Today I had an odd experience of talking on the phone with our bank back in Bolzano. The friendly gentleman on the phone said he spoke English, so I switched to that, having originally asked — in both Italian and German — if he spoke English. I used to use Italian at the bank in Bolzano, but  I figured it would be easier to explain my question in English while on the phone, rather than ploughing through it in Italian. So, in English,  I explained my question. The man then  apologized for not being able to understand English so well on the phone.  So, intending to switch to Italian, I tried again … only what came out was  in German, not Italian. Which worked, since he spoke German (they usually speak both languages, of course, in Bolzano).  But when did I cross over to being able to speak about banking stuff more in German than in Italian?

And how come speaking German that well happens only when I want to speak in Italian?

But of course, this wasn’t the first time this has happened recently.  We were visiting friends in Rovereto and Verona, I wanted to speak to them in Italian. While a few speak some English, many of our Italian friends speak only Italian. So, there we were on our visit, and I opened my mouth to speak Italian, out came German.

Now, since I have this mishmash of languages that comes out at the moment when I try to speak in any language, I guess it wasn’t surprising that some German would come out. However, what was odd was that I realized I was also thinking in German … and not in English … while trying to speak in Italian.

What’s wrong with this picture?

I felt like my language facility had jumped over to the part of my brain where the “non-native language skills” were stored.  It was as if my brain had activated a program:

OK … get ready … she needs to speak in something other than English.  Let’s prepare to switch systems over to German, since she’s been using a lot of German lately. 

And then it got stuck there even when I sent the alert that what I wanted was Italian.  I just couldn’t seem to kick over into the Italian-speaking part of my head.  Every thought I had when I wanted to say something in Italian occurred to me initially only in German. Not in English first at that moment, but in German. And all Italian words eluded me at that moment. It was like the needle had gotten stuck playing the first track of the record, and was now skipping in place, rather than progressing onto the next track … er, language.

OK, so I’ve just dated myself by using that metaphor of a record needle getting stuck in the track of a record. Raise your hands if you ever used a record player. I mentioned this to one of our younger friends here, who said she’d seen a record player once in her parents’ house.  Sigh. That’s what comes from being a woman of a certain age, I guess.

But I digress.

Anyway, eventually I got a little better at being able to produce some Italian again, albeit often with a smattering of German words thrown in. But I still had the odd notion of not actually thinking in Italian or English first … most of the time, I’d stand there, looking at one of our friends, think about what I was about to say, realize what I was thinking was German, and then with great deliberation move my thoughts along to the Italian track so I could come out with mostly Italian words.

It was interesting. In some ways I guess it is an indication of how much studying I’ve been doing in German the past few months. And they say that when you think in a foreign language, that’s a good sign. When you do it when you’re trying to speak a different foreign language, though, it’s both good and very, very odd, though..

Flash forward to being back in Germany and speaking German here. Do I now think in German all the time when I’m trying to speak in German? Nope – wouldn’t that be nice. The perversity of the brain, I guess.  At least I’m not thinking in Italian when I’m trying to speak German, I suppose. That would have been a little too weird.