I Speak a Language my Parents Don't Speak 

I think it means German became so natural to you that you don't recognize it's another language anymore. It has become your second mother tongue 💕

Is this channel dead...? I suddenly realised we haven't heard from you in quite a while.. 😕

I've have never done something like that but maybe had a similar experience. I am German and for quite a long time German was the only language I used for communication. Only about a year ago I started having lots of conversations on English. Maybe more than in German on some days. A few weeks ago I read a newspaper article in English and it was only when I came across a word I didn't know that I realized this article wasn't in German. I guess this means my brain is getting used to more or less fluently switch between the two languages

That's interesting to feel what you're describing here as a "later in life" experience. I grew up bilingual - my Ukrainian parents taught me Russian while I was simultaneously learning Hebrew due to living in Israel. When I grew up a bit and started learning English, after a couple of years I started speaking it and suddenly there was a whole new language non of my family members could speak when I was about 14. (Today I'm 23 and still the only one speaking it). But I feel that I always had this thought in the back of my mind of "I can't send this video to my family because it's in English". Or "I need to find it with Russian subtitles or dubbing for them to understand". I guess it feels more natural to me to never forget that because when I was growing up, every time we wanted to watch a movie with my family, it had to be dubbed to Russian. And although my parents speak Hebrew, it's still uncomfortable for them to use and sometimes I need to translate them official documents written in Hebrew or just go through them fast cause it's easier for me.

It may very well be that your German has become so good that you no longer think of it as a foreign language. It is the same for me (Jeanine). I moved from the USA to Germany in 1993 and now (according to my wife Friederike) sometimes speak German in my sleep.

Einen habe ich noch, Dana: Wir sind mit einer Schwedin in unserer Straße befreundet. Sie lebt seit über 50 J. in Deutschland, spricht außer Schwedisch auch Deutsch und Englisch. Sie hat für schwedische Reisegruppen Stadt führungen in Hamburg und Lübeck gemacht. Also kam sie auch mit, als wir unseren kanadischen Freunden Lübeck zeigen wollten. Mit ihnen sprach sie Englisch. Mit ihrem deutschen Mann und der Enkeltochter Schwedisch. Mit uns Deutsch. - Irgendwann trat sie zu meiner Frau, öffnete den Mund, aber es kamen nur unverständliche Geräusche, während sie hilflos umherblickte. Ihr Kopf wußte plötzlich nicht mehr, in welcher Sprache sie nun reden sollte.. Meine Frau löste das Problem, indem sie sagte, es sei egal, ob Deutsch oder Englisch. LG aus Hamburg

Long Time No See!

What happend to you?

Where are you? No videos in 9 months!

Sometimes after I commented on a German post, I have the feeling that I answered accidentally in English instead of German. It felt so weird that I actually had to go back and see if I had answered in the right language. And sometimes I do answer in English even in a German forum, i.e. when the original post is in English, it contains a meme with English caption or when I‘m trying to make a dad joke that’s only working in English. So this exaggerates my confusion sometimes. 🙂

I speak both German and English and I haven't experienced anything quite like you described. But I very very regularly cannot remember if I watched or heard something in English or German, - I assume bc it doesn't make a difference to me. I remember one time when I saw a How I Met Your Mother episode on TV being like "??? I've seen this episode before, why does this character sound so odd?". It took a few moments for me to realise that I had watched that particular episode in English right after it was released. At that moment in time it was the only HIMYM episode that I had ever watched in English, so you might think that's something to remember but yet I completely forgot and got very confused by that person's voice that I was convinced I should know but yet didn't. 🤣

Where have you gone, sweet Dana? Hopefully you’re ok.

I hope you are doing well! Take your time to create additional content, we'll still be here when you are ready - lots of love!

