Are you experiencing difficulties with code-switching?

[linguaholic]

I remember that somebody else already started a thread about code-switching; however this had to do with tagalog and English. I think this is an interesting question, therefore I would like to ask about this again, but in a more general way. Are you experiencing problems with code-switching?

If you are unfamiliar with the term code-switching: Code-Switching means switching from one language to another. For instance, you might see your friend at the train station and you are talking in french to him/her and 5 minutes later you see another friend, who is only speaking Russian and you are starting a discussion in Russian (given the circumstance that you speak both languages of course).

I am experiencing problems with code-switching when forced to switch from Chinese to French. I have the odd feeling that the "linguistic data" is somehow "saved" in the same regions of my brain, as I always mix up the two languages and I might start a sentence in french and then I almost end up saying the next word in french and so on.  :frozen:

[DiesIrae]

It depends on the language. If I'm so used to the other language, I don't think it would be difficult as long as I use both regularly. This is very true with my experience in English and Tagalog. As for languages I learn later in life that I haven't learned much about, I guess I'd have that problem.

[Miya]

I code-switch in the middle of the sentence. I will be talking in Chinese and then all of the sudden, I'll throw in random English words. For example, I will say "我要做project" (I have to do a project). I usually do this when I can't remember how to say the word I want to say in the language I'm talking in.

[polybus]

I sometimes had problems understanding the code-switching that I experienced in Taiwan. If I was speaking in Chinese with a Taiwanese person, they would occasionally throw in the odd English word here and there. These were usually very simple words that the person knew in English and probably thought they were helping me by using some English words. But actually I found this confusing sometimes as I was following in Chinese, and then a heavily-accented English word would be thrown in where I expected a Chinese word and it would throw off my understanding for a split second as my mind had to realize it wasn't Chinese and then switch to pick up the English word.