Living in my second language has given me a new found respect (not that I didn’t already respect and appreciate) for those who move to a whole new country and suddenly have to learn a new language or who have to live in their second one. I would say from my experiences in China with a lower language level it is hard. THANK GOD FOR TECHNOLOGY! But I have also been living in Costa Rica for the past 4 months and my level of Spanish is significantly higher. I struggled with the accents for sure but overall I can understand and respond to a vast majority of things.

I would consider Spanish my second language- both if we’re talking about when I started Spanish and if we’re talking about proficiency. So, really I should feel comfortable with the language, which I do 100% (Okay don’t attack me! Maybe 90-95%). A thing a lot of people don’t mention is the detachment from yourself when you speak in another language. Now I’m not talking about native level speakers or bilingual people who grew up fluent in multiple languages. I’m talking those of us who are writing lists of vocab every day and struggling to immerse ourselves as much as possible. I thought I was going INSANE for feeling so detached from myself when I first got here (Costa Rica), I definitely don’t feel this as much after 3-4 months of Spanish being so integrated into my daily life. It was like I completely lost my personality at first. Now I’ve spoken a lot of Spanish in my life I’ve done exchanges, I’ve been the translator on family holidays, I’ve done Spanish classes for years and years. However, I have never had to spend 8 hours a day 6 days a week with a variation of about 15 people. Developing a personality has been crucial. I’m going to be honest my sense of humour is definitely wittier in English…. for Spanish my vibe is being sarcastically over the top dramatic… because it’s easy you just use a tone change and pick up on things people say.

Thankfully, personality changes, or lack of personality are super common in language learners (guess I wasn’t going insane so yayyy). You’ll be more emotionally entuned in your mother tongue (or for people who lose proficiency in their mother tongue your strongest language) this is mostly due to developing with or connecting more to the language. You fully understand the nuances behind words and the expressions used and you can understand most things and emotional implications easier. This is why from my experiences I don’t always enjoy reading fiction in my foreign languages. I enjoy the emotional connections I feel to characters and I struggle to have that when I read fiction in other languages. Luckily TV and films are easier to identify with because you can see the emotional significance of scenes on the characters faces.

The main reasons you might feel a personality change are: cultural differences, your sense of self in the language and your motivation for learning the language. Now this is going to be a bit of explaining sorry all, strap in!

**Cultural differences are pretty self-explanatory:** different cultures have different hierarchy systems, different formalities, different culturally accepted jokes and conversation topics etc. This will change how you present yourself in the language.

**Sense of self:** you lose a part of yourself when your speaking in a language your learning purely because your mind is ON, it’s thinking up every word, every tense, every infliction, the level of politeness required. This takes up so much focus- when I tell you it’s DRAININGGGG especially in the first couple of months of being immersed in the language. You also feel so much less clever in another language, when you have to make a random sound or play charades to explain what you mean. It’s so much harder to add personality in these situations. Your brain is filtering out the least important thing in the situation. （From someone who has first hand experience…. this betters with time). Your nerves will get the better of you at first as well… just remember no one cares as much as you think or as you do if you make a mistake!!!

**Motivation for learning the language:** in essence this is saying if you learn a language for business you will know business vocab you will speak formally, which in a friendly social situation will give you a strange personality. The same works the other way around, learning for social reasons might get you some odd looks in a workplace meeting!

Overall, today I was just joking around with a colleague and I thought about how 3-4 months ago my personality in Spanish was lacking. A lot of it boils down to your brain having to think too much or nerves but it’s cathartic to write about and I enjoy seeing achievements I’ve made on paper! All I’m going to say is anyone who can speak multiple languages deserves recognition because this stuff can be a head wreck!

If you want to read anymore about this topic here are some good things to read:

Speaking a different language can change how you act and feel by Antonella Gismundi

Different language, different personality: the polyglot phenomenon by Von Laura Mangels