At First, you are a very sweet and funny Person. You Always Smile and do some funny Things. This makes you very adorable. So you speak German Natural Like your mother tongue? If you Like the Sound of the German language or do you think IT Sounds harsh? Your Patents are from Czech Republic? So you are related to the EU and a part of neighborhood😊

everytime i see a great video in the internet i am like "oh i must show my parents ... oh fuck its in english they wont understand it xD" i would say thats the feeling 99% of people outside of usa/england has xD

I think this is the case for most Germans who grew up in the past (3? 4?) decades in Germany as their parents don't speak/understand English at all or VERY little. I regularly find stuff(be it a Twitter thread or a RU-vid video) I want to send to my parents and then I remember: oh! right! it's in English. I shouldn't!

Haha, I'm German but mostly watch English content, for over 10 years now. And sometimes, just seconds after I hear or read something, I can't remember if it was in German or English.

In 2019, I visited family in USA. I also speak Chinese, but they don't. I had no trouble speaking English with my family, but it was really hard to force myself to speak English in stores and restaurants, etc., because Chinese has become my "business language". Great video!

In the age of the Internet, your parents can use it to translate everything, even your German video can be made understandable with subtitles (see RU-vid translator!). Or use mobile phones as translators, which of course was the first thing that jumped into my head as a solution don't think too much when it comes to languages because we learn at least one or two in school. One of mine speaks 4 languages, including the mother tongue. Completely normal in Europe!

I never had a situation like that but know the feeling having watched something and wondering if I watched in German or English afterwards.

What has happened to me a number of times is that I will clearly remember all the details of a conversation I had with someone, except that I won't be able to remember which language we had the conversation in.

I think a lot has to do with how our brain is organized. It has “automatic” (unconscious) processes and manual (more conscious) processes. Translating thoughts in mother thong words/sentences or vice versa is automatic. When learning a foreign language, it starts with the manual translation of words into your native language and then into a thought or vice versa. After a while when you get more proficient and start using the new language more often the brain starts being more efficient and start translating foreign language words straight into thoughts. Speaking the foreign language becomes more effortless, you even start thinking in the foreign language. As the conscious step is eliminated it gets easier to forget the language label on your thoughts and forget about the listeners ability to understand you.

Haha, Dana! First of all, good to have you back! I haven‘t seen you for a while. And yes - you have been totally assimilated to Europe! That‘s actually a good sign, I would say! You have reached another level, when watching German content feels natural! Congrats!

I know this phenomenon so well. I have an Australian boyfriend and sometimes I can’t believe he doesn’t understand a single german word. I feel so close to him… how can he not be part of my „german“ world 😂😅

Ich hatte bei deiner Geschichte spontan den Gedanken, dass ich das irgendwie total süß finde. Meine Interpretation ist: du fühlst dich mittlerweile so Zuhause mit der deutschen Sprache und gleichzeitig so verbunden mit deinen Eltern, dass du in dem Moment nicht parat hattest, dass es eine "andere" Sprache ist, die sie nicht sprechen. It felt just way too natural. Meiner Meinung nach spricht es sowohl für deine Deutsch-Fähigkeiten als auch für die Beziehung zu deinen Eltern. 🥰😃 (Und dafür, dass du halt einen Moment unachtsam warst und einfach nicht weiter drüber nachgedacht hast 😉)

German is my first language. But I watch so many english shows/movies/YT-videos that I sometimes forget that I'm curently speaking english. Like I start a conversation with my friend in german (wich is her first language too) and I just suddenly switch to english without noticing it. And since she speaks english too, she doesn't notice either, so we suddenly have a conversation in a foreign language. And it actually takes a few moments for both of us to notice.

I grew up in Germany. My 1. foreign language in school was Latin. The second was English, but I had dificulties with learning foreign languages. So after 14 years in school I was hardly able to bye milk and bread or ask for the right way to a station in English. Many years later I learned Dutch because I was often on the Ijsselmeer for sailing. I felt ashamed, that 20 Dutch people had to speek German, because I couldn't speak their language. So I learned it and used it a lot. One day a British student in my town visited me together with her sister. I knew I had to speak English. I tried to form English sentences in my head for greating her politly. But in the moment I opened the door, I started ... in Dutch without any porpose. I couldn't help it. Dutch was on top in my brain and way more fluent then English. The whole evening was very very funny because of that.

