Do you get tired of speaking daily in a language different than your mother tongue?

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wiiiiiiiiiiiiiw@reddit

My english is good and been speaking it on a daily basis for 4 years. But dude, some days I just want to shut up and scream in Tunisian.

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sttteee@reddit

Loved that you raised this. It's something we need to discuss as expats

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Agree. While taking language courses, I was living with a host family in France who didn't speak any English so I unfortunately started to avoid them. It can be SO exhausting. I was told not to watch English language shows but I couldn't resist at night because I was just done in by 7p. It caused a bit of friction because the family didn't understand why I didn't want to do family hikes etc.

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Status-Patience1869@reddit

Actually I really enjoy mixing languages. My wife and I are bilingual and our mother tongues are both different. Mine is English and hers is Indonesian and she learned English and I Indonesian. So we enjoy mixing our sentences up with both languages. Some words are easier to say in English and others in Indonesian.

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brass427427@reddit

After a number of years, one just falls into it.

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Comprehensive-Pea812@reddit

once you reach a certain level where you are struggling to find words in your mother tongue.

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brass427427@reddit

Way true. Quite often the German word comes zuerst and then I have to think about it.

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uganda_numba_1@reddit

That's the worst. And humble brag: I'm very fluent in my second language, but in my third language I'm not good at all and yet sometimes it's the only word I can remember of the three. It's unfair that you can forget your mother tongue.

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tshawkins@reddit

I get that, but im 67, so some of that is expected, and I speak 3 languages, semi proficient in 2 more.

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False_Expression_119@reddit

Yeah lol, my emails in my native language are pretty bad and when I get home I am really lost for words and try to translate back but it never works lol

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minuddannelse@reddit

I was shocked to the extent to which this could happen when I called a Korean Restaurant in a medium size city in Brazil- when the woman answer the phone, she had a super strong Korean accent when speaking in Portuguese, but she could barely form a full sentence in Korean

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ericblair21@reddit

That happened fairly quickly with me (the non-English word would just bigfoot its way into my brain and not let anything by), so if you're with a partner in the same situation you just give up and speak Spanglish or Franglais or whatever Frankenstein abomination of human communication works for you.

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Pecncorn1@reddit

Don't get tired or bothered speaking but writing is still a small chore. I think it's because my brain slows down and I worry over making grammatical errors or getting form or tenses wrong. Things I don't think about when speaking.

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saladajuliana@reddit (OP)

Oh, that's a good point actually... I am like that when speaking, so that could be part of the problem!

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Pecncorn1@reddit

You just need to get past a certain point of proficiency speaking and it will no longer be an issue.

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CuriosTiger@reddit

Not at all. I am a native speaker of Norwegian, but my daily life has overwhelmingly been in English for the past 13 years.

It is, indeed, a matter of not just language proficiency, but language fluency. As you use a language more, things you have to think consciously about start coming naturally. Pronunciation gets easier. You start knowing instinctively how to conjugate verbs correctly, without having to think about it. You will find vocabulary gets easier to recall the more you use it.

At this point, it takes more mental exertion for me to speak in my native Norwegian than it does to speak English.

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saladajuliana@reddit (OP)

That's a very good insight, thank you

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UrFine_Societyisfckd@reddit

I still have quite a bit of learning to do and only live part time in another country.

But after a long day of conversing I love to put on an English movie and just switch that part of my brain off 😆

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saladajuliana@reddit (OP)

Yeess, that's the best feeling! Just put a movie in my native tongue or English, and my brain can finally be at ease

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Ephendril@reddit

Once you dream in the new language it’s all ok

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Argentina4Ever@reddit

It depends on the language I guess? My mother tongue is Portuguese but I have known and used English since I was a kid so it comes to me just as naturally...

Lived a while in Germany though and tried to learn German but I struggled hardcore with it and honestly yeah I was often tired of it.

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saladajuliana@reddit (OP)

The language that's torturing me is actually Portuguese 😀 I love it, but I do get tired after more social days, just want to space out at the end of the day

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Gabbr7@reddit

Sua língua nativa é Português mas seu nick é Argentina4ever?? Sus...

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blacktea_notcoffee@reddit

I never got to the point of multi-year immersion and was just there a little over a year to see much of a change, but yes, definitely. I found it to be emotionally and mentally draining. But I also felt a sense of loss of identity/being shut in on myself and a loss of confidence as well because of how limited my self-expression was. Despite being able to have 2 hour-long conversations in the language with colleagues. I know it would've gotten better and it started to in the 10-12 month mark but I knew I was leaving so the improved language skills didn't help much by that point lol.

I've never really heard people talk about what I went through unless they don't know the language much at all, but it was a very difficult feeling. Am I really the only one? Maybe that's the consequence of being a perfectionist lol. I noticed a lot of commenters are talking about European languages not being much of a strain, but I'm an American who was learning Korean (which is a huge difference, with very little linguistic familiarity).

I do relate to the phenomenon of forgetting words in my native language, though.

