Code-Switching and mixing languages in regards to Japanese - how common is it? Tell me 'bout your experiences

Japanese
#1

Hey there everyone,

today I would like to hear about your experiences in regard to the s.c. “Code Switching” and Japanese. It basically means to switch and mix languages in the same conversation, topic or even sentence.

This phenomena happens quite a lot to me recently and I think that is interesting to say the least. Today was the first time I noticed it consciously. I then later came to realise I do it in my own native language aswell, using English here and there, sometimes even switching mid-sentece aswell (also depends on the situation and with whom I speak, but thats another story).

Okay, lets talk about the Japanese situation now. For example, today I met with a friend who is a japanese native speaker and about A2-B1 in my native language. During the day, I without thinking about it at all, said things like “Mein お腹 ist いっぱい” (= “My お腹 is いっぱい”) oder “Schon okay, das ist auch 勉強” (=“Its okay, thats 勉強 aswell”). Probably I did it a lot more, but failed to realise. My buddy did it aswell, though. It just kinda flew in the communication.

Sometimes we spoke only japanese for a few minutes, sometimes only german. Switching during the same sentence, the exact phenomena I just described, happened quite a lot aswell, though. How common is this? What are your experiences? Will this decrease once ones own expertise of the language becomes better? Or will it become even more?

The funniest thing what my japanese friend then said today was “銭湯は美味しい”. Took him a few seconds to realise what he just said there. Probably thats the influence of my broken japanese. Actual story here, when I speak this language for like half an hour and then switch, I sometimes fumble in regards to the pronounciation or grammar of my own native language. Meaning, for a sentence or two, I have an accent without noticing. Feels racist, but is not done on intent, just happens, like everything I just described here. How common is this? Any of you have made similar experiences?

Bottom line, learning languages is hard, but at the same time fun and then just from time to time incredibly bizarre. We both had a lot of laughs at least.

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#2

I haven’t experienced this in my native language (English), but I do struggle when trying to speak 2nd or 3rd languages. My second language was Spanish, and after several years, I then totally immersed in French. Especially since they’re so similar, I was mixing them up a lot. Obviously when speaking French since that was newer, but also when I tried to speak Spanish. That eventually sorted itself out, especially when I stopped learning French. Now, the same thing happens with Japanese and Spanish, though to a much lesser extent. It’s mostly the prepositions and other words in between that I don’t really think about when I speak.

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#3

I speak hella Japanglish without even meaning to, it’s really normal.

I live in Japan, but one time when I went home I visited a Chinese restaurant. When my food came I wasn’t really thinking, so I automatically said “arigatou gozaimasu”…

dude.
The poor waiter must have thought i was SO racist.

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#4

Code switching is extremely common and kinda funny IMO. I also live in Japan and spent this last silver weekend in Tokyo, being an obvious foreigner a bunch of people would greet me in English. Where we do the basics in English, but then out of habit I would ask if I could do something in Japanese, where then they realize I can speak, and then it would be a quick forth n back in Japanese and then finally ending in English again.

I also go to a local bar where the owner speaks English but since I live in the rural no one else who visits does. So I find myself switching between English when talking to the owner and having to use Japanese to speak with everyone else. So then sometimes the topic is to advanced for my listening(and they are old and speak with slang) so the owner has to translate to me. So now Im being translated to and then responding in Japanese lmao.

But Ive seen with my Spanish speaking friends too. They will jump around multiple languages all at once.

I did that as well. Visited home after two weeks and the first couple nights before I had adjusted I was just in autopilot.

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#5

Yeah I’d say this kind of jumping between languages is super common in my experience, I live in Japan too and I’m on the JET programme so there are quite a few Japanese people I interact with regularly who are also proficient in English. My conversations with the other English teachers at my school and my Japanese friends usually end up being pretty much 50/50 between English and Japanese and often we will end up swapping randomly in the middle of a sentence.
I think it’s a really fun way of having conversations and I think it’s kind of a natural impulse when you have a conversation between two people who each know the other can speak their language. You’re constantly thinking about what you can say/ what the other person is likely to understand and switching accordingly.
I also get a weird version of this at my school sometimes, I try not to speak Japanese with my students unless they’re completely lost so we will often have conversations where a student says something to me in Japanese, then I respond in English, and we just continue the conversation like that for some reason. It must sound really weird to an outside listener but it feels quite natural in the moment