Oh, I had a vaguely similar experience. I think it comes from feeling so "at home" in the language, that you can barely distinguish between what's your mother tongue and what's the learned language anymore. I once chatted with a friend in English, but I was reading a German text while waiting for her reply, and suddenly I replied to her in German and didn't notice until her confused response came back LOL (she does not speak German). My brain didn't even notice the switch.

I've noticed the experience of just listening to something without consciously thinking about what language it's in. Just naturally using the language without making a conscious decision or with conscious effort. I'm the only one in my parents' and my own family who knows German, but from my ex-wife's side my family knows Spanish with my sons having grown up learning it from their grandparents. One night my sons were out shopping with their mother, so I sat down to practice my Spanish with "Ghostbusters" on the Spanish-language channel. When they they came home, my older son, seeing what was on, sat down to watch with me. About five minutes later he suddenly realized that it wasn't in English.

My late father did not speak any foreign language. So while visiting me during my *wanted adventure in Estonia* he watched a Hitchcock movie in English language, half of the picture covered by subtitles both in Estonian and in Russian. Thanks to Hitchcock's visual style of story telling, my father commented that he could follow the movie. So, if communicating like Jaques Tati (French comedian and movie maker, mostly in pantomime style), parents and non-parents can follow conversations in any language. In Czech I know the 'ř', which a Czech travel guide taught me to pronounce.

My first language is Louisiana English and then learned midwestern English and then German and then military English and then bureaucratic English and then suburban English. Never got the southern drawl.

I spent a lot of time learning multiple languages and there has been a huge improvement in my english especially over the past 10 years... I left school with really bad english grades 😅 like just enough to pass 😅 and now I'm nearly as good in it as my native language german... I sometimes think in english and I seldom remember what the original language of what I read or heard was... I'm bad at speaking still so I do notice that 😅 I have a really hard time remembering that not everyone understands everything I understand.

Ohhh, I feel that a lot!! My mom speaks German and a little bit of English (she's not as fluent as me but it's enough to help tourists if they got lost or something like that), meanwhile I also started learning Japanese back then in school and even though I'm not as fluent in Japanese as I was years ago, I still understand a lot. But sometimes I forget I do, so once in a while it happens that I'm sending my mom stuff and she's like "... it's in Japanese, there's no subtitles, I don't understand AT ALL" 😂🙈💦

Ms. Dana - I am sorry to go off topic, but I know you love puns, so I have two, for you. 1 - “Why do Germans have such trouble with their belly buttons? So many of them have Audies!” 2 - “Charles Pimberton, 3d year Harvard Law Student, was arrested by Cambridge Police Sunday for shooting his mother’s sister and the latter woman's husband. He allegedly confessed, saying, ‘I meant to shoot my rotten uncle, but auntie was an oxidant!’”

At the age of sixteen, I went to Canada for a student exchange. When I came back home, my family picked me up at the airport and we drove home. In the car, I excitedly told them all about my stay. It just poured out of me. After a while, my sister said: "Kannst du bitte mal Deutsch sprechen?" (Could you speak German, please?). I had started in German but somewhere along the way I must have switched to English without noticing it.

