Language handicapped

Compared to many of my friends, I am language handicapped. So many speak three, four, five, six languages. My mother tongue is English, I function in French and consider my German on the shopping level.

The past year or so I have been trying to bring back my German, and it is has been slow. Partially because I could spend more time working on it. I was able to test it in Bern where we spent the weekend. Swiss Deutsche is different from High German.

Those who only speak American English are surprised to find that each language has many accents. It's no different than a person from Maine speaking very differently from someone from Alabama from someone from South Africa. Likewise each Swiss Canton has its own version.

In German, I can do simple sentences and if they speak slowly and simply I can understand their response. Often people came back to me in English.

I've been battling with French since 1990. Some days it wins, other days I win. I can read, speak, understand and almost write in it. If I read French or was speaking French before falling asleep, I dream in French. Sometimes I forget which language I am in.  I think in it, no longer translating from the English.

What is not strange with German I am still translating to get what I want to say out. What is strange is that I think in French to translate into German.

If there's any such thing as reincarnation, I want to be born into a multilingual family. Oui, Si, Ya, Ja, Lgen, etc.