Just out of curiosity, how do you mix your languages?
Hello all!
As I go along learning and focusing more and more on Turkish, this problem is slowly starting to fade, but it does still pop up every now and then.
It is, of course, normal to accidentally mix languages when you know more than one. Whether you start speaking English with German grammar, pronounce your German with a Turkish accent, or can only remember certain words in one of your languages; it happens to us all.
As I have seriously taken on Turkish in the past months, I have noticed something strange. The mistakes that I make having to do with confusing it with other languages have nothing to do with with the two that I speak fluently (English and German), but Russian. About a year and a half ago, I had taken a semester of very intense Russian. Even though I still try to read a little in some blogs and listen to some Russian music, I hate to say it, but I put it on the back burner in order to focus on Turkish and some Arabic (mainly Turkish though). That means, I have not tried to build on the Russian grammar that I had learned, or tried to extend my vocabulary in any way, pretty much since that semester ended. I literally just stopped learning it.
That is why, it hit me as being really strange when I would be learning Turkish with my teacher I would, without a thought, start integrated Russian words into sentences. When this first started happening, I didn't even realize that they were Russian words at all; then it hit me when I got home and saw my Russian dictionaries sitting on the bookshelf.
So basically, my focus on Russian is gone and it is not in anyway similar to Turkish, yet I was regulariy mixing the two together.
The most difficult words for me to stop mixing into my Turkish are:
dog = собакa / köpek
four = четыре / dört
grandmother = бабушка / babaanne
grandfather = дедушка / dede (I guess those can be seen as being similar)
The funniest thing is that I say / write the Russian word, but still use the proper Turkish grammar with it:
Benim собаkam yok. (I don't have a dog)
birinci, ikinci, üçüncü, четырıncı, beşinci...(first, second, third, fourth, fifth...)
Etc.
Has anyone else found themselves having this same issue? Mixing two completely different languages just out of the blue on a fairly regular basis? I just thought it would be interesting to know.
As I go along learning and focusing more and more on Turkish, this problem is slowly starting to fade, but it does still pop up every now and then.
It is, of course, normal to accidentally mix languages when you know more than one. Whether you start speaking English with German grammar, pronounce your German with a Turkish accent, or can only remember certain words in one of your languages; it happens to us all.
As I have seriously taken on Turkish in the past months, I have noticed something strange. The mistakes that I make having to do with confusing it with other languages have nothing to do with with the two that I speak fluently (English and German), but Russian. About a year and a half ago, I had taken a semester of very intense Russian. Even though I still try to read a little in some blogs and listen to some Russian music, I hate to say it, but I put it on the back burner in order to focus on Turkish and some Arabic (mainly Turkish though). That means, I have not tried to build on the Russian grammar that I had learned, or tried to extend my vocabulary in any way, pretty much since that semester ended. I literally just stopped learning it.
That is why, it hit me as being really strange when I would be learning Turkish with my teacher I would, without a thought, start integrated Russian words into sentences. When this first started happening, I didn't even realize that they were Russian words at all; then it hit me when I got home and saw my Russian dictionaries sitting on the bookshelf.
So basically, my focus on Russian is gone and it is not in anyway similar to Turkish, yet I was regulariy mixing the two together.
The most difficult words for me to stop mixing into my Turkish are:
dog = собакa / köpek
four = четыре / dört
grandmother = бабушка / babaanne
grandfather = дедушка / dede (I guess those can be seen as being similar)
The funniest thing is that I say / write the Russian word, but still use the proper Turkish grammar with it:
Benim собаkam yok. (I don't have a dog)
birinci, ikinci, üçüncü, четырıncı, beşinci...(first, second, third, fourth, fifth...)
Etc.
Has anyone else found themselves having this same issue? Mixing two completely different languages just out of the blue on a fairly regular basis? I just thought it would be interesting to know.