As an ESL who grew up in Slovenia, did most of his work in English, and now lives in USA with full immersion[1] – the memory language barrier is very noticeable.

Talking to my mom and sister about things that happened in Slovenia is easy and fluent. Talking about things that happened in USA is … hard. I have to translate, I can’t find words, the concepts make no sense, everything is awkward.

Make me talk about software engineering in Slovenian and I sound like a bumbling fool. It just doesn’t work. Every 3rd word is English. Entire sentences sometimes.

[1] I speak Slovenian maybe a couple times per month nowadays