Nice! :)

this is a too complicated explanation. People usually don't work that way. Emotion always beats reason. Everytime. Humans are still animals living in the plains looking for yellow spots in the bushes 'cause those could be lions. You may have rationalized that your mom doesn't speak german, but emotionally you've been so invested to share your experience, that you just forgot or pushed that aside. Because in your mind, there's no more significant differentiation between german and english. Your mind doesn't need to consciously switch anymore. You just understand. Welcome to becoming a true german language native! ;)

not the same but perhaps the total opposite.... I'm a german and a couple of years ago I was staying in a berlin hotel. If you left the hotel after xy o'clock in the evening you could only get back in by ringing up the night portier to open the door. So one evening I was sitting outside, where I met a nother guest, a nice lady from the British Virgin Islands and we had a long conversation for about 45 min or so. We were both working in accounting in our different countries and our main topic was the differences between accounting in Germany and overseas, so she was perfectly aware that I am german. Now when we wanted to go back into the hotel I rang and answered the intercom in german promting a very astonished comment (very loud): "Wow, you are speaking german, too?" I was a little lost for words, but proud of my english skill...

I've never sent videos to my parents or friends that they couldn't understand, but I have watched videos in other languages that I would have sent to friends or family if they weren't in another language. It is almost kind of isolating to be able to experience an entire world of content in other languages but not be able to directly share those with others. Usually I'll just have to summarize and translate things that I'd like to talk about. Japanese especially has a massive media library that has never been translated and it's not like people can just learn Japanese in a few months to experience it.

I'm German but I'm watching english videos almost every day. Sometimes only seconds after watching a video I can't remember if it was German or English because I don't realy think about the language but only about the content.

My parents can't speak english. But 80% of the Videos/Series/Games/Music and social Media I consume is in english. Sometimes I have to translate some sentences for them.

I sometimes forget which language I read a text in. Totally remember the content but not the language it was written.

No, that is actually not bizarre all. BTW: Congratulations, that means you are pretty fluent in German. Something simmilar happened to me, but kind of the reverse. I was watching a video in English and then another one in German. And I was sitting there not comprehending what was being said despite being a native speaker. Seriously I was wondering why I couldn't understand it until I realized it was in German. And then I restarted the video. And that time, I did understand what was being said.

That is a typical consequence when you reach a certain level of fluency in a language, ideally living in another country for a longer time. You loose the ability to attach the language to something you do or hear/view, when you are not actively thinking about it. Especially in a hurry you by accident flip to the "wrong" language or like here the language becomes so natural that you do not see red flags coming up anymore using it pout of context. There comes the time when you get asked whether you saw a film or read a book in a specific language and you will need the context to reconstruct it, as language becomes detached from content. Totally normal.

hm LUL - actually my mom was born in the netherlands and lives in germany since now 50 years, but on some occasions my mom starts to talk to me in dutch even, if we never speak dutch at home. (well i do understand it mostly but she does not reallizes it at all). Usually if she was also actually busy with a dutch book or listening to something dutch.

Most people in my life speaks the same 3 languages, but yes sometimes I will be reading or watching something in english (2nd language) or german (3rd language), and not realise it until later.

Who here is familiar with the song _Mentirosa_ by Mellow Man Ace? It came out in '89. I had to have been the _hugest_ fan of it, or so I thought at the time. It's a song in which the artist shows off his effortless code switching, back and forth, between English and Spanish and I found it an indispensable source to fuel my interest, because at the time, I was very interested in Spanish. It's clear, when you hear him recite _part_ of a verse in _one_ of these languages and _another_ part in the _other,_ he's not just someone who is fluent in _one_ of these languages and knows a _little_ of the other. He's completely fluent in _both;_ conversant in _both;_ utterly comfortable in _both._ So does anyone here know a music artist who does the same in English and _German?_

When you are quite fluent in several languages it can happen you forget which language you used because you rather focus on the content than which language it was in. Happens to me to.

I'm pretty sure, that Dana is at point where she is so fluent in both languages that she doesn't spend attention in which language an article, video or alike is.

If you can replace "vom" by "von dem" (of which "vom" is a short form) then it's "vom". von deM Ei --> voM

Oh god i can relate i live only 5 years in the uk and when i call my mum in germany and talk fast i slip into english and forget she dosent understand xD also sometimes i dont know easy words and have to translate tham back

Your brain says that german is a "normal" language, which means you finally arrived in Germany.

