Poll of the Day > Is this just a shitty writing trope or are people actually like this

(+) Yeah! (+)

When someone who's bilingual speaks English and they just randomly add in words from their second language. I grew up in an area with a lot of kids who knew both English and Spanish and NONE of them ever did this. Is this just some shit writers do to show that someone is bilingual?

No, though not having a word I want to use handy in either my native Dutch or English while I have it in the other both occur. But I am something of a purist when I speak and dislike peppering the language I speak with another.

Context matters. Certain Vietnamese words or phrases come up constantly in conversations that are otherwise in English here, both with native speakers and foreigners who have learned the language. I doubt those particular words and phrases would come up in other countries very often though.

I've only ever seen that happen in reverse, usually where another language adopted the English word directly for something that didn't already have an existing word in the language. Like someone will be speaking in Japanese and randomly the word "computer" is thrown in.

Some people have a certain, ehhhh, je ne sais quoi?

Yes, there are people who do that. My mother did it when speaking to her sister, both native Spanish speakers.

When speaking with certain friends, we just go between Dutch and English seemingly at random.

I also have a tendency to throw in random English words at times when speaking Dutch.

So yes, it is a thing people do and I would not call people shitty for doing it.

A little of both.

I literally just heard someone doing it a couple days ago, and thought about this exact thing. I've also heard a ton of Italian-Americans do it (I used to mock my college roommate for doing it, telling him he was trying too hard to sound like he just got off the boat from Sicily when he lived in the US his entire life).

The way it's done in TV shows and movies usually isn't accurate, though. In shows the person usually speaks perfect English with a slight accent, but then drops in incredibly simple words in their own language (si, agua, por favor) - because those are the only words the writers know. But it's more likely to be the case in real life that they get those words right, and it's the more complicated terms or proper nouns where they feel the need to drop back into their native tongue.

It also depends on how distracted someone is. If you've got something you say reflexively (like "Gesundheit" when someone sneezes), you're more likely to say it in your original language by reflex because you're saying it without thinking. If you're thinking in your native language and not really paying attention, you may forget yourself and start speaking that way instead of in English (at least until you catch yourself).

Plus there's always a degree of pretentiousness/showing off as a possible explanation. I mentioned my college roommate earlier who would just drop Italian into dialogue for no real reason (and again, he was raised in America by American parents - his only real excuse was his grandmother spoke Italian so he learned it young... but it was definitely his second language, and he was clearly doing it on purpose). But there's also people who will deliberately use terms or phrases from outside their native language (I almost always say gesundheit/danke schon/bitte schon when people sneeze, in spite of not being German, and lechayim when toasting in spite of not being Jewish) just because they think it makes them more sophisticated, or they think it's cool, or clever, or funny, or whatever.

It likely also depends on how common English was in their home country and how early they learned it. A friend of mine in high school was born in Ireland and moved to the US in 6th grade, and almost never used Irish words (other than saying "em" instead of "um" for a verbal placeholder), because English is pretty common in Ireland. You'll probably see the same for Indians. who also use and learn English young in India. But someone from a country that speaks a completely different language and who doesn't learn English until later in life is probably more prone to those sorts of lapses.

willythemailboy posted...

I've only ever seen that happen in reverse, usually where another language adopted the English word directly for something that didn't already have an existing word in the language. Like someone will be speaking in Japanese and randomly the word "computer" is thrown in.

Those are usually known as loanwords.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanwords

I speak decent Japanese and the only time I do this is if I'm talking about a Japanese subject (martial arts for instance) and a Japanese term just "fits" better than the nearest English equivalent. But I'm doing that to an audience that I know either already understands that term or should be learning it as part of their studies.

This is such a thing that new languages are made up that are essentially composites of two existing languages.

There are phrases and words in many languages that simply have no equivalent in another language. So between two people who both speak both languages it makes perfect sense to alternate as needed to get one's point across most clearly.

bilingual Latino people do this all the time in my experience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanglish

MICHALECOLE posted...

bilingual Latino people do this all the time in my experience

No me digas! I mean, you don't say!

Sashanan posted...

No me digas! I mean, you don't say!

They don't do it like that though

Zareth posted...

When someone who's bilingual speaks English and they just randomly add in words from their second language. I grew up in an area with a lot of kids who knew both English and Spanish and NONE of them ever did this. Is this just some shit writers do to show that someone is bilingual?

