Why English?

My mother tongues are spanish and catalan. I have been lucky enough to be raised on both of them. I think bilingual education is one of the best gifts parents can make to their children because it gives you (almost) twice as many references for free. That's a good thing to have, especially when learning other languages.

I used to learn English in the school, then I used it extensively on my work. I think I was able to speak English quite decently. Then we decided to move to Austria. At first I had to rely on English. I spoke only a little German, really too little to be useful. And I decided to learn the hard way.



I started by setting myself very small goals (like "I won't speak a single word in English at lunch time today") and with a lot of patience and effort and time, I now find myself speaking only German, the whole day. That is really fine, and I would be very happy... were my English not gone! When I now open my mouth to speak English, it is quite probable that a number of German words camouflage within the sentence. Even if I put together all of my concentration to the business, I can't help it! The same happens, to a lesser extent, when writing. I have to focus, the verbs not at the end of the sentence to write! ;)

I have a theory. The (mean) human brain is not really prepared to deal with two foreign languages. It just operates in two modes: "mother language" and "foreign language". The foreign language drawer of my brain, which was then happily populated by English, is now dominated by German. Now when my brain switches to foreign language mode, there's just German there. English seems to be on the background.

I hope my English is not really gone. I try to convince myself that with some more practice everything will be all right. And to begin with that practice, I decided to write this blog in English.