I sometimes have similar situations. I'm German but I would say my English is really good. And it sometimes happens that I watch a video and after watching it the question of weather the video was in English or German pops up in my head. And I literally can't answer it myself without watching a part of the video again paying attention to the language. Everyone I know and I send videos to speaks both languages so the exact situation can't happen to me.

I was curious, since you've lived in Germany for 10 years, do you speak German more than English? I only speak English and have been amazed by those who can jump back and forth from their mother tounge.

This is six months ago. Is it time to take your channel from my list?

Moin Dana! Schön, mal wieder etwas von dir zu hören! Urlaubsgrüße aus Holland! Ben

...vom Ei...! :-) Thank you very much! :-)

Ich bin auch Amerikaner, der deutsch gelernt hat und dessen Eltern kein Deutsch können. Deshalb habe ich sehr oft solche Dinge erlebt.😅 Sehr gutes Video!

...next time send them a video in japanese ;)

You may be loosing your English skills. You said you sent the video "on accident" instead of "by accident". Your brain has started to mix German and English word structure, it's kind of amusing.

I really know this feeling. I'm German, but I speak, read and hear a lot of English. Most of my professional life is happening in English and i mostly consume English-speaking media. It's become so natural to me, that I don't even think about the language anymore, which leads to interesting situations. At work we sometimes have meeting in German, but everything we write down and document will be in english, even during discussions. Sometimes people "accidentally" switch to speaking English in those scenarios. Another think I noticed is that I sometimes remember a scene from a movie, but I really can't tell which language I watched it in. I know what the characters said, I just don't know in what language they spoke (and both versions seem correct in my head). Another thing that once happened to me was watching a movie in with some friends in German (dubbed) and there was a scene were the characters were speaking Japanese with subtitles. It took me to the end of the scene to even realize that the subtitles were English, althoug we were watching the movie in German.

👍 - _auch_ für den YT-Algo! 😊 👍 - _also_ for the YT algo! 😊

I think it's normal that different people just speak different languages, even among one family. My mom's parents spoke Hungarian and Slovak. My mom spoke Slovak with them but Czech with me. So basically I understand Slovak really well but I don't actually speak it fluently and when I was talking to my grandparents, I spoke Czech and they answered in Slovak. And my dad is Czech but he grew up in the Communist regime here in Czechia (Czechoslovakia back then) so he speaks Russian. And I don't speak almost any Russian basically because I was born after the revolution. On the other hand I speak English quite well and German and Hebrew conversationally. And I sometimes read a text or watch a video and a few seconds later I know what it was about but I don't know anymore if it was in Czech, Slovak or Enlish 🤷🏽‍♀️😂

I get this with my wife. She doesn't speak English and we'll start a streaming film and I'll be getting into it and she will tell me, "it's in English!" I just hadn't noticed. I really don't notice the difference, unless I concentrate - or the high pitched squeaky voices, sometimes, of the English actors. A lot of the German synchron-speakers have much deeper voices and after years of watching them in German, the squeaky voices are then a surprise, when I listen to it in English - Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J in NCIS LA spring to mind, in German they have deep, masculine voices and their own voices have a much higher timbre. I speak German about 98% of the time, these days. I sometime call my family up or have a conversation with our US office and I will just start speaking German and they stop me and point out I am not speaking English. Sometimes, I notice it after a few words, apologise and switch. An Italian friend and his wife visited us a few years back. He speaks Italian and English, I speak English and German, his wife speaks just Italian and my wife just German, so we spent the evening going back and forth, translating things back and forth. We knew we were tired, when we started speaking English with our wives and German/Italian with each other. :D

Sometimes I have a similar problem: I am German, but after reading English texts, watching longer videos in English language or talking to Americans in their language I have to "actively switch back" to German, otherwise I would talk English to the next person.

