Side effects of learning a foreign language??

Hi, so i was studying about languages and found somewhere on the internet that there are some quirky side effects of learning a foreign language. The ones that got me are;

1. Your First Language Changes

2.You Empathize with English Language Learners.

What do you think? Is this true?

*Please add more if you think it is.

I work in English and I live in Spanish (does this make sense?), I spend a lot of hours writing and speaking with people in English during the day and I have to switch back when I'm done. Your comment makes a lot of sense, sometimes when I'm speaking in Spanish I have to take a moment to remember a word in Spanish because it wants to come out in English. I even doubt of my grammar or words in Spanish sometimes and I believe this is because English is taking a big part of my day. 

A friend of mine that lived part of her childhood in the US lost points on an essay back in high school because she wrote "A primer glance..." (At first glance) instead of "A primera instancia", so I believe that sometimes your brain can play a little with your knowledge.

If you are learning the language but wont use it on regular basis I think you wont have any side effects but if you are using both languages regularly like Jess and I then this is true, your native language definitely changes.

Hi! Why would I empathize with English language learners I'm sorry? Do you mean if your native language is English or? 

Mai wrote:

Hi! Why would I empathize with English language learners I'm sorry? Do you mean if your native language is English or?

like..Knowing more than one language allows you to understand the imperfect fluency of English language learners. You understand that just being able to hold a conversation in a second language can be hard. This empathy arises from a rewiring of the brain, a mixing of mental grammar and hours of study that is enough to give anybody a headache.

Ok, but why would empathy be a side effect? Empathy is more like feeling into the other. If your head reacts, that might be sympathy, and if there's a headache, you are resisting the call of sympathy. 

Anyway, I think these side effects apply to similar languages with similar alphabet. I never confuse my language with English or French, but I do confuse French with Spanish, a lot, especially at the beginning. But my native language is made of the Cyrillic alphabet, so I can forget about a word in Macedonian and find it in English, but I am never mixing both of them. Or my native tongue never changes, it's way too different. It just gives me more will to enrich my own language. But of course learning languages can make a mess in your head, but I guess it's usually at the beginning. And really knowing your purpose for learning and using a certain language will give you way more clarity and direction. That's how I find this. 

TemitopeAkinyede wrote:

Hi, so i was studying about languages and found somewhere on the internet that there are some quirky side effects of learning a foreign language. The ones that got me are;

1. Your First Language Changes

2.You Empathize with English Language Learners.

What do you think? Is this true?

*Please add more if you think it is.

I’m from the philippines and learned speaking mandarin when I worked in taiwan. And there’s a time my filipino friends called me I automatically replied “Ni Hao” instead of Saying “Hello, kumusta”. The first statement applies to me. :smile:

It exposes the learner to a new culture. It's great to learn different languages because it feels like the world is so small to reach. :)

I believe that when one learns a foreign language, they might see that there are some subtler ways to convey the meaning than in their mother tongue. Then a so-called code-switching takes place, i.e. using some words or phrases of the one language in the sentence in the other language. Such mixed speech is often deemed as a drawback of multilingualism, however, it shouldn`t be so frowned upon. 

Regarding the empathy towards the English learners, I cannot think of it as a side effect. Some time ago I had little patience for foreigners, who tried to express themselves in poor Russian with a heavy accent. Now when I am in their shoes learning German, and speaking with a harsh Slavic accent, I admire them for their bravery, truly!