More language weirdness

American’s are at a bit of a disadvantage in the language department, so few of us speak more than only English, so in all honesty I wasn’t expecting some of the odd things your brain does when are trying to cram another language into it. Oh I knew I might get confused and speak one when I meant to speak another, stuff like that. I knew that from just talking to my Germanf friend (who will now be referred to as I), not that it happened often, or without German being worked into the english somehow.

I certainly didn’t expect the dream thing, which I’m slightly bummed hasn’t happened again, or the spelling thing, or most of the others.

I also never expected what happened yesterday. K and I were driving somewhere and we passed a sign, and for just a moment I saw “licht”, not “light”, which is what it actually said. I don’t mean I saw light, and then a blink later it was German, I mean I saw “licht” first before it snapped into English.

What. The. fuck? I kept replaying it in my head, thinking no way had that just happened. So I did what I’ve been doing when weird shit happens, asking I if it’s just me. So far it hasn’t been, including the vision thing.

That seriously blew me away, not only that I could have visual language glitches, but that it would happen now. Yes, I can understand a little German, but I do mean a little in my eyes, and it’s not like I can really use much of that personally. Unless I’m sitting around and it just sort of casually runs through my head (like with the fruit thing), I can never seem to pull enough of what I know together to string anything together, or I’m missing everything I need to do so.

I knew that there were some words and even short phrases that I didn’t have to translate, I just know what it means. I think most often in pictures, so really I suppose that’s not shocking. I’m guessing “licht” is one of those words. LOL There are even a handful of German things I understand, but can not easily put into English.

K thinks it’s a shortcut for our brain, like being able to read words with all the vowels missing. We don’t actually take the time to read every freaking letter, our brains know what visually means what, so remove the vowels and we can still read. Instead of my brain taking the time to pop the word into my head, it just gave me the word visually.

Freaking weird.