Ooo, I'm an American (with a bit of a linguistics background) working in the UK for a Viennese company, so this 'Gelb des Eis' thing should be right up my alley. Definitely going to check that out. Thanks, Dana!

Maybe you were experiencing what I call "being in the zone." That is to say, when you're first learning a language, saying anything is a struggle. Once you get good enough at it, however, you may reach the point that you're not even aware of which language you're using at the moment. You may even switch between the two languages without even noticing it. When you reach that level of ease, it can be very easy to use the wrong language with someone who doesn't understand. I've been there a few times myself, but as my university career ended, my opportunities for speaking German dried up, and consequently my German ability faded. A somewhat similar psychological phenomenon I've noticed in myself is forgetting age differences between myself and others--especially with younger people. It's obvious to me that there's an age gap, yet I find myself saying, "Remember when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?" or "Remember when Nixon resigned?" And then I realize I'm talking to someone who was born during the Clinton administration--so of course they don't remember!

This happens all the time. It's really funny and confusing. I keep forgetting if I wrote a comment or watched a video in English or German and end up commenting in English to German content. Especially when, for example, a reddit post is in English, but it's in a German speaking subreddit. Suddenly the majority of the comments are in English, till a person, confused about all that English, reminds us that we're on a German subreddit a la "sprich deutsch du H********" XD I just stopped being able to actively notice if something is in one or the other language.

Ah Dana did you reckon all emigrants going to the US except those from English speaking areas spoke more languages than their US raised children? You mentioned it yourself when mentioning that your mother spoke Czech but not taught you? So it’s now full circle with you😉😅

My step-father is from Chile. In Chile, the main language is Spanish, though the dialect is _very_ different from everything the average American is typically familiar with. He has a _very_ distinct accent. As I understand it, a _Mexican_ Spanish speaker and a _Chilean_ Spanish speaker will have trouble _understanding_ each other. I remember, it happened way back when I was in Middle School that a friend of mine called the house when I wasn't there, and the next day, at school, he told me that he had tried to call me at home, "but some _German_ dude answered." I had to laugh. "Chilean," I explained. "That's Oscar. He's from Chile; not Germany." In '92, my family and I traveled to Chile, around the holiday season, to visit his family and several family friends, and he translated for us. There was one particular moment, as I recall, that he was trying to tell us something one of his friends there had just said, but we had to point out to him that he was still speaking Spanish. 🤷 But anyhow, you _know_ you've reached a good point of fluency when you reflect on a conversation, and you can remember what you said, but you have to reflect _carefully_ in order to remember which _language_ it was in.

Dear Dana, this is a great sign that you stepped up in your German journey :DD Yes, it became natural for you and forget about your parents' language. Thats not a bad thing at all, you're on the way to speak german as your second mother language... PS: tongue twister hack: try to say 3-5 times "German journey" :DD

I have learned several languages that my parents do not speak at all. I speak English, German, French but I do not mix languages. This is very hard because I know many people do mix languages.

Dana, I'm, just curious. Since you speak a language that your folks don't and that it wasn't always that way and in fact, it was once the other way around, was it ever competitive or adversarial?

