This is what I think I wrote below:
(In Spanglisheutsch) I want to practice a little German here. So, I'll try to repeat a little of my German lessons here...
(In German) Hello! I'm on vacation! Nice weather today, isn't it?
Excuse me, do you speak English? I can only speak English and a little Spanish. Sorry. But, I want to learn really good German.
Well, have a nice rest of your evening! See ya!
Quiero practicar ein bisschen Aleman aqui. Entonces, I'll try a repitir un pocito de mis lecciones de Aleman aqui...
Hallo! Ich bin im Urlaub! (not really) Schönes wetter huete, nicht wahr?
Entshuldigung, sprechen sie Englisch? Ich kann nur Englisch und ein bisschen Spanisch sprechen. Tut mir leid... Aber, ich mochte sehr gut Deutsch lernen.
Na dann, einen schönen abend noch! Tschuss!
Alright, German-speakers. Correct me where I made a mistake, please. I just need to try and practice making my own sentences...
Ha, ha ha ha ha!!!
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of when I took German and I didn't know a word and the Spanish just kept surfacing. It was aggravating (but kind of funny). I know there've been studies n' stuff about third language acquisition and how it's influenced by the second language. ...and that's the extent of my knowledge on that topic... (useful degree, eh?)
I was just lamenting about the third language confusion to my friend Barb yesterday! Her second language was Spanish and she married a Swiss-German man (German is her third).
ReplyDeleteIt's SUPER annoying to be trying to formulate a sentence for this course--while a little timer is counting down in front of me--and the only word for "today" I can think of is "Hoy hoy hoy hoyyyyyyy HEUTE!"
It's just that there's an "English" side to my brain and an "Other Languages" side...and Spanish is the default. Tricky...
No, really, I think you're right on. There's like "native language" and "everything else" that gets jumbled together. Though I think 3rd is probably the worst since you're already comfortable with #2. And I bet by like #5 you don't know WHAT you're saying.
ReplyDelete(by the way, learning Portuguese and Italian was MUCH easier because after learning a few patterns I could start making educated guesses from the Spanish word. Alas, not so with German.)
It's even better that your 3rd language is German, which is much closer to English than Spanish is, so the mistakes you're making are mistakes that a native English speaker normally wouldn't make. (I had the same issue, because I studied French and then German.)
ReplyDelete