Thursday, February 28, 2008

I know culture shock is a constant cycle that keeps recurring so long as a person lives in a different country. And I know it hits everyone differently. But has anyone out there every heard of someone who forgot one language and started speaking another? I've been hitting a low in my culture shock curve lately, and along with the depression and weird mood swings, I've also been forgetting a lot of Japanese. But what I find most odd is that at the same rate I'm forgetting Japanese, I'm suddenly remembering my high school Spanish. I've tried to talk to several people in Japanese lately, and so help me, the only "foreign" language I could remember was Spanish. On the other hand, I feel like a good student now that I know I can still remember stuff from high school.

2 comments:

Kaihaku said...

That is weird... We had a hispanic volunteer from California who grew up bilingual and found that he was forgetting his spanish as he learned khmer...but I've never heard of anyone losing their second, or third I guess, language in favor of one they studied briefly.

Yeah, I can barely imagine what cultural shock must be like after so long and without a decent sized group of other foreigners. :( Props on sticking it out...and on remembering your spanish. :P

serenetempest said...

Thanks. :-) I imagine you may have gone through some similar culture shock? Props to you as well for stickking things out. And learning Khmer much faster than I've learned Japanese.