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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

I think there is a very real, uncanny valley effect (at least partially emotionally/identity grounded) with languages where it takes more experience and effort with recognizing a language (or dialect/accent) as a distinct environment requiring a code switch the more closely it resembles one you are very comfortable in, especially your native language, and especially if something about it specifically has become emotionally attached for you with your native language being spoken badly or by people of disfavored background.

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It may depend on personality. When I lived in Malaysia my English rapidly took on an accent and developed an unusual grammar, friends commented on it. I found it embarrassing but I couldn't easily stop myself doing it. OTOH, my friend has a long time Asian girlfriend, and speaks 100% native English regardless of whether she understands it or not. He is the type to correct your pronunciation.

I married a foreigner and for a few years when she was learning my native tongue, my own vocabulary and ease of expressing my self deteriorated noticeably. Even when speaking to others. This was quite a few years ago. I'm back on track but it was a frustrating experience.

Similarly I find myself speaking better English when "guided" by an American or English person. It's weird... If someone else speaks broken English, I will too.

When I had a girlfriend who didn't speak English as a first language, she asked me not to simplify my English so she could improve her understanding. She'd get annoyed if she felt I was "dumbing down" to make things easier for her.

During the almost eight years I lived in Brussels, Belgium, I was employed for a year as a consultant by Snow BV (a Dutch consulting company), and for six months I was working on-site at Eindhoven for ASML.

They told me it was actually an advantage that I didn’t speak Dutch, because this would encourage all of them to speak English around me. A few weeks later I was asked by the same manager to stop attending the standup meetings, because it was too hard for too many people to speak English instead of Dutch.

That’s only one of my Snow and ASML stories.

I think that was a good ask. I automatically adapted my vocabulary to match my wife's as English isn't her native language (I tend to do that subconsciously in general irrespective of language or who I am speaking to). Over the years, we (again subconsciously) developed more constructs using this limited vocabulary mixed with words/phrases from her native language - so now we almost have our own dialect. However, since then her interactions with other highly proficient English speakers has increased and now she feels that my adjustments were actually a hindrance towards her English proficiency. I try to counter that by saying that this fluency of communication, as impure as it might be, has contributed to our relationship but I know that she has a valid point.

I think there is a difference between gradually adapting in immersion (which I think most people will do unless they actively work to avoid it, the way a number of celebrities where an accent/dialect foreign to their new home is part of their brand will literally employ a language coach to maintain it) and identifying a need to learn distinct rules and code switch to them in a particular occasional environment.

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