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shrimpscampin@reddit

I used to, for years. I remember one summer - we had probably been in the US for a few years and were on our usual trip to our home country and had plans to hang out with a bunch of friends one Saturday night. One of our friends wanted to invite her cousin from the UK to hang with us and I remember the thought of having to speak English the entire night being just exhausting. I just wanted to speak Danish and not think about English. I wanted a break. But now, as I’ve been in the US for a decade, speaking English has just become second nature. I don’t think about it at all and it’s just as easy on my brain and mental capacity as my mother tongue.

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gadgetvirtuoso@reddit

There are days where it is tiring speaking, thinking and listening in Spanish for everything. Even if I moved back to the US my wife doesn’t yet speak enough English so I couldn’t escape it even if I wanted to. The best I can do is enjoy some TV or movies in English and the occasional expat meetup. It does help and after 2 years I struggle a lot less with Spanish even though I started with a conversational ability.

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Maleficent_Tie_7812@reddit

Yap this is me! I started combining my native language to English on the evening after work XD at least it gives my husband motivation to learn my native language! And gives him opportunity to learn too ...

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HVP2019@reddit

No,

at this point speaking in my native language is more difficult because I am missing a lot of new vocabulary that got developed after I left.

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PrettyNetEngineer@reddit

Same!

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Ohm_Recruiting@reddit

I feel that.
I've lived abroad for 3 years now, and i think the only reason that it's not exhausing is because i just happen to have a job in my native toungue.

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kloveday78@reddit

Yeah, you should try Polish, it's exhausting... I remember speaking Spanish with some fluency way back when. (it's all gone now) It was lovely... that feeling of 'thinking' in Spanish... Polish feels like wearing an itchy sweater, or trying to run with a ball and chain around your ankle. lol

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Acrobatic-Pudding-87@reddit

For me, yes, it’s much more draining. The effort I have to make to follow a meeting in Chinese leaves me feeling like I’ve done a whole day’s work after half an hour. When I go home at night with the intention of studying to improve, and feeling generally energized enough that I believe I can, my brain shuts down within a few minutes, my eyes go heavy and I doze off. It’s a feeling not dissimilar to when a rush of adrenaline fades and you slump.

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mintchan@reddit

when you have enough vocabulary in the second language, things become easier and you may start to think in your second language. many time, words just pop into my head in both language and froze like i had a seizure. 🤣

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gopnikchapri@reddit

Not really. I am fluent in English. My mother tongue is Hindi, I’m an expat to the US and in California and NY both, there were enough North Indians I could talk to.

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Wooden_Marionberry40@reddit

I get tired when the conversation is boring in the second language.. try to only talk to interesting exciting people, and let us know.

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Gabbr7@reddit

Can't say it gives me headaches. Maybe it did in the beginning, when I was struggling to understand Australian English, with their extremely thick accent.

And now I think in English half the time and forget some words in my native language. Whatever is not being used, your brain tends to forget that information.

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CherryPickerKill@reddit

No, I'm forgetting words in my other languages.

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intomexicowego@reddit

As an American living in LATAM for 5 years now (2 in Covid lockdown)… I live mostly in English, as I work at home, generally read in English… but at night and/or with Latinos… I speak Spanish.

Most expats are going to be like that, I assume, if they keep employment/work tied to English world.

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SpicelessKimChi@reddit

I wish I spoke good enough spanish to get tired of it. Honestly I am tired of speaking English. I've been trying to hard to learn Spanish and it's way more dificil than I thought it would be.

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Medical-Ad-2706@reddit

I get tired of being in a place where everyone speaks English because I don’t feel like talking to people.

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forreddituse2@reddit

Not mentally tired. However, the concentration level required for the non-native language is always higher than the native one. (jealous of the true bilingual small kids.)

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elevenblade@reddit

There was a point as I was learning Swedish where it was exhausting but eventually I got past that and now it’s no more effort than English (my native tongue).

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cyclicalfertility@reddit

Not at all. I started thinking and dreaming in English (second language) within months. I have to think much harder when speaking in my mother tongue (dutch) as I often find my brain translating everything to and from English.

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lovepeacefakepiano@reddit

Usually no, unless I’ve had a really long day with lots of talking (my job involves quite a bit of presenting, on some days). On those days I can sometimes not think of the right English words for stuff.

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Kosmopolite@reddit

I have days and days. Some days it really can be tiring. Other days, the words come to me easier in Spanish than English. Most days fall somewhere in the Spanglishy middle.

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bruhbelacc@reddit

No, but I forced myself to think in that language from the start. Now, it feels weird to write and talk in my native language and I heard I speak it with a foreign accent, which wasn't the case in the beginning.

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saladajuliana@reddit (OP)

I sometimes think in that language, but not all the time. More depending on where I am and what I am doing. How many years have you been using it?

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Wranorel@reddit

Not really. Was a little hard at the beginning but I made sure I was always on English. So I made friends only with people I would be talking to in English, watching tv with subtitles, all in English, following English podcasts. Now I actually think and even dream in English most of the time.

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soupteaboat@reddit

i’ve never had this feeling at all, although during my daily life i primarily speak english (2nd language) and not the language of the country (3rd language). I’d imagine if i spoke the language i’m not completely fluent in yet all day, it’d be much more tiring so my guess would be language proficiency

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saladajuliana@reddit (OP)

Yeah, in my case it is the 3rd language that's making me feel like that. Like English is fine, but I've been speaking it since forever and everything around is in English anyways