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Multilingual with multi-personality?

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    #16
    I am definitely a lot more polite when I speak English, but not because it's English I speak, but because I connect speaking English with English manners, such as saying "please" all the time ("could I please have the butter?" instead of "could I have the butter?", which is as polite as it gets in Swedish, at least my dialect) and apologize for everything. I'm very direct in Finnish, partly because I don't speak it much and partly because that's the Finnish way. In my dialect I am rather direct as well, though I have different levels of dialect (closer and further away from high Swedish (standard Swedish) ) that I use in different situations with different people, I rarely speak high Swedish. I definitely have different personalities in Swedish regardless of how I'm talking though, if I'm taking a shift as a carer I'm polite, chatty, caring and generally positive, if I'm working in the shop I'm helpful, informative, efficient and energetic, if I'm with friends I'm my crazy self.

    I should add that regardless of how well I know a language I always think it when I speak it, be it my very basic french or fluent English.
    We part only to meet again ~ J.Gay

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      #17
      My girlfriend is Finnish and I'm Japanese, but we communicate in English. She's actually really good at typing English and I think she speaks it well, too. I'm pretty much fluent in English myself thanks to my many years spent in Canada. For me at least, I don't observe any personality change when I speak English or Japanese. And I can't see myself changing my personality if I ever end up speaking other languages either.

      Interestingly enough, I have a Spanish friend who is also dating a Japanese fellow. She has told me on a number of occasions that her boyfriend sounds "cold" when he communicates in English. Lately, however, they've been taking advantage of online translators more, and she says when she translates the messages he's written in Japanese into Spanish, she apparently feels that he sounds "sweeter and more loving". It's fascinating.

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