When you speak more than one lanuguage, how are they organised in the brain?

Question

When I leared Italian I seemed to forget Portuguese, or maybe I just took it apart and rebuilt it as Italian, they are very similar, and it has been 9 years now since I really spoke Portuguese. My Italian is good, I speak it on an daily basis, and I'm immersing myself in Irish now, but don't want to lose my Italian.

I'm not asking how to learn a language, I taught English as a second langage for years so I'm familiar with the process, my question is about how you think languages are mapped into/onto/through each other in the brain. What happens when you learn a third or fourth language, how do they connect with your mother language or other languages you've learned when they are a. the same language family b. different language families. Thanks

oops, excuse the typos

Fascinating! I'll get back to addressing each of these individually.

The metaphor about standing between rooms is a very good one I think... if you go from Portuguese to Italian etc... even English to romance languages, they're not a million miles away really.

An interesting point is going from Hiberno-English to Irish (we always call it Irish not Gaelic), a broad country dialect has interference in intonations, rhythm and grammar from Irish, even if the speaker doesn't speak Irish!

The point about translating between second languages is also a good point, it's difficult to do if they are from different families, though it's easy to go from manger to mangare to mangar etc.

Answer 1

My personal experience is that when I don't use a language it goes into a sort of "passive" mode and it takes me a day or two to "reactivate" it again. This also applies to my native language, English, which I can lose just as easily as the two other languages I speak fluently (German and French). I can usually keep two of these languages "active" at any one time.

The languages I speak less well (Spanish, Czech, Russian, Dutch) are the ones I get mixed up together. I often find myself using Czech prepositions in Spanish sentences, and learning Russian really messed up my Czech, as they are similar (but Russian is much easier in my opinion).

Answer 2

I don't know how it is organised in the brain, but it is a very special thing.
My mother tongue is German and then I learn Italian. Now after 2 1/2 years I know it nearly perfect. It's very funny...when I'm thinking anything, one time I think it in German and another time in Italian. And when I dream, often I dream in Italian. This feels very strange...
I have to use the Italian language every day, because I live and work in the Italian-part of Switzerland.
Often I think HOW the people can learn other languages...but I can't find it out...

Answer 3

I always find questions about languages like this very interesting. I found the same experience with similar languages, German and Norwegian. I learned Norwegian first from living there . When I studied German later, at first I had trouble learning because the Norwegian got in the way. But by now, when I try to think of the Norsk words the Deutsch keeps sneaking in. It did not mess with my French and English (though English is weird because it is like a bit of everything)
. I think the key is to keep using it. Then you have it in different compartments in your brain that you can walk into the room of and inhabit. When you are learning a language very similar to one you know, it is like you are standing in the doorway of the two rooms a lot of the time. But I think if you would go back and forth enough all the way into the "rooms" you could keep them straight better.

Edit: Wow! I love so much izzpils answer! That is very interesting that they really are in specific places in your brain!

Answer 4

I don't know how the brain copes with several languages. Personally, I can keep the three languages which I speak fluently, quite separate, but I sometimes make mistakes when attempting to speak the others. After a couple of days in Italy or Spain/South America, I can make myself understood, but here in Switzerland I often mix up both languages.
Not long ago I had a dream in which I was struggling with Turkish. The person I was talking to speaks fluent German and I don't remember ever having spoken Turkish with her!
Once in England my daughters, who went to German school were speaking Swiss German to each other and my youngest brother-in-law said, 'Isn't it funny having more than one language running around in your head'.
I don't think it has much to do with language families.
Picking up enough Chinese or Turkish to get by was no more difficult than picking up Italian or Spanish, and they are all languages which I have not studied formally.

Answer 5

My story:
I grew up in an English-speaking home and went to an English school/college/university, but mostly in a mostly French city. I had to learn French at school and college but was not really fluent by then. Then in university I took Italian, and I found French words would come out when I tried to speak it. I never used it at all outside of class.
After university, working and having French roommates and a French boyfriend (now husband)(although we spoke/speak English together) my French got much better. I took a couple German classes but found that suddenly my Italian would come out.
Then I moved to the German part of Switzerland, and after a while of the Italian coming out when I tried to speak German, I now find that German (by now much better than my Italian ever was, but only about as good as my French was in university) comes out when I ever try to speak Italian (which isn't very often)--or in some cases when I even think about Italian while trying to speak German. My present German teacher also teaches Italian, but I know if I were ever to hear her speaking Italian my whole brain would just shut down. Even when she mentions Italian I get a little wonky. (I have no problem dealing with the existence of Italian while speaking English or French.)

So I think I have a main English area in my brain, and then an adjunct French area and then a little third-language area started growing in university off my French area but that the German is right on top of the Italian, so it's really hard for Italian to surface.

Answer 6

No idea, but for as good as my English is, i've lived in the UK for 25 years and have been exposed to the English language continuously since age 6, I can not count or calculate in English with any speed. I always find myself go back to Flemish, which is my mother tongue.
I think in English, I dream in English 98%of the time, my written English is better than my written Dutch (Flemish is not a written language) and so is my general grasp of the language but for the life of me don't ask me to count my change in English cause I will really hold up the queue at the till!
As for the brain wiring of it all ... goes over my head ;-)

Answer 7

It's quite a complicated, scientific question
all I know is it's all about practice
if you don't speak it or hear it you forget it
so when you learn a new language try not to concentrate only on it
watch shows and read books in the language you've previously learned
it is said that if you learnd several languages there is a part of your brain which reacts to training so that the more you learn the easyier it is for you to remember new words and languages because you can compare them and make certain connections

Answer 8

Good question!!! I think the brain divides different languages into different "rooms", but first you need to learn each language properly and use it often. I speak English, German and Czech a lot and am fluent, but find it really difficult to code-switch. It takes me ages to switch over to the other language. Probably the footpaths in my brain are too old or damaged. :)) From my Uni studies, I faintly remember learning about Broca's area in your brain, in connection to your question. Check the internet if it helps!

Answer 9

It is a mystery to me how languages are compartmentalised in the brain, but I have noticed a tendency on the part of children to categorise adults according to language and will speak one language to them rather than another and I think that we continue this tendency into adult life. Another language can become dominant in the brain and it is possible to feel more at ease speaking it than conversing in one's mother tongue. One thing which is difficult (I find) is translating from one acquired language to another, which is yet another sound argument for always translating into one's mother tongue. I don't find myself linking languages together so much as thinking along parallel tracks.
I don't think that Irish will prove any threat to your Italian, being so different in structure and vocabulary.

Answer 10

I speak 4 languages and sometime I will pronounce some words how it's pronounced in the other languages I speak. But I basically grew up speaking 4 languages so I can't forget them really.