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You know/realize you are a language nerd, when......


deen the breen

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Definitely when you start to dream in the foreign languages that you are learning.

That's a major milestone and the point of no return!

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When you start thinking in a foreign language that's when you are truly fluent with it. Coming from a Polish background, I found myself pretty much exclusively thinking in English these days because it's so much more relevant to what's happening around me . The only time I speak Polish would be to family members and I see them fairly rarely, so it's come to the point where thinking and speaking in Polish is just a lot of effort.

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You know/realize you are a language nerd, when......

You can't find a vocabulary word in the language you are speaking so your mind inserts one from a different language you speak (other than your native language).

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...when you forget a word/ phrase in your mother tongue, and have to resort to waving your arms around like a lunatic, saying it in every other language you know until you finally work it out or someone tries to guess what you're saying....  :P

Has happened too many times for my liking.. People must think I'm crazy.

I do agree with those that said about thinking and dreaming in the language you're learning; when it comes that naturally to you that you can't help yourself,  :beaten:you know you've cracked it, so to speak. :)

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...You are reading a novel in your native language and mentally translating it to the language you are studying.  You keep finding sentences and paragraphs that you think might sound better and/or capture a deeper nuance if they had been written in that other language. 

I have enjoyed reading the responses here and I echo what others have said about dreaming in the new language.  That has happened to me, too.  I would wake up feeling gratified even if it wasn't a particularly good dream.  I'd think to myself, well, at least I got some practice using the new language! 

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I was shopping the other day at a 7-11 in Malaysia and was asking the guy at the counter for some mosquito coils. I was stumped because I totally forgot the Malay word for "mosquito coil"! That's the traditional incense-like repellent that we burn in Southeast Asia in the evenings to wad off mosquitoes.

I could only remember "katori senko" the Japanese word! Not that the Malay-speaking checkout counter guy would  understand what in the world I meant!. Finally after about five minutes of trying to explain what I meant I finally remembered the word!

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You can't find a vocabulary word in the language you are speaking so your mind inserts one from a different language you speak (other than your native language).

Yes! Very annoying as I don't seem to be able to think any further and find the proper word, expression or a way to describe it in the language I need at the moment. My mind goes 'but I told you what it is! Shutdown bzzzzzz'. Thank for doing that during oral exams German, Brain!

I realize it while correcting friends' grammar/word choice. Or being overly entousiastic about an expression or fun fact in/about another language: 'did you know English hasn't got a word for... ' or 'in Finnish, there are x ways of saying this or that word!'

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setting the main language of your mobile phone to Chinese and then you need half an hour to switch it back to English xD :laugh:

hope you got some funny stories 2.

You dream of striking a conversation with native-English speakers and beating them to it. I know I can do it :)

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I knew I was a language nerd after surviving the 2 semesters in college when I would need to alternate between 5 different languages every day. Vietnamese was spoken at home and English pretty much anywhere else except in my language classes. I was majoring in Spanish Education and decided to take up Italian and French during my last two semesters of undergrad. Talk about getting things mixed up! But I loved it!!!

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