• porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    I think bilingual in the linguistic sense is more if you grow up using both languages a lot in early childhood, and especially if you use both in the home, and not so much about the final fluency. I do this kind of rapid switching between Dutch and English because I grew up speaking Dutch at home in an English speaking country. But I wouldn’t say my Dutch is really perfect, I am missing quite a lot of vocabulary after decades in an English country and I don’t know a lot of formal/polite speech. But I can easily relate to how they are mixing the languages, it is quite natural. I also find it disorienting to switch to languages I learnt later in life, even one I learnt to a very high level, and I don’t often mix at all with that one.

    • 𝔽𝕩𝕠𝕞𝕥@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      Yeah should’ve mentioned, that’s what i meant; i learned both alongside each other at young ages (though i grew up in a mainly arabic country, not english)

      It’s called code-switching and it seems to vary based on speakers, guess i just can’t do it.