07/15/2011

The Jekyll and Hyde of Language

The Jekyll and Hyde of Language

There is a strong belief that people’s personalities change when they speak different languages, and there is probably something to this.  But it is not a simple something.  The feeling that we are “someone else” in Swedish versus Spanish is probably most accute during actual language acquisition, and when we have mastered the language (which in my estimation takes at least four years of constant effort when one is an adult),  it may be a different thing altogether.