I hope people can only see my user name here. First I wanted to choose a name like "anonymous" which suits the social anxiety I feel lately, but then I thought if I choose a name let's not make it feel too silly so I just came up with something I think that sounds cool. I have never thought about making a reddit account before, but I noticed that when people want to get something off their chest anonymously without judgment of people they actually know, they use reddit.
I have been passionate about languages for quite a while and when I discovered language meetups a whole world opened for me. I used to go there every day and started to really feel a rush of euphoria when I got to speak one of my target languages. If I reveal in which countries I've lived it will already be too easy for people who know me to deduct who I am. I was on an Erasmum in a warm country where I was immersed in the local language and where I would practise other target languages on meetups in the evening. Almost like paradise for me.
After graduation I started working for an international company in my home town and found out that the office could be like the language exchanges I liked so much. I ended up speaking various languages frequently such as French, Spanish, Italian and Russian. I was however something I would call "language greedy" and decided that, considering how much I liked being immersed in a local language, I should probably live abroad. I quitted my job and went to a country where a Uralic language is spoken (with a lower salary). I had high expectations, remembering my erasmus time, but I ended up in another international company where English was spoken. Also outside of work, the locals weren't that used to people being interested in their language, which led them to speak English with foreigners. I spoke many foreign languages with my fellow international colleagues (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Russian), but it wasn't completely what I envisaged. I came to learn the local language which I didn't get to practise.
Then I found out about tandems, language exchanges with just one individual person. This went well until I got a girlfriend (not via the tandems) who didn't like me going out a lot. Soon after covid happened people started meeting up less in general. I could still have some language exchanges, but my girlfriend didn't like that. Due to covid I didn't see my colleagues anymore either. I'm also wondering whether not meeting that many other people anymore since covid started changed my personality and made me more introvert and socially anxious.
With my gf I speak Chinese. She is half Danish half Chinese. I've learned Chinese for many years and speak that quite fluently (HSK5). I also manage to have a conversation in Danish, but when a relationship is established it's hard to switch to another language. Sometimes we speak a few words of Danish but that's it. Having the chance to speak Chinese all the time sounds good, but not speaking anything else anymore makes you lose your other languages. We started working from home so I didn't speak with my colleagues regularly anymore and I didn't practise the local language either because my gf didn't like me going out. When my family came to visit me, it even felt unnatural to speak my native language again and I felt like translating from Chinese.
Later on her parents also came. In the beginning I spoke some Danish with her father, but not being used to speaking Danish, I wasn't confident enough and quickly he switched to English :( I blamed myself for not having grabbed the opportunity to practise Danish as well with my gf. Somehow it just feels like a big deal to me to speak in an "unexpected language". It makes me shy and my heart beat raises, so even though I understand it perfectly fine, it's hard for me to start a conversation when I feel it's expected in Chinese. Somehow it just pressures me to surprise people. In case I met a monolingual Dane or one who would start speaking to me himself, I think I wouldn't feel this pressure, because in such a situation it would be expected from my side.
Recently my gf got a (very good) job offer in an speaking English country. I wanted to support her because it's a once in a lifetime chance at a very nice company. She moved there and right now as I'm typing this, I am visiting her and looking for a job here too. The salaries are indeed higher here and there are more job opportunities here, but.. It's an English speaking country. It might sound ironic that I type this in English. I don't mind discussing this topic in English, but when having small talk with someone I get the most excited when it's in one of my target languages. Do you remember the rush I mentioned when managing to have a conversation in another language. I noticed that I get the opposite feeling if someone whose mother tongue I know speaks English. It feels as if I have failed when the conversation is in English and I've succeeded when it's in their mother tongue. By default everybody here speaks English to each other. I also mentioned that I have troubles switching the language myself when it's not expected. Maybe it's a lack of confidence. I just feel it can be weird to suddenly demand another language or to switch myself. I've found that many times I'm waiting for the right moment to switch like "oh you're from this country (as if I didn't recognize the accent immediately), well then maybe we could also speak x". Sometimes it works and sometimes not. In my first real job for example somebody started counting in his language and I said in the same language "ah your counting in x". From then on I spoke this language with this colleague. We also became good friends. At my second job I tried the same with someone from the same country as the first one, but there it didn't work out. Many people complain that it's difficult to learn new grammar rules and vocabulary in a new language. I like learning these and don't find that part too hard. The hardest part for me is to actually get people to speak their languages with me. It's quite tiring to constantly look for the right moment to switch. Sometimes I didn't even bother but than the language remained English for as long as I knew them, which is something I try to avoid, because I improve my skills with each single interaction and don't want to miss out on a chance to practise. It's not impossible but considerably harder to change languages when the relationship is already bulit on another one. I was wondering how others deal with this. When I went with my gf to her country, she was also addressed in English but immediately replied in her own language. I admired this and wish I had the courage to do the same.
