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Bad Habits Picked Up? - blackbrich - 2013-01-05

Anybody ever accidentally as a result of Japanese learning transferred certain Japanese vocab/structure to their native language?
I know every once in a while I'll want to use become when it makes no sense.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Marumaru - 2013-01-05

Not to my native language, but somewhat to my L2 (English) from which I study Japanese. Things like ending a sentence with "but" (often), saying "from now on" (これから) when I just mean "from now" or "now", using the suffering passive, etc.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Ampharos64 - 2013-01-05

Vocab, yes, though I'm not worried about it to the extent I'd consider it a bad habit. If someone interrupts me by calling me while I'm doing my reps, they're particularly likely to get answered in Japanese, before I do a double-take and realise they don't understand me. XD

I think I may also have acquired an increased tendency to repeat things back when seeking further information, too.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Zgarbas - 2013-01-05

I bow when apologizing. It's kind of weird.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Irixmark - 2013-01-05

I sometimes tilt my head to the side and inhale with a hissing sound before I say things like "I'm afraid that won't be possible."

Bad Habits Picked Up? - frony0 - 2013-01-05

Irixmark Wrote:I sometimes tilt my head to the side and inhale with a hissing sound before I say things like "I'm afraid that won't be possible."
That's Japanese? o.O

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Mushi - 2013-01-05

I have not noticed anything like that happening.

But if I yelling, "Bankai!" when I'm in a pinch, or drive on the wrong side of the road, I hope that someone will pull me aside and let me know.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - blackbrich - 2013-01-05

Zgarbas Wrote:I bow when apologizing. It's kind of weird.
I find my self doing that slight Japanese nod/bow thing. My Korean professor made me realize it.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - MindTrick - 2013-01-05

Not that I'm aware of, I do slightly nod my head when thanking / apologizing but that's a habit I picked up long before I started learning Japanese.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Zlarp - 2013-01-06

Whenever I try to speak French now (my L2. English is my L3, but I'm a lot better at it than at French and I've been using only English sources to learn Japanese. I haven't gotten anything in that mixed up yet, or my L1 and L1.5 (Swiss German and German respectively, yeah, kinda complex...)) I mix up things like "je suis" and "watashi" because in my mind they sound so similar.

Well, one exception. In Swiss German, my native language, there's the expression "en Schöne" - which translates to "a nice one" which is short for "a nice day" which is in turn short for "have a nice day". It sounds almost exactly like the "n-jia-naa" when pronounced (this expression I only ever heard and I haven't found out how you actually spell it yet, so I haven't been able to look it up) and you use it in exactly the same situations. Literally, it probably means something entirely differently, though. Like "please" and "お願いします" Still, I sometimes end up going "n-jia-naa" and nobody notices Tongue

Bad Habits Picked Up? - RawrPk - 2013-01-06

I work as a server in a restaurant and all of my coworkers are Spanish speakers. I still remember a few phrases of Spanish from high school but for some reason when thinking on the fly, I think in Japanese and almost say the Japanese phrase. I often have to stop myself from saying 「いらっしゃいませ」 to many of the Spanish only speaking customers xD

Also whenever someone calls me, I always reply 「はい！」but luckily for me, they probably think I'm saying "hi" Tongue lol

Bad Habits Picked Up? - mezbup - 2013-01-06

occasionally I wind up speaking quite Japanese sounding English (minus the accent of course). I'll say shit like..."actually, it's not really good one I don't think". Hahaha... I totally realise I'm doing it too and it doesn't happen all the time but enough for me to notice it. I guess my though process has been slightly affected by learning Japanese.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Savii - 2013-01-06

I suppose I'm starting to think more topic-oriented, e.g. sometimes starting a sentence with "as for..." or my native language equivalent even though it's not the most natural type of expression for that particular situation.

Another effect that's not "bad" per se: I've become more aware of colloquial speech patterns in my native language. I realize now how numerous they are, and their complexity, lack of structure and logic, and randomness in usage. Makes me feel for people trying to learn all that even though I perceive it as almost incomprehensible if you haven't grown up with it, and then I realize I'm trying to do the same with a different language. I'm trying not to think about that too much because letting myself get demotivated by something like that would be a bad habit.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - uisukii - 2013-01-06

Often I find myself blurting out certain Japanese, er, "sounds"- fragments of sentences, words, particles, whatnot in response to certain things or just by compulsion, depending on my mood. Usually when I'm by myself, which is quite often, and if anyone were observing me, I would not be surprised if they thought me a little mad. It's kind of like a verbal tick, sometimes.

