Have YOU Ever Forgot You're First Launguage?

Yes, frequently. My dad is from the US, and that's where I was born too. My mom is from the Netherlands and that's where I lived most of my life. Whenever I've been with my family and friends in the US (mostly all summer and during Christmas break) and I get back home (Netherlands) to my Dutch friends, I have such a hard time talking Dutch again! I often can't remember certain words or don't pay attention and end up randomly inserting English words into sentences. Strangely, though, it never happens the other way around. English is just an easier language to express yourself in, I guess that's why it's hard to suddenly switch to Dutch.

So yeah, I have spoken another language mid conversation (or more like throughout the conversation). It's completely normal.

 

Sometimes, I find myself talking and thinking in english but my native language is portuguese. I don't even have american/british family members or anything like that...

 

My mother tongue is Spanish and when I'm speaking in Spanish sometimes I know how to say some words in English or French but not in Spanish >.< hahaha. So you're not alone

 

yes! partially forgotten, though i find myself speaking my native (and by native i mean my parent's native land) tongue mid sentence. like the user above, i know some words in some languages but not in others, like english or my native language.

 

Nope, English is the only language I speak. I speak some Spanish, and it's getting really, really rusty.

 

My mom was never taught her parents native tongue so I never learned. Back when they were kids here in America.. you didn't speak other then English. One day I hope to pick up both language.. Know some in Cherokee and other is German

 

All the time. I thought it was just me!:icon_redf But Hungarian is such a difficult language (even if it's my first one)!:rolle:

 

My native language is French, but sometimes i find myself saying english word (too much series and movies in english ? )

 

No. I'm bilingual, but I speak mostly my birth language, english, since I don't get to speak to many spanish speakers.

 

I do sometimes, mostly with German. Sometimes it happens with other random languages, too, like French, Chinese, and even Japanese, even though I don't know them as well.

There was actually a time when I literally did almost forget my first language. I learned English first, but had only been speaking it for about a year when I moved to Germany. German effectively became my native language. When I moved back to the US, I had to be homeschooled for a semester because otherwise I would probably have been held back several years due to my poor English skills. Now the reverse has happened with German.

 

In a sense.
More and more I'm thinking in English and sometimes Japanese, which means when I want to say something I have to transalte it in Dutch first. This sometimes causes me to forget Dutch words or expressions. Very frustrating, especially when I have to write essays and stuff.

---------- Post added 8th Jul 2013 at 05:52 PM ----------

This happens to me sometimes as well. :lol:
Sometimes I accidently say 'gomen' instead of sorry, or 'itai' when I hurt myself.

 

Oh yes, I remember going to Austria for a week were I spoke English to everyone. When I came back home I had forgotten certain words in Dutch.

This also happened when I visited my french-speaking grandmother for a day.

 

I don't usually tend to do that. I don't know about you guys but some people at my community actually hate it when you just cross between languages, accidentally or not. They said it's annoying and just stick to one language so yea.

 

^ maybe because they believe that person is being pretentious and is showing off.

 

My boyfriend used to mix three languages up.
He could just fluent mix the languages without even noticing. Especially when he was nervous. When he was really nervous, he couldn´t speak at all. He said it was like the words were "fighting eachother". A neurologist took special interest in him.

Funny enough, after his coma he learned to speak American English and he really struggles to remember any Dutch or Portuguese.

And the poor guy was always teased for his language. The Dutch said he had a "heavy Spanish accent"; the Brazilians said he spoke too "Portuguese" ;the Portuguese said he spoke too ""Brazilian"; the English said he spoke too "American"; and the Americans (including myself) thought it was "quite Brittish". So he always had a foreign accent, although he was fluent in all three languages.
His Spanish and French were not fluent, but no one said those sounded foreign.

I only speak English and Spanish and up to now I didn´t mix them.

 

I forgot what 'préciser' was in English the other day. A landmark moment. (I think it's because 'préciser' is used way more than 'clarify' or 'elaborate' or even 'point out') But nothing major.

If I'm speaking French, then I'll still use English 'helper' words like 'yeah' and 'sorry?'. And I don't think that's too much of a problem.

 

I sometimes mix English words in my sentences when I've forgotten the Dutch word for a second, but looking at the people around me I'm definitely not the only one doing that.

 

Reading Dutch/Swedish/Norwegian/Danish Facebook statuses, I've seen they will happily shove in loads of English acronyms and idioms in comments. It's awesome! Maybe a similar thing happened to make English so full of French words a few centuries back but fully retaining English grammar, idk.

 

Ha, sounds familiar English is everywhere so I'm not too surprised we start using it in our everyday language. There are quite some English words that've made their way into the Dutch dictionary already, and I think a lot more will follow.