Then there is one language that makes me feel awkward in particular: German. I am raised bilingual with German being the second language. As a little kid I didn't speak anything else than the language of my home country and German. Even English I only learned later on. It was not more than normal for me to speak my own language in my country and German when I visited my family in Germany or whenever I met someone from Germany. I remember that even when I went to other countries I would naturally use German as that was normally widely understood. I wouldn't even think of English as I didn't know it yet and was completely oblivious to its global status as a lingua franca. I started learning English in my late teenager years, because I got into music and noticed all the lyrics were in English. I took music I liked as an example for my own and therefore tried to write my own lyrics in English. Later on I did an internship and some colleagues were German. In the beginning I didn't think about it and just started speaking German which was natural to me. I got surprised when the next time they started a conversation with me in English. I aksed about it and the answer was that they were so used to speaking English all the time that they didn't think about it and automatically spoke English with everybody. This made sense to me and I thought it was just because in the office everybody somehow spoke English with eachother. Later, I noticed that Germans abroad would speak to me in English and German to Germans who grew up in Germany. I felt excluded and got something like an identity crisis. As a child I always joyfully said that I'm half German. Am I now not German anymore at all? I slowly started introducing myself as just someone from my country. Being enthusiastic about languages I usually get the most excited when having the occasion to speak my lesser ones, but German is a special case. It's one that I can speak very well, but because of what I just described I recently also get nervous to speak it. In my lesser languages I am way more confident and not afraid to make a mistake. In German I've become perfectionistic and afraid that I will be seen as a foreigner. A few days ago I met someone from Germany (whose parents are from Asia and who doesn't even look German) and I immediately got a bit nervous. When being asked whether I'm also German I tried to be bold and say I'm half German like I used to say in my childhood. The reaction was positive as the conversation continued in German. However, somehow I felt so nervous that I almost choked in my food. I feel like I have a problem that I need to get over. Whereas as a child it came very natural to speak German, now I seem to get very nervous whenever I meet someone from Germany.
Last but not least, I find the question how many languages I speak awkward. I can have a decent conversation in about a dozen of languages, but don't like the pressure of people being surprised about it. I mainly prefer people speaking their language with me without knowing I know others. Sometimes I pretend I only know English, my native language and the one I'm having a conversation in. If they find out, I always hope they don't make a scene out of it, which also happens sometimes.
One last point that springs to mind now. When ordering something in the country where I live now, I won't do it in English, because that would neglect the sacrifices I've made to live there, but at the same time many times I don't say it out loud. I often say small sentences from which they cannot hear it's not native just to hide my accent. I think I have some kind of a trauma of people replying in English to the point where I do my very best to hide being a foreigner. The short sentences work, because then they reply in their own language, but if I have longer interactions I have more chances to improve or maybe even to be corrected when making a mistake. The sad truth however is that people often rather switch to English, when hearing an accent or mistake, than to point out a mistake which would be actually helpful. I am at an intermediate level in this Uralic language and have a hard time progressing this way. During my erasmus it was way different. I had an advanced level in the local language and had full conversations with everybody. I also wouldn't swallow my words, because I knew they would (most of the time) not switch to English (both because of my confidence and my level in the language but also because the locals were way more used to people knowing their language).
I was wondering whether any of you on reddit has similar experiences?
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