While I was still drinking, I hazily remember being out late/early one night/morning and trying to get money out of an ATM. For whatever ever reason there happen to be a small handful of people nearby and for whatever reason the ATM was playing up (or I was too drunk- probably that) and I faintly remember slurring something frustrated like "何だこれは、なにしてのなナ-何だよ！" and getting some weird looks from the people nearby as I walked away upset.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Zlarp - 2013-01-06

Yah, I do that sort of thing too. My cat knows 何だよこいつ

Bad Habits Picked Up? - frony0 - 2013-01-06

Mushi Wrote:But if I yelling, "Bankai!" when I'm in a pinch, or drive on the wrong side of the road, I hope that someone will pull me aside and let me know.
Love it.

OT: I do nowadays tend to make an "aiyaa"-like sound in a very Asian way when something doesn't go right, though that's probably more to do with the masses of Cantonese exposure I get...

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Mushi - 2013-01-06

This reminds me of a novice Japanese learner who had just gotten a puppy. He declared that he would kill two birds with one stone and discipline and train the puppy in Japanese.

Apparently, he tells his dog "iiye" (no) when it does something wrong. This made me laugh. (Also, I imagined that he says it in a Richard Chamberlain voice.)

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Tzadeck - 2013-01-06

I've lived in Japan for five years, so the Japanese-ness of my English has gotten bad. Probably not from entirely from studying Japanese, but also because I speak to a lot of Japanese people in English, and I pick up their habits that are influenced by their native language.

One result of this is being overly polite in a Japanese way, "I was wondering if it would be possible for me to ask you to..."

Or using Japanese euphamisms--times when I would say 'no' have been replaced with "Hmm, I'm not sure..." "It seems kind of difficult..." "I'm not sure how possible that is..." "I'll try my best, but..."

I drop articles a lot too. I also drop the first-person subject "I" a lot, especially when writing.

My "See ya" has become "(Low pitch) See (High pitch) ユー"
'Bye' and 'Goodbye' have become 'バイバイ！'

I use English words that sound unnatural to fill in for Japanese words--"That class is really energetic! (=元気)" "That makes me really nosalgic (=なつかしい)"

I met my friend's parents and were super polite to them and bowed a lot, while shaking their hands and stuff, and they were laughing about it when they talked about it privately with their daughter later, haha.

I also ushered my sisters wedding after living her a few years. I didn't know her husband's family at all, and I was showing them to their seats and stuff, acting very polite, bowing, mimicking Japanese politeness in English, pointing with my hand instead of fingers, and so on.

Arrrrgh. I feel real weird sometimes, haha.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Zgarbas - 2013-01-06

As an overtly polite person, it feels a bit weird to see some of my normal habits labeled as "Japanese behavior", Tzadeck ^^'. (though the bowing part totally added to the sillyness of my politeness).

Bad Habits Picked Up? - TheVinster - 2013-01-06

I have a tendency to say よいしょ when sitting down or starting something.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - vonPeterhof - 2013-01-07

Other than blurting out あれっ when surprised/confused and slightly overusing the topic-oriented structure, I don't think it has affected my Russian much. Pronoun dropping is present in Russian to begin with, so that's not something that Japanese affected in any way. Some of the other languages I speak/study were affected somewhat more - due to the similarity of the words for 'yes' in German, Norwegian and Kazakh to the Japanese いいえ／いや I occasionally blurt out those words when I mean 'no'. My Kazakh was affected the most, since it has so many similarities with Japanese (SOV, agglutinative, all verbs end in a u-like sound in the infinitive) and I don't get to use it very often these days, so whenever I try to come up with a sentence in Kazakh I keep inserting Japanese words - 難şı 言葉lar 全部 忘rıp qaldım ğoy!

Bad Habits Picked Up? - frony0 - 2013-01-07

Tzadeck Wrote:"I was wondering if it would be possible for me to ask you to..."
Apart from this, all of that is pretty natural English!

Bad Habits Picked Up? - chillimuffin - 2013-01-07

For quite a while now I've been saying うん instead of "uh-huh" most of the time when confirming. I don't even know when it started. Totally unconscious. The funny thing is my husband picked up this habit, even though he doesn't speak Japanese at all. We do watch Japanese stuff together, though.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - Ash_S - 2013-01-07

Yeah I've picked up the うん thing too. Everyone seems to understand fine though lol.
The other one is all the useful little words (stuff like とか, なんか,　的な) which I always get the urge to slip into my sentences when speaking English too.

Bad Habits Picked Up? - undead_saif - 2013-01-07

I picked up some bad habits but from English not Japanese, since 95% of what I read and write (memos and technical stuff nothing fancy) is in English.

Something related that I've noticed is that there's "modes" that get turned on by situations or certain mentalities, like turning the Japanese mode on when in a Japanese class, or turning the English mode on when thinking about a topic which one learned about in English.

Now, by "mode" I don't mean to think in that language or use that language, it's like the brain loads that language library into RAM and things gets mixed! A pretty cool example is when trying to teach someone your native language, while explaining in a common language, and you can explain things sometimes better in that person's native language, 3-in-1! A really wonderful experience to be honest.