I work as an English teacher but grew up using Chinese. Which means I naturally gravitate towards Chinese when something hits me deep. Today was one of those occasions in which it was more natural for me to pen something in Chinese even though I’m a far less fluent writer in my mother tongue.
This is how I’m feeling:
今天若无其事地去上班，原本没有太多的感触。不过，当一些同事知道这将是他们在六月最后一次见到我时，都不约而同地上前向我表达祝福，给予热情拥抱。
原来被爱是何等的幸福。
写这个提醒将来被生活压得喘不过气来的我，不要被现实击垮，要用力地去爱人。
I asked Meta AI for a translation so that you might pry into the deepest recesses of my soul lol.
How about you?
I speak English, German and French.
I only ever feel like switching back to German when I want to say something with a very precise meaning. German has what we call "Nominalstil" which basically means German has a lot a lot a lot of nouns. This is good for when you want to communicate about something very narrow, very precise.
French is, imo, a fun language to just make casual smalltalk. I feel the filler words like "bref", "alors", "donc", "eu" are so much more expressive. You can communicate so much vibes casually here. When english uses filler words "um", "uh", "hmm" they feel even more empty. Related are filler words like "like", "well", "so". Boring filler words.
On the other hand what I love about English is how much range it has. You can talk in slang or use AAE words. There are pretentious Latin phrases you can put in everywhere. A British "village" accent is so different from Queens English/BBC English, is so different from a southern accent or a generic American accents, is so different from Aussies or Nigerian or Indian English. You can talk fast and slow.
Ofc German has lots of accents too - they might even be much more distant from one another than English accents. French can have quite a range too. But it subjectively feels not as vast and as freeing oneself as English.
Are you a linguist?
No. 3 languages is not at all uncommon in Europe. Basically mother tongue + one foreign language + English as lingua franca.
Loving your insights so much. Thanks for giving me a broad overview of the unique characteristics of each language. Just how amazing how our worldview is literally shaped by the scope and spread of the language we speak
Sounds like you have a new job? Congratulations 🍾
Haven’t seen you around lately!
Thanks for checking in.
Yes starting a new job in July
Only when describing my wife. Other than that, it's all English.
Thumps chest.
Sensei has taught you the foreign words that cut right to our emotional core
I only know English. Been trying to learn Spanish for decades but nothing has stuck
I’m sure I’m not the only one who asks you this, but have you tried Duolingo?
Yup I use it every day
Funny enough, I cannot spontaneously say "watch out" in English. For example, when on the bike with my little one, and I need him to pay attention to an incoming car, I will always say "attention, la voiture!" lol
Your primal instincts take over!
There are some thoughts that are more easily expressed in Chinese than in English... that's mostly when I switch to Chinese when talking to another bilingual person.
In terms of my thinking, it's exclusively in English.
I especially like four-character idioms. When used appropriately, they save me a lot of explaining n make me come across as 有文化 cultured. Haha
My mother tongue is Spanish, on the internet I mostly post in English but when I make a big mistake playing tennis I course in french....
Why don’t you curse in Spanish, though?
I’m enamoured with the punctuation marks in Spanish btw. So much more utility compared to English
I'm a programmer and I much prefer to explain what i mean with code rather than english
Wow interesting! Reminds me of the view that Mathematics can be approached as a language.
Is it because coding is either this or that? There is no room for ambiguity? That’s why you are more comfortable with it
Yeah its formally defined and I cant hand wave away problems with my description. The datatypes tell you what the main nouns of the problem domain are. Sometimes project managers will ask you to build the penrose staircase. If you have a program you can run it and see how it works
I also like it when the other language can more efficiently express the feelings or uses less words. Like in spanish I can drop pronouns or has some esoteric word that has no english translation