*:･ﾟ♡ ･ﾟ:*

there are different types of bilinguals

the All Around: speaks, reads, and writes both languages pretty well

the Conversational: one language is stronger than the other; can speak the other language a lot better than they read/write it (a lot of kids of immigrants are this type)

the High Schooler: understands what’s being said to them in the other language, can’t really speak it

don’t have your characters randomly drop words from their other language mid-sentence around people who don’t speak it lol

languages are a mindset thing. like personally if i’m around english-speakers, i’m speaking english and i don’t really switch to my other language (which is portuguese)

so like if you’re writing a bilingual character who speaks spanish and have them say something like “hey chad let’s go to the biblioteca” to an english speaker i’ll probably spend 5 minutes laughing and then close your story lmao

exception: the character is speaking in their weaker language and forgot a word (”where are the…? uh… llaves…. keys! keys, where are they?”)

otherwise really the only time your character should be randomly switching languages mid-sentence is if they’re talking to another bilingual

like i don’t speak spanish but i’ve legit never heard a spanish speaker say “ay dios mio” to gringos lmao

conversations between two bilingual people can take a few different forms:

Pick One: they pick one language and kinda stick with it for the whole conversation (a conversation i might have with my portuguese-speaking mom: ”you okay?” “yeah, i’m good. how’re you?” “i’m fine, but your dad-”)

Back-and-Forth: someone says something in one language, the other person replies in the other (”tudo bem?” “yeah, i’m good. how’re you?” “tou bem, mas o seu pai-”)

Combo: they speak a combo of the two languages, a popular example being spanglish, though basically every bilingual has their own combo language (”tudo bem?” “sim, tou bem. how’re you?” “i’m fine, mas o seu pai-”)

me and my cousin (native english speakers) speaking our portuguese/english combo sounds a lot different than my mom and my godmother (native portguese speakers) doing the same thing

the kids of immigrants usually come up with their own unique way of saying things that are different than native speakers

if you’re writing a bilingual family the older kids’ll probably be more bilingual than the younger ones

also, to clarify: bilingual characters might say words in another language on purpose in front of non-speakers

either to fuck with them or just ‘cause the word captures what they’re feeling more (i use “caralho” a lot)– basically the point is that accidental switching is relatively uncommon

i know earlier i said that people will forget words if they’re speaking their weaker language but tbh i do it with my stronger language too so really it works both ways

filler words are weirdly universal

so like while bilingual people don’t usually switch languages around people who aren’t bilingual we’ll throw filler words in

“ele me olhou e, like, eu juro que eu quase deu um soco nele-”

a lot of languages borrow words from english so it’s not too weird to have a random english word in an otherwise non-english conversation (my aunt @ my mom: “lilian você viu meu post no Facebook?”)

also sounds in general are just kind of a language transcending thing

you wanna find out what someone’s first language was?? break one of their bones lol

legit me when i cracked my rib: “AIIIIIII JESUS CHRIST TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL”

so if your character gets hurt they might make a sound of pain associated with their native language but will probably still speak in the language of the people they’re surrounded by. probably. it depends on just how much pain they’re in

-A very nice young lady-

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇.