Eventually I will document the rest of my travels in March (which include planes, trains, and automobiles) but today I just want to document a very interesting thing that has started happening to me.
For some very strange reason, over the last two months, a larger percentage of my thoughts have been German instead of English. This is very strange considering that I still don't know a lot of German vocabulary and my German comprehension means I still don't comprehend a lot of things around me. Part of this transition was intentional, as I forced myself to think of a German phrase every time I thought of an English phrase. For example, I would think 'my head hurts' but I would quickly follow that thought with 'Mein Kopf schmerzt'. Its only natural that as I have surrounded myself with German speakers, that the German phrase comes to my mind more quickly than the English phrase.
I really want to learn how to think in a different langauge. I called a minor victory in church on Easter Sunday when I realized that I understood about 50% of the words that the pastor spoke. Over Christmas, I only understood about 20-30%. However, now that the Deutsche Gedanken process has begun, I find myself trying to stop it from occurring! An example: I asked the group secretary (in German) why the German professors advertised their classes. Typically, my research group would then reply in English, but on that particular day, the secretary decided to reply in German. I listened to the words she spoke and understood everthing she said. Then, I realized she was speaking German, and my comprehension immeadiately disappeared. I couldn't understand anything she said after that, it was like my mind shut off the German portion.
What scares me more is how much I don't think about thinking in German. I guess that's a good thing since I should be thinking in the language of my host country, but it really freaks me out at times. I am still shocked when I clearly understand the questions that my labmates ask me. I am even more shocked (maybe they are too) when I respond auf Deutsch.
However, there is a down side to my Deutsche Gedanken, I struggle even more to find the correct English words. Today I wrote an email (to Americans) where instead of writing 'I am interested in dinner', I wrote 'I am interesting for dinner', which made my potential dinner companions think I was the main course. ;-) Considering that I am writing my PhD thesis in English instead of German, grammar and word mix-ups are a true cause for concern.
Has any one else experienced this problem before?
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2 comments:
Yes, you are crazy. It isn't just you... :-)
I have had a similar experience once before, when I spent 2 weeks in Spain on a high school trip. By the end of the family stay near Zaragoza, I was thinking in Spanish at least as frequently as I was in English. Thoughts were formulated in the Spanish flow of language. But that's what was so amazing, because you finally begin to grasp that languages are distinct enough to elicit different thought patterns!
That said, I didn't have to write a dissertation immediately afterward. I only hope that it doesn't prove to be a lasting problem!
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