[dadbob]

contrary to popular belief, someone who is fluent in their second language (L2) is unlikely to slip into their first language (L1)  in these circumstances:

• if someone just said something to them in L2 (this a big unconscious cue, and you’d be really unlikely to respond in L1 right after that)
• when swearing in the middle of a sentence (e.g. “oh merde, i forgot my keys!”)
• during sex
• when speaking to someone they normally speak to in L2

it is slightly more common in these circumstances:

• swearing, as long it’s not part of a sentence (e.g. they might just mutter “merde” if they forgot their keys)
• if they’re surprised (especially if falling/tripping or experiencing sudden pain!)
• when speaking to someone they normally speak to in L1
• in their sleep or talking to themselves
• when very disoriented, such as when concussed or on certain drugs

that being said, it is very common for people to intentionally use their first language in front of people who don’t speak it for a variety of reasons (they might use a short expression they only know in L1, call their partner pet names, dirty talk during sex because their partner finds it attractive) – but this is on purpose!

also this doesn’t account for people who grew up in an environment where people often mix multiple languages in their speech (e.g. spanglish or franglais) – in that case, they may accidentally drop an L1 swear into an L2 sentence, though they’ll still generally stick to L2 when speaking to people who only speak that language

[ouyangdan]

also: if you for some reason forget a word in L2 (or L3 or L4) in many cases your brain will automatically try to recall it from the last language you learned, not necessarily your mother tongue/L1. it’s a really nifty little phenomenon that has the bane of my existence for some time.

[soleil-moon-bye]

also: it’s more likely (at least to me & other bilingual people I know, and ESPECIALLY if your second language is english) for you to slip into L2 while speaking L1, or to pepper L2 terms into a L1 conversation because you happened to forget how to say those words in your native language.

[shwetanarayan]

Also if you grew up around multiple languages (especially when they’re being mixed a lot), you might not know for sure which word is in which language. I certainly don’t. Like, I learned in my mid-thirties that something I thought was a Tamil diminutive was actually a bit of Kannada that my family used as a diminutive? And that two words I thought meant slightly different items, were actually just the Tamil & Hindi words for the same thing?

Also! Small bi/multilingual children will mix things up in the cutest way. Hathiphant is my fave example :) (Hathi is Hindi for elephant)

[science-of-noise]

This entire thread is me over the last month.  In Japan I defaulted to replying to things in Spanish because that’s the first foreign language I learned as a foreign language so to me “foreign language” still = Spanish.

Then when I got to India there was a couple of days when I said hai and aritagō instead of hã and dhanyavād because I’d gotten used to that in Japan.  (I’m Indian so this must have drawn some weird looks.)

Then when I finally got acclimated to Hindi I met up with various family members who speak/have spoken at some point Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, and Marathi and now mix them all up with English depending on the topic and who they’re speaking to.  It got to the point when I felt lucky to simply be able to identify the language spoken and I was just really glad to talk to a taxi driver or a maid or somebody who, even if I could only speak their language badly, at least I knew it would be only one language.

Now ironically enough it looks my next international trip is going to be Spain.