. While it may seem like you’re only doing something small by stepping into and diffusing confrontation/condemning discrimination, you’re having a ripple effect that lets people who linguistically discriminate know that they should be ashamed of their words/actions. 

ALSO, friendly reminder that people who discriminate/harass someone for speaking in another language, having an accent, etc, are not entitled to be put up with due to free speech. That isn’t what it means.

A couple more resources on language discrimination in the workplace:

Language Discrimination & Workplace Fairness

Legal Aid at Work

World Language Education: Preventing Linguistic Discrimination

THIS IS BY NO MEANS ALL-ENCOMPASSING! It is also fed by the researched but incomplete knowledge I have on the subject as a non-expert and a student who is aspiring to meet these kinds of goals. Because I’m a student, I’m always learning, and that means growth must sometimes take the place of changing things I thought I knew and admitting mistakes. 

If you have anything else you want to add to this, please feel free to message me or reply/reblog. 

If you see any inaccuracies, incomplete information, or other concerns/issues with what I’ve written here, please take the time to contact me and educate me! 

I hope this is a good answer and satisfactorily answered your question, @stressfulsemantics ? Please feel free to ask any follow-up or message me for anything you may need!

[aroaceofthesea]

"yeah all languages are equally difficult and-" stop imma stop you right there

That's like so fake. True, maybe if it's your native language you learn to speak it at more or less the same rate, but some languages ARE harder to get right than others.

Take catalan and spanish, for example. They are both my native languages, they are pretty similar, and I speak or write with them both a lot. I take most classes in catalan except for spanish, to which we dedicate 4 hours a week, which are the same as catalan class hours (some years we get other classes in spanish but I generally try to get people to be alright with the teacher talking in catalan (surprisingly it usually works) but sometimes the teacher just prefers spanish). And even though I'm way more comfortable with catalan than spanish, in my opinion spanish is way easier than catalan.

For a written language example, take accents (or whatever they are called in english, the à things). The rules in both languages are basically the same but then while in spanish it's always the same (áéíóú) in catalan you have more options (àèéíòóú) and the worst part: you just have to know which one it is on e and o, there are no rules that tell you. So if you have intuition like me it's cool, no problem. But even people who have been raised in catalan, like my sister or my mom, who was raised in a small town where she almost only spoke catalan till university, they have trouble telling each other apart by saying the word out loud (which is like the only way to know other than memorizing every single word). You have no idea how tiring it is having my sister asking me if it's an open (è) or closed (é) accent when she has homework about it it's terrible (no, coffee is not café it's cafè, and shit like this).

If we're talking more about a speaking thing (imma ignore that you have more vocal sounds and shit like this, you just gotta learn how to say them) there's this thing called the 'pronoms febles' (in english: weak pronouns) which are probably the hardest thing about catalan. They are used to refer to things mentioned in previous sentences and they are so complicated no one expects you to know how to use them in a lot of cases (except for catalan teachers they expect you to say 'les les hi he donat' to say 'i gave them(femenine) the apples' like um nopeee). Even people who generally try to speak as correctly as possible like me, it's impossible to get them always right when speaking. So unless you have a perfectionist correcting you every time (and even then they won't notice half the time) you will never get them right while speaking just accept it and move on. Another thing that may make it harder for a lot of people is that spanish doesn't use them so if you haven't been raised in catalan it's going from zero, so most people don't use them (usually they forget they even exist) and if you are raised in catalan but by people who were raised in spanish you likely won't use them either, etc, etc, etc. So yeah it's a good thing no one expects you to know them because you won't.

So 'all languages are equally difficult' is a big lie, created to get us to learn more languages or something, I don't know. I just know that as someone natively bilingual, to say it somehow, I find one of the languages I know, which isn't even the one I'm more comfortable with or the one I like better, to be easier than the other.

[lefthanded-sans]

Heya! You're a linguist, right? Any advice for someone who would love to get into English linguistics with a burning passion, but don't see that as being possible owing to the fact that they're a foreigner/not a native speaker and are afraid they might not get any work because of it other than translation (and I'm guessing the pay isn't that great anyway)? Or just, what's it like being a linguist?

Heyaaaa! Great to chat with you again! Sorry for being so slow responding to you, and I hope this answer helps!

I’ll go through all of these questions, because why not? I want to help as much as I can, and I’m always willing to help and talk more. I’ll also be backtracking and talking some basics of what it means to be a linguist, just so that other people who read this can follow along with the discussion. 

What it’s like being a linguist!

Unlike what many people might suspect, linguistics isn’t a field about speaking a ton of languages. While many linguists speak more than one tongue fluently, that’s because we love language, not because that’s the heart of our profession. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and it covers everything from how we anatomically pronounce words, to the physical acoustic properties of language, to how words and sentences are structured, to how we humans socially respond to language, and more. It means there are a ton of subfields in linguistics, and that linguistics can often get interdisciplinary.

My primary subfield all throughout my undergraduate and graduate work was phonetics, which is the study of language at its smallest sound units. I studied the acoustic properties of sounds, how the vocal tract biologically was made up and moved to create these sounds, the acoustic makeup of all the tiny sound units in a language (often represented as letters in languages) - aka phonemes, how the presence of one sound unit can alter how another is pronounced, things like phrasal tone where your voice pitch varies throughout a sentence, and more.

