its so weird that even though i’ve been taught angrezi since i was a kid (in school and so on though only became fluent in spoken english after going to college in amreeka coz never spoke it much in school n while growing up n hardly ever at home or with friends even tho went to english medium skools)
its weird tho that (and the realisation only struck me today) that even now if im nervous or not really alert i cant compose my sentences in english and jus speak it fluently! my mind goes blank sometimes and i search for words, i speak in broken phrases, and if im too nervous i just start talkin iin urdu and feel a big relief when i do.
today i was giving a presentation at work and i was kinda nervous coz all eyes were on me and i jus cudnt talk in proper composed grammtically correct angrezi. i had to revert to urdu after which i felt a million times better. i gave the remaining presentation in urdu.
i’ve noticed this in others too. speakign in your mother tongue is much less stressful. it seems to come naturally.
khair, after that i have been thinking, is this normal? i mean not being able to talk fluently in english when emotional in any way is not a good thing innit. do u guys ever face this prob? maybe the part of my brain that controls language fluency (cerebral cortex? i dono which part does) is not functioning properly or something? :halo:
irem ji, u seem to be very emotional right now.. thoda calm down ho jaiye yeh sab normal hi hai.. several times i have faced the same situation.. when i am stuck for words, i start speaking in my mother tongue (not urdu/hindi :D) and it does feel stupid for some time phir sochta hoon what the hell and continue to do so.. if u'd been reared in america or some place probly u wont feel that but even though u learnt english all ur life it was a subject not as a spoken language to start with.. thats where the fluency problem starts from.. unrealized by you your mind does an automatic translation of ur thoughts in the sequence:
thoughts --> words in urdu --> translate into english
one funny thing that happened to me was when i was with my advisor and i intended to say "apne-hi-pair-pe-kulhari-maarna" but instead of an idiomatic equivalent all i came up with was "he hit his leg with an axe".. my advisor stood confused for sometime and i just asked him to forget it :D
waesay i always use "matlab" in english sentences when i am too excited or use "ki" instead of "that"... welcome to the club irem
I think it's all about getting used to. Since you haven't spoken English on regular basis since you left amreeka so you have lost the fluency and command on language that you used to have. I haven't spoken sindhi in years. So I am pretty sure I am going to have the same problem if I ever try to speak it again. Don’t worry there is nthing wrong with your left hemisphere frontal lobe (if you are a right hander).
according to freud it is something to do with kids who were too petrified about their mother in their childhood. Partuclarly if the mother had a sharp tongue!
...just kidding. what you experience is perfectly natural and there's nothing to be worried or ashamed of. If your audience understand only English, then ofcourse you are in the wrong job.
We have some other Sindhis on the board too Like Cheegum, I think JonyBr speaks Sindhi too. Seedha Saadha is another Sindhi. I might be forgetting some names. You should practise with them. I don’t think one EVER forgets their mother tongue…nah…impossible
You’re right maybe I just didnt speak english much after coming here (though I do speak it sometimes with friends, you know beech mein teen chaar sentences) but even in amreeka (except for two years when my roommates were arabs) i was so surrounded by desis that i used to still speak in urdu most of the time
Yeah that happens to me often as well. Especially during presentations my mind just goes blank and I lose my train of thought. But at home I speak in urdu/punjabi/english mix but more of punjabi. Even at home I sometimes have trouble translating from punjabi to english and vise versa because I don't know the exact word or I can't think of it. So I eventually end up having to explain the word I'm trying to say to my family in a very confused manner; but that doesn't happen alot.
FF - true that. Usually if I’m in desi company I always tend to speak Urdu but recently its been weird coz at work everyone is desi but we speak (mostly) English at formal presentations and stuff, though we always interject a bit of Urdu. If its an informal meeting or a one on one cnovo (even with boss) then we talk in Urdu, English as we wish.
Atlantis haha no I’m lucky, they all understood Urdu
Irem that is your problem and I am being serious here. I have seen your mile and half long posts in transliterated Urdu, If I were on a deserted Island with an internet connection that is the only time I will venture to read those long posts.
That said its all about speaking and using the language. I am sure that while I can speak fluent Urdu, Punjabi Hindko etc Iwill probably(and have done so in the past unconsciously) switch to english, having lived half my life in US. I am very conscious that I speak proper urdu or punjabi while in Pakistan to avoid being labeled as "is desi goray ko deeko urdu bhool gya tana". But you cant its hard.
My speech teacher told us (andI am going back 1985) that initially one thinks in their mother tongue and then translates it into the other language. Her point was think in english and speak in english or think and speak in the same kanguage. It take a while but it can be overcome.
I hope It made sense.
dil se jo aah nikalti hae asar rakhti hae it seems u really have been bugged by my urdu posts
My mother (who is an english teacher ) always told us the same thing, that in order to improve our english we must think in english too Its tuff tho innit … bohot mushkil kaam hae hae na?
:halo:
others r like WHAT??? and then explaining it was a big project 
Like Cheegum, I think JonyBr speaks Sindhi too. Seedha Saadha is another Sindhi. I might be forgetting some names. You should practise with them. I don’t think one EVER forgets their mother tongue…nah…impossible