Depends on both the language and how fluent you are in it, and of course the person speaking.

Now, if you're asking why American made movies do this, it's has absolutely nothing to do with realism, because of course it doesn't.

It's done because they are making an English movie for a primarily English speaking audience, and want to give the feeling of a language other than English being spoken while having their primarily English speaking audience understand it without having to use lots of subtitles, because lots of people don't like subtitles.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Those are usually known as loanwords.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanwords

And Japanese in particular regularly mangles the definition to be something completely different or something overly specific. Like how 'mansion' refers to cramped condos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms

It's kinda a neat window into how huge US presence was during that period

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

i experience it daily

It's almost never done to the extent that is done with the trope. Because of course these forms of media only sprinkle in the most common words from the target language to make a character seem "exotic" to an English speaking audience while also allowing them to understand the context of the conversation. Personally, I feel like this borders on racist writing.

In reality, it can happen to an extent, but often for more legitimate reasons. Say a person just feels like a word from their native language fits a context more appropriately where there isn't quite an equivalent replacement in English. Hell, I dated someone from Hong Kong who said she'd sometimes just start speaking Cantonese when she's tired. Even I, a native English speaker, sometimes say German words or phrases out of habit just because of how much I've conditioned myself when learning the language. It's really weird, honestly and I don't even consciously choose to do it a lot of times.

But I have admittedly worked with someone who fits the trope. Sprinkling in Spanish words and "activating her accent" at totally inappropriate times. It came to the point where she would just make up words that "sounded Spanish". I feel like this happens with people who really want to prove their ethnicity to those around them, possibly out of a sense of disconnect from their heritage.

I mostly see this with South/South East Asians. They are speaking their language then there's some English thrown in.

Beveren_Rabbit posted...

I mostly see this with South/South East Asians. They are speaking their language then there's some English thrown in.

Ooooh, yeah. I've heard this with Tagalog.

Beveren_Rabbit posted...

I mostly see this with South/South East Asians. They are speaking their language then there's some English thrown in.

Singlish and Manglish are like this

It can happen (and it's sometimes a LOT more than a few words), but the way it appears in books and tv always generally feels stupid.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I literally just heard someone doing it a couple days ago, and thought about this exact thing. I've also heard a ton of Italian-Americans do it (I used to mock my college roommate for doing it, telling him he was trying too hard to sound like he just got off the boat from Sicily when he lived in the US his entire life).

The way it's done in TV shows and movies usually isn't accurate, though. In shows the person usually speaks perfect English with a slight accent, but then drops in incredibly simple words in their own language (si, agua, por favor) - because those are the only words the writers know. But it's more likely to be the case in real life that they get those words right, and it's the more complicated terms or proper nouns where they feel the need to drop back into their native tongue.

This pretty much. Although I feel like it's less a matter of it being the only words a writer knows (because Google exists) and more a matter of not wanting to use words that the viewer/reader clearly won't get. That said, it makes sense for something like an insult because all the person needs to know is it's an insult.

Count_Drachma posted...

It can happen (and it's sometimes a LOT more than a few words), but the way it appears in books and tv always generally feels stupid.

On TV it's always phrased in such a way or selects words such that the monolingual audience can understand, and it doesn't feel authentic. It's normally used when both parties understand both languages. Singlish is completely unintelligible to an anglophone.

Zareth posted...

When someone who's bilingual speaks English and they just randomly add in words from their second language. I grew up in an area with a lot of kids who knew both English and Spanish and NONE of them ever did this. Is this just some shit writers do to show that someone is bilingual?

People do that all the time where I'm from, both my family and people I work with.
I always find it funny when a bilingual says "correo electronico" instead of just "email"

Having worked in food service for over 10 years I have met a lot of bilingual speakers, and a lot of them do it.

Bro, we grew up with Frankenstein words that were a mix of both languages.

Blightzkrieg posted...

On TV it's always phrased in such a way or selects words such that the monolingual audience can understand, and it doesn't feel authentic.

Pretty much. When it's just a token few obvious words that audiences that don't speak the second language can recognize, it comes across as pretty contrived. In the real world, it's often a pretty random mix.

You also get weird things like Acadian chiac, where you'll not only see English and French words mixed together, but the English words will be conjugated as though they were French (like "walkez-vous mon dog?"). Weird things happen when languages get blended.