While I love phonetics, the truth is that the high majority of my career work hasn’t been in phonetics. Almost all of my work has been in the semantic-syntactic interface - where the meaning of sentences interacts with how sentences are structured. In a given day of work, I’ll receive hoards of written sentences online from a computer database. My overseers will tell me how they want me to analyze and organize the data, usually through some sort of annotation scheme where I make notes on top of the sentences. I analyze how meaning is embedded through the structure of the sentences according to that annotation scheme, then send the data back to be processed by computers. That’s because most of my work has to do with machine learning. For computers to get better at understanding sentences, we feed data with annotations to them to help them understand how to parse sentences. Then, they can make future better “comprehension” choices on their own with new sentences they receive. This has a variety of applications, including improving online search functions or making virtual assistants like Siri and Amazon Echo understand you better.

There is a somewhat fair though not unending amount of work to be found in this area, if you know where to look.

Now, I’m going to be transparent about the financial situation and work stability situation of my jobs. That way, you can decide whether or not it’s something you want to gamble yourself. And it is a little gamble because I’m not living a full-time, steady, long-term job. Currently, I work as a contract consultant, annotator, and adjudicator. Sometimes clients will hire me to look at their data for one month, three months, or in the luckiest cases, a year. This means I am constantly looking for new work, I don’t have any health, etc. benefits because I’m part-time (this is of course an issue for my country, not internationally), and I often am doing one to four contracts simulntaneously. There’s also something to be said that, even when I’m hired for a position, data comes in SPURTS - sometimes there are weeks where I’m twiddling my thumbs doing nothing, and other weeks where I am overloaded with tight deadlines and have to work around the clock. 

In all of my positions, I’m working temporarily with clients in part-time temporary jobs. It’s remote work where I can choose the hours of the day I work, chill in my pajamas at home, all sorts of great stuff. I communicate with my coworkers or superiors almost entirely through email and online chat, with the RARE Skype call or face-to-face meeting.I tend to get my contracts through a company called Appen or by connecting with old peers from my university days (I still work for my university’s cognitive science research department, in fact). I started doing annotations part-time when I was an undergraduate sophomore in 2012 and was paid about $11 an hour. Now, I make about $18-20 per hour for my contract positions. Specifically, I have slowly bargained up my pay from about $12 to $20 in the last year. So I’m getting increasingly paid higher with each new gig. I don’t know how much higher I can increasingly climb, but it’s not bad pay when I get enough hours (and hours is where it’s hardest to win).

Other linguists will have different types of jobs than me. There is a ton of work - and good stable work! - in the computational linguistics field if you’re interesting in programming and working with the computer side of studying language. That’s the safest gamble. Other linguists will contact indigenous people groups to study endangered languages, and spend their days either out in the field recording speech with tape recorders, or studying the language closely in their office. Others will get their TOEFL certificates and teach English to non-native speakers. Lots of different things that might come up. Again, if you know where to look, and if you’re creative enough to know how to apply your degree to different things.

You’re right that translation is one of the areas you see the most job openings for. Depending on all the languages you know, it’ll be easier or harder to break into. I’ve never looked into translation. I doubt I’d get hired, first of all; I live in a an area which has a high percentage of bilingual Spanish speakers, so everyone’s going to hire the people who speak both Spanish and English fluently and natively (as versus me, who grew up in a monolingual household and started to learn Spanish at thirteen years old). Lots of translation jobs even specify that they want you to be a NATIVE speaker of the language you’re translating, which means that someone like me who came from a monolingual household is 100% out of luck. The other reason why I don’t do translation is because, while there are some translation jobs that pay okay, lots of them don’t, and lots of them in my country/state aren’t full-time. I’ve seen a number of translation positions that pay you by the number of words or pages you translate, and the pay isn’t that pretty when you add it up. 

That’s not true for all translation jobs, though, especially if you happen to speak high demand but less commonly spoken languages for your region (in my area, something like Arabic or Bangladeshi could get you a pretty penny). ASL (American Sign Language) translator jobs in my country are always nice gigs. And people who speak English as a second language and something else “uncommon” as their first language have a pretty good shot of being hired for something.

But I know translation isn’t what you’re interested in. Which is fair.

Now, as far as breaking into English linguistics as a non-native speaker, you’re right that you’ll probably run into obstacles, but they’re not imposssssssible to get around. Especially if your verbal speech is anything like the writing you do for English, you’re almost certainly FINE. This following discussion is more specifically for the academic community of linguistics, but what I would do whenever I wanted to study a language I didn’t speak… was get an academic partner who did. And in many types of studies you do, depending on your linguistics subfield, you won’t even need to worry about that. Honestly the biggest challenge isn’t whether English is your first language or not, because linguists get their fingers over any language whenever and wherever they can… the biggest challenge is that English has been very thoroughly studied academically in linguistics compared to many other languages. VERY thoroughly studied. Whereas I had an easier time finding unstudied topics in languages like Khmer, I’d be harder pressed to find easy research areas in languages like Mandarin or Spanish. Buuuuuuuuut there are still many, many Unknowns I have come across in English linguistics - for instance, lots and lots and lots that needs to be done in the sociolinguistic arena. Most of my doctorate peers wrote their second year papers on English. Granted, that was a sample size of five people, but nevertheless. There are still things to be said about the language academically, if you know where and how to look.

Whether or not this’ll be a big hindrance to you depends on more choices than “I want to study English linguistics.” It reaaaaaally depends what subfield you want to get into, whether you go into graduate school, whether you want to enter lingusitics academia or something else, and where you live and how accessible/fluent English is to your overall populace. In some fields more than others, you may find barriers. So be careful, but don’t rule out opportunities completely. I’ll point out I’ve seen native speakers of Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, and Mandarin professionally study English… so it’s certainly something that’s not uncommon or impossible!