I find that interesting but i read something related to it many, many years ago. This was about when the brain embraces not just the new language, but also the new culture (it was an article about dictators making it illegal to learn native languages after an occupation - yea, something dark) - and i always wondered why language was such a factor in culture. It was argued that language is culture in a way that when you accept a language .. you are about to accept the culture - or in reverse - when you do not speak the language anymore, you will inevitably not identify with the culture anymore .. traditions and culture of the "old" become window dressing maybe, a farce or just hollow. They may remain rituals - but with no meaning. Now, i am still not sure if i can subscribe to such an importance to language, but i have seen a bit of it myself, when i was studying in Germany. Because i was mainly with international students (of course, being a student migrant myself) - it was kind of striking. We all learned German (mandatory) to follow the lectures, but some were much faster of course. Those people went on getting friends in German culture .. and subsequently, leaving international friends behind who were still only able to converse in English with each other as a quasi lingua franca. By gaining German friends they also embraced German culture, German traditions much more - and after a while, they simply did not speak English anymore as the lingua franca. They did not forget their home countries language, but they started to THINK in German. --> and that is the point where you kind of "switch" cultures in a way - once you think in the other language, maybe dream in the other language - behave in the other culture. For me, that has never happened. I never became fluent in German even after nearly a decade. I always think in my own language. For you ... i guess that you might be thinking in German - or unconsciously speak in German. You embraced German as a primary language ... in the environment of Germany. (as in true bilingual - you switch to a primary language of English in the environment of the USA, i guess) - So because you think in German, you assume German to be the "default" unconsciously. Unrelated .. my sister speaks French, because her partner is French. (dont like him) - they speak French with each other when they do not want me to understand it. (we used to see each other quite regularly when i was in Germany, its rarer now that i am back home and she is still living in France) .. My sister has developed an accent and does not sound native Icelandic anymore. She also uses more words and phrases that are more "written" than "spoken" when she visits and talks her mothertongue.

Best youtube channel out there. Natural, funny! I appreciate very much that you start right away without intro. You don't need an intro for "branding" your channel. Your personality is unique enough that we know, this is the one and only Wanted Adventure! And yes, I have very similar experiences. I think, it's the subconsciousness constantly saying to us "I like this surrounding where I talk the language X and I don't want to "leave" this world, so the others HAVE to speak also in this language, cause it's nice here". I travel more often than normal to friends in England and speak English there, sometimes I fly back just immediately before I go to work (= Monday morning), and when I talk then to my only German customers, without thinking(!) I sometimes start talking to them in English. I loved the atmosphere of the weekend before so much and the English surrounding... -> my brain secretly saying to me: "it can't be, that this is over now, where you are and wanna be it's so nice, everything is English, the next person is nice, he/she must be English" (I have very often very nice customers ... not shop customers... different...) The same crazyness is with dreaming in a foreign language...

That happens to me when I remember something I watched... I'm never sure if I watched it in English, French or Spanish. 😅

That's really an interesting topic! I'm a German living in Germany, but I read and watch a lot of stuff in English, articles, videos, blogs ... I usually don't share things like that with my parents (we have quite different interests), but sometimes my mother, who learnt English at school but over 40 years ago and never used it, asks me about things I'm watching/looking at and I have to explain because she only understands a few single words anymore. Now I'm planning my wedding with a kind of nerdy literature/movie-theme and I want to do centerpieces including literature/movie quotes. They sound better in the English original but some of the older guests (my mother and my father in law) wouldn't understand anything, so it excludes them. But the German translation does not sound as catchy ... first world problems, I know :D

I’m Belgian but living in Spain. When people who don’t understand Spanish visit me, my task is to translate for them. But lots of people have the habit of nodding when someone is speaking to them, so I automatically assume they understand. They don’t. So basically I’m a horrible translator. Also, when I’m having a conversation in Spanish and at the same time I answer a message from my mum who speaks Dutch, I often end up writing it in Spanish without realising.

I was overwhelmed the time I first realized that I did think in English. That was weird! It was about a song I listened to in the radio, and I started thinking of what the singer wanted to say with the lyrics. OK that can happen, but in a foreign language you more easily stumble over misunderstandings and missing vocabulary. So you start with translating in the head and then think about. Then it happened! I do not know how and why but on occasion my inner dialog went on in english. And the only thing that I recognized that was because parts of my brain said like "Wait, I can't follow!" This time it was a little like waking up after a nightmare dream, but somehow I understood what was going on and I was able to train my brain doing this. But today I can have complicated discussions in English and obviously in German, but translating for other people standing by is very hard for me, because then I have to think 2 languages simultaniously.

