{"id":4232,"date":"2018-02-01T09:37:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T08:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4232"},"modified":"2022-10-24T18:34:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T16:34:47","slug":"my-second-language-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4232","title":{"rendered":"My Second Language Personality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m in a pub, having a slivovice in tea to clear out some the head cold demons. I am writing in my notebook and enjoying a quiet night alone. My level of bliss might be higher if the man at the table across from me weren\u2019t constantly engaging me in conversation.<\/p>\n

As a second language Czech speaker, chatty strangers are a serious X factor in my content. As a non-fluent speaker, any interaction sets me on edge. I move into a mental space hinged on comprehension and appropriate response. If the speaker picks that up, they may grade their language and patiently give me time to respond. They may correct my mistakes. These are features of a pleasant interaction.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, people might speak quickly, and largely ignore my responses. They shake their heads in confusion after I respond, leaving me in a panic about what I\u2019ve just said. This is in part no doubt a byproduct of too many occasions on which I\u2019ve tried to say \u201cshoe\u201d and ended up saying \u201cgod, I\u2019d love to see you in my grandmother\u2019s bikini.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are also urinal chatters, for whom I believe there is a special place in linguistic etiquette hell. When one is holding their genitals, they should be free of all pressures to communicate reasonably.<\/p>\n

Recently I have had two extended conversations with strangers with whom I was sharing a table. One guy shared a table with us at a pub and we spent about ninety minutes chatting about history, books, family, travel, and even tiptoed through the minefield of politics. He was polite, spoke so we could understand, and helped us root out some vocabulary when we needed. The experience was wholly positive and I left feeling both appreciative and good about my Czech.<\/p>\n

I met the next guys were \u2013 oddly enough \u2013 at the same pub. These guys were more challenging as one of them not only wanted to talk politics, but we were not in agreement and he spoke very quickly and demanded responses as such. His friend had a better understanding of what two low-level language speakers can handle and decided that supranational decision making biases within the European Union on the topic of slow migration<\/em> might be out of our zone of intelligently discussable topics. He spoke more reasonably, and when we moved away from politics, things were pleasant. Again, mostly positive, but exhausting.<\/p>\n

Tonight\u2019s conversation goes like this:<\/p>\n

Him: \u201cPiss. Haha.\u201d Some more words.<\/em> \u201cPiss again. I piss.\u201d I think something about trees.<\/em> \u201cDo you piss?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cHm. Interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Him: (nods head at my response) \u201cOnce I pissed on\u2026(says clearly) bad idea. (laughs) I knew one doctor from Egypt.\u201d More exposition.<\/em> \u201cHahah. Piss. Whore. Understand?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cI understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Him: (nods thoughtfully) \u201cPiss. I am learning\u2026.\u201d A word I\u2019d have to dislocate my jaw to pronounce. <\/em>\u201cShit.\u201d<\/p>\n

He begins another monologue and though I keep catching the occasional \u201cpiss\u201d and other random connectors and nouns, I can\u2019t put it into a cohesive discourse. I wait until a pause and bury my head in my notebook. His voice tells me this will not thwart his advances.<\/p>\n

This kind of stranger interaction is the worst kind. He just wants to talk and doesn\u2019t seem (or want) to notice that I am clueless. I can only respond with vague comments \u2013 I see, I understand, Interesting, Yeah, That\u2019s funny.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I do wonder about his POV of the interaction. That is, what does he think of me? In my mind, there\u2019s no way I can be coming off as a cognizant conversationalist, but anyone who mentions piss this often in one conversation with a stranger probably hasn\u2019t ordered a full stack of pancakes, so who knows? As regards the time and content of my responses, he might think I am rude, thoughtful, or a laconic stranger who keeps his opinions to himself. It makes me laugh to think that I might be perceived in this way. This is because laconic and I are not companions and in my first language I typically speak first and think later (boy that\u2019s worked out well for me in the past). So it\u2019s interesting to think that I have a totally different personality in Czech; my second language personality.<\/p>\n

I have experienced this in students. I used to teach a doctor who was intelligent and capable and whose CV supported that – chief of thoracic surgery at a clinic in Prague. In English, however, she spoke in a wavering, cracking voice, literally gulped in fear, and breathed so quickly that she came off as someone who couldn\u2019t order a taco without crapping themselves. Another guy spoke his limited English literally punctuated with profanities to the degree that he sounded like Al Capone\u2019s public relations coach. When I mentioned his use of vulgarities to a mutual friend, he said, \u201cOh, he doesn\u2019t do that in Czech.\u201d In fact, in Czech his demeanor, intonation, and pace seemed far more mellow and polite.<\/p>\n

Surely there\u2019s a reason for all of this. In my case, I am not nearly as fluent in Czech as I am in English. So while in English I am wittier and more impulsive, this is only because my brain can instantly process information its hearing. I have a far more expansive vocabulary in English, one that allows puns, as well as nuanced comments and jokes. Meanwhile in Czech I am too busy trying to comprehend the language and, if that goes well, put together a response that doesn\u2019t make me look like an imbecile. Moreover, I don\u2019t possess the same range of vocabulary, so my responses will come out simpler, more considered, and more metered.<\/p>\n

The Czechs have a saying (which I\u2019m probably botching) \u2013 nau\u010dte nov\u00fd jazyk a z\u00edskat nov\u00e9 dus\u00ed or learn a new language, get a new soul<\/em>. Like many idioms, I think there\u2019s truth in it. And I guess it\u2019s nice that in some language my soul is less impulsive and more thoughtful, even if he\u2019s not as witty or can\u2019t talk politics.<\/p>\n

I look back over at the man still talking at me and wonder if his English-speaking soul would talk about piss so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m in a pub, having a slivovice in tea to clear out some the head cold demons. I am writing in my notebook and enjoying a quiet night alone. My level of bliss might be higher if the man at the table across from me weren\u2019t constantly engaging me in conversation. As a second language […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4233,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/stranger.jpg?fit=249%2C203&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-16g","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4232"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5644,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232\/revisions\/5644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}