Different Languages and Personalities

[renshanrenhai]

Have you ever run into some foreign people who say "how nice you are ", "you are really friendly"?

Do you always hear some nice words from your foreign friends when you talk in your second language, which you are not a master of it yet.

I guess this is because of our language level; the lower your level is, the more probably you would talk like a baby and leave people such an impression that your are friendly and naive. An adult doesn't think like a baby though. The problem, I think, is that we don't have a decent language to speak our minds.

What's your view on this ? Let's share some experiences !

[count_zero]

Is it me or does this post seem like it's written in the style that Chinese spammers use?

[imron]

It's not a spammer.

[kdavid]

I don't quite understand the question.

Are you trying to ask whether or not we have a second personality which we use exclusively when speaking our second language?

If this is the question, then, yes, I'd say I do. I'm a fairly different person when speaking Chinese than when speaking English. I'd venture to say that I'm Chinese when I speak Chinese, and American when I speak English.

Part of this may have to do with the people I'm speaking with, however, as, clearly, I'd only be speaking Chinese to Chinese, and not Chinese to my English-speaking friends.

[Lu]

I certainly have a somewhat different personality in Dutch, English and Chinese. Not sure if I'm nicer in either, I do think I'm a bit more outgoing in English than in Dutch.

[Shelley]

It might be the same kind of thing that happens when people go on holiday, the opportunity to be someone else or at least different.

With going on holiday I think it happens cos you know you won't see those people again, with languages you know the speakers of one language won't talk to the people of the other language so they are seperate things allowing you to be seperate people.

I don't know if this is a consious thing or just how people are.

It may also be down to the vocabulary you posses in each language as said by the OP, I can't discuss as many topics in chinese as in englsh so my coversations will be limited to daily life unlike in english i can talk about most things.

[大肚男]

I do have a bunch of personalities when speaking different languages.

But I think it also has to do with the language itself.

In my native Arabic, I'm on the serious side. When speaking English I'm "normal". When speaking Spanish, I try to act funny. When I speak Mandarin, I'm a hesitant.

[WestTexas]

I'm a bit more outgoing when speaking Chinese. I also tend to be less funny and I do not speak about intellectual topics as much.

[roddy]

the lower your level is, the more probably you would talk like a baby and leave people such an impression that your are friendly and naive.

And easily frustrated, prone to tantrums and not averse to repeating the same baby-talk phrases until you get what you want.

[shk]

Not just a personality thing. You are blending into the culture of the person you're talking to. Greeting a Japanese person you would bow instead of handshake on top of your "good morning" or "good day" equivalent. And there are topics you discuss with different perspectives not only because you are speaking a different language but the people you talk to came from a different background.

Being able to communicate in a meaning way you would have to know more than just a few simple responses "hello", "yes", "no", "thank you" or have to refer to a phrase book to get around a city. Once while travelling to Taiwan, wanted to get to the Japanese department store SOGO. The other tourist I was talked to was fluent in Mandarin but from Canada so he didn't know the local translation 崇光百貨or the longer version 太平洋崇光 百貨. Asked the 3rd person before finding out exactly where to go because the man knew SOGO was referring to 崇光 (chong guang). Even being fluent enough to ask for directions the way you ask would suggest to the other person you are not a local.

[OneEye]

Everyone I've talked to in Taiwan calls it SOGO.

[Shelley]

A very interesting article in this recent New Scientist, 8/5/12 by Catherine de Lange, Magazine no. 2863. It is called Two Tongues, Two Minds; Bilingual Brain Boost.

It basically confirms alot of what has been said here and more.

It is well worth a read.

[roddy]

Can I assume your problems logging in have been resolved, Shelley?

[Shelley]

Yes as if by magic It just worked today so i kinda tested it with this post.

However this does not take away from the value of the post

Thank you for noticing

noticing=caring

[Hofmann]

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Just saying.

[count_zero]

The New Scientist article wasn't that mind-blowing for a cover feature.

Here's a link anyway.

http://www.teachmorelovemore.org/ArticlesDetails.asp?articleid=17883

And a bit on Chinese-English bilinguality.

The result seems to be that a bilingual person's recollections will change depending on the language they are speaking. In a clever but simple experiment, Marian and Margarita Kaushanskaya, then at Northwestern University, asked Mandarin-English bilinguals a general knowledge question, first in one language then the other. For instance, they were asked to "name a statue of someone standing with a raised arm while looking into the distance". They found people were more likely to recall the Statue of Liberty when asked in English, and a statue of Mao when asked in Mandarin (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, p 14, vol 925). The same seems to occur when bilinguals recall personal, autobiographical memories. "So childhood memories will come up faster and more often when you are reinstating that language," Marian says.