As long as you don't begin to think in German- without taking notice of it- it's still allright! 😂. Regards from Dortmund

I have this on a regular basis with my mother when I want to show her something funny on Instagram or RU-vid. We live in the Netherlands and while I'm fluent in English she barely knows any English because she only had to learn the language for 2 years in the 1970s and then never used it after high school. It might not be as extreme as not knowing the language at all, but there are many things that I have to explain to a point that I just don't even bother explaining why I'm laughing at a pun or any other joke in English because just translating it for her would kill all the fun in it.

One problem I regularly have with English & German (native german speaker) is, that I don’t realize which language a video / film was in. Which often leads to me sending a video to someone who doesn’t understand one of those two languages.

I can speak French fluently and almost nobody in my family does. I have never had a situation where I sent something in French by mistake but I've been asked to translate things though.

I know quite the same phenomenon. When I dive very deep into a topic over a long period of time, so that I become an "expert" in it, it is very hard for me to reset myself to the point of somebody who don't know anything about this topic. I expect people that they have to understand it like me.

I experienced something similar a few years ago. Back then I had an apprentice who spoke fluent Englisch and German. While my skills in speaking and writing English are not perfect at all I understand it fluently as well. We both saw a Video on RU-vid and talked about it for a while. Then we thought a colleage of mine would also be interested in this topic so we wanted to show her the Video. When we found it we were both absolutly surprised by the fact that it was in English. We did not realize it when we first saw it and we knew that my colleage wouldn't understand a word. It felt so natural to us that we thought everyone around us will feel the same.

I have several questions about teaching English in Munich, if you don't mind contacting me!

I’ve done this before too so I can totally relate! I think it’s a mix of me being comfortable with German by this point and being surrounded by it all the time, and my parents having visited Vienna a lot, and sprinkle in a bit of absent-mindedness and you get me sending my parents jokes or things in German 😅 (Thanks for the shoutout by the way! 😊)

This is just the story of young people everywhere in the world who speak English in addition to their mother tongue, while their parents don't.

Yoy are the best of the best!

Sometimes your parents don't understand what you are saying in German, but I'm sure they will learn some, Miss Dana.

It's a sign of being bilingual. Like telling someone about a video or article and then having to think what language it was in.

If the interviews are in German on youtube, can you make hand made subtitles in English for your parents?

so do i

VOM, das Gelbe vom Ei , "vom" ist eine Abkürzung "von dem = vom", so, "Das Gelbe con dem Ei", vom Ei🤗👍🙋‍♂

So you understand German 100%? That's wonderful. Why don't you introduce your learning journey? Do you speak German with husband?

Meine Eltern und englischsprachigen Freunde sehen auch oft, wie ich auf deutsche Beiträge auf Facebook antworte und ich vergesse da auch immer, dass ich da was auf Deutsch geschrieben hatte. 😆 schön, dass ich den Punkt erreicht habe, wo es quasi zur zweiten Natur geworden ist, in einer anderen Sprache zu kommunizieren.

Hey Dana! I've been watching your videos for a few years now and I've enjoyed learning about cultural and linguistic differences between Germany and the USA. Quick question (Other German speakers feel free to chime in): What sources (books, movies, tv shows, websites, musicians, etc.) do you recommend for a person studying German? I want to get serious about learning German.

Sometimes I want to share a video with my friends. Forgetting which language it was in. But then when I realize I don’t. Is this somewhat similar?: calling my son accidentally my sister‘s(!!!?!) name because (I think) that has always been the name of the youngest person in the family. This person is now my son 💁‍♀️

Hi Dana! Love your videos. Can you do me favor? I noticed Svenja at Don’t Trust The Rabbit hasn’t posted a new video in 10 months. One commentor on her last video claims she passed away. Can you please let us know if she is okay? I’m quite worried now and hope it’s just a garbage rumor. Thank you for your help.

7:49 Eigelb = egg yolk.