this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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i know of some bi/multilingual families in the us who'd talk to each other in their native tongue when they didn't want the kids to know what they were saying.

i speak my dad's native spanish as well as dad's learned portuguese, but i don't speak the polish or norwegian from the other side of mom's family. (she's also latina but doesn't natively speak spanish)

however, i'm learning the two i don't know, and practicing polish (the language my mom does know) with her

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[–] tanisnikana@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Japanese and English flow from one sentence to the next. It’s pretty good.

[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago (4 children)

That's subarashii! My haha only spoke nihongo with me, but since she nakunatta, I feel I have wasureta a lot of vocabulary. Tokidoki shaberu chances ga aru desu keredomo amari nihonjin are around here so I'm pretty heta at this point. (シ_ _)シ

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That sounded like those spanish speakers in American movies that have to place spanish words in their speech

[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think this happens irl a lot when you have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gen immigrants trying to communicate with each other and this kind of hybrid speak comes out of that? I'm 2nd gen so it sort of comes naturally to me.

I know some people from northern Ontario who speak a kind of English/French hybrid and it's more than just in the family though. They speak it fluently with each other, so it seems to have taken on a life of its own? I tried to google for an example, and the first hit I got was this tiktoker and he's exactly what I'm talking about. People really do speak like this!

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

I taught it was just a movie thing

Learnd something today, thank you !

[–] tanisnikana@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

なぜ。なぜあたしの心を壊れてあげるの?

(Or alternatively, I didn’t know you sing for Monkey Majik!)

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I understand it until the 'but'.
First I wondered why you were laughing.

[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Ok yeah, here's a translation:

That's fabulous! My mother only spoke Japanese with me, but since she passed away, I feel I have forgotten a lot of vocabulary. Once in a while, I get chances to speak but there aren't a lot of Japanese around here so I'm pretty rusty at this point.

[–] jcg@halubilo.social 1 points 1 month ago

ありがとう、嫌う!

[–] RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My family is Portuguese and they did the whole "speak Portuguese when we don't want the kids to know what we're saying" thing, which didn't work because kids learn languages really easily. Nobody taught me so I can't speak it very well but I can translate into English, as long as whoever is speaking has the same accent as my family...

[–] RicoSuave@feddit.cl 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

makes a lot of sense, my mom can be like this with her family because she’s half-polish and idk polish

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

When I was working in Switzerland briefly, people would speak Swiss, German, French and Italian as well as English all in the same breath. I was told they used whatever word was easiest at the time.

[–] spirinolas@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)
[–] darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago

I guess it should say "Swiss German and German", that's the usual combination in Switzerland.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago
[–] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah they mean swiss german because it's not understandable to common hochdeutsch speaker whereas the french has barely any difference. Don't know about the rest (italian?).

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

My daughter in law is from Myanmar so I really should learn Burmese one of these days, unfortunately I'm not finding a lot of local resources on that language. :(

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 6 points 1 month ago

There's a large population of Burmese in my city, and learning a bit would probably help with things at work sometimes, but yeah, not many resources.

[–] RicoSuave@feddit.cl 4 points 1 month ago

i once dated a girl (lost contact with her years ago) from myanmar. she spoke burmese at school (we were in high school) and with family but mainly spoke to her online friends and me. she also prefered english and while she could speak/understand spoken burmese, she could not read it without translating into english

[–] RicoSuave@feddit.cl 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

could she perhaps teach you?? burmese seems like a cool language

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I kinda want to surprise her for when we get grand kids. :)

[–] Monster96@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Both of my parents can speak our native language fluently but I can't. I can say some words and understand it slightly but I was never taught I'm nowhere near fluent.

[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

All. Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Japanese in college.

[–] RicoSuave@feddit.cl 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

whoa falo os 3 idiomas tbm mas falo portugues possivelmente melhor do q os outros

[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

Apprendi español primero. Depois aprendi português com meu irmão adotivo. Japanese is my worst, English is my best because I use it the most.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sadly my mother stopped speaking Norwegian with us when we started having friends over. It felt too weird and impolite to her. And with time she stopped entirely. Nowadays I only know a handful of Norwegian words.

[–] RicoSuave@feddit.cl -1 points 1 month ago

do u think your mom will teach u again??

[–] Lootboblin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Finland’s current president Alexander Stubb’s family language is Swedish even though I’m sure that his wife and kids speaks English better. His wife is from Scotland. Alexander’s dad is Swedish speaking and mom was a Finnish speaker. Alexander himself speaks Finnish better than Swedish (after elected he forgot some Swedish words and had to ask the press was it correct). Wife understands Finnish pretty well but isn’t fluent speaker. Swedish is so much easier to learn than Finnish so I guess they decided that hey we roll with that. (edit. and if you didn’t know, Finland’s 2nd official language is Swedish. Also Alexander is a polyglot. He speaks Finnish, Swedish, English, French, German and Italian).

[–] DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I went to a Sikh wedding once, and spent the day hanging about with a bunch of the guests, all of whom were British or Indian. I spent the whole time amazed that they'd seamlessly switch between English and Hindi, apparently without noticing.

[–] RicoSuave@feddit.cl 4 points 1 month ago

code switching is awesome. sometimes i'll hear bilingual hispanic people being like "oh, by the way, ya has visto squid game (have you seen squid game yet)? it's so good"

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 5 points 1 month ago

We speak all of them and sometimes mix.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

In the past I refused to learn it.
And my parent didnt really have anything bilingual to speak with besides grandparents which werent around 24/7 to speak to and local language was just fine.