What language do you dream in?
on January 30, 2012
I’ve been experiencing a really weird phenomenon in my dreams lately. No, not inception—although JGL visits me quite often (only three people will actually get that joke; others should assume that I’m serious). But now that I mention it, perhaps it’s some form of extraction instead. Hmm…
As some of you may know, I used to be fluent in French—sorry, Québecois—because I lived in Montreal for three years and went to French school there. In fact, I rocked the French all the way through high school and most of college, impressing countless girls with my French mystique*. I threw away this life of glamour* when I decided to reconnect with my Swedish roots. As a child, I had been native in Swedish for about five years (again, because we lived there and I went to school like normal kid. I totally blended in*. And impressed countless girls with my Asian mystique*.)
* May not be a factual statement
But an interesting thing happened when I was trying to relearn Swedish in college, which was that I kept using French function words in my sentences. For the first few months, I would say things like “Jag var där avec min vän mais vi såg inte dig” or something like that if I wasn’t paying attention. A few months into my Swedish renaissance, however, my nordic roots seemed to take hold. Around that time is when I started having dreams in which I would hear others (often people from my childhood) speak to me in Swedish. I couldn’t understand them then because I didn’t know enough Swedish, but I would listen to them and the dream would move along as if I understood.
Over the next year, I focused really hard on learning Swedish, and completely neglected my French. Consequently, ever since that time, I haven’t tried to speak French. I noticed that whenever I tried, the opposite slip-up would happen, meaning I would stick Swedish function words in around French words with French grammar. I can still read and listen to French, though (although it takes a few moments to adjust).
Now, here’s the strange thing: over the past couple of years, I have more-than-occasionally dreamt in Swedish; in the past year, these dreams have been reasonably advanced linguistically. I hear myself saying things to others and then thinking to myself “fy fan vad jag är grym” (loose English translation: “damn, I’m baller”). But the past few times I’ve dreamt in Swedish, I’ve been stumbling again—because I’ve been getting confused trying to speak French in my dreams! And when I do, I feel the gears grinding, searching for words and trying to make good sentences—to the point where it’s actually stressful!
What could this mean? After I reacquired Swedish, I ruled out the possibility of maintaining four languages in my head at once, especially given that I think in English 95% of the time. The remaining 5% is currently split between Mandarin and Swedish, and I had always thought that French just didn’t fit anymore. It seemed especially true since I had lost Spanish as well when I learned Swedish, which I had studied to the AP level in high-school, becoming reasonably conversant in it. Oh, and let’s not forget Italian, which I also studied for a year in high-school*.
* That last part is not actually germane at all. I’m just trying to impress girls with my multilingual mystique.
Maybe it has to do with my incredible fear that I’d one day meet an enchanting French girl and then have to be like “JE PARLE FRANCAIS I SWEAR OMG BELIEVE ME I LOVE YOU WE JUST MET.” Or maybe not. In any case, I’ll float some more legitimate theories in future posts.
