Photo: Scott Griessel, MostPhotos

Learning a new language, especially as an adult, is hard. It can feel like there’s no space in your brain for new vocabulary, it’s hard to remember grammar rules and the pronunciation just doesn’t sound right no matter what facial gymnastics you try.

But for those who have mastered a language other than their mother tongue, have you noticed a shift in your personality depending on what language you are speaking? Or perhaps you are still learning and feel frustrated at not being able to express your ‘true’ personality in the newer language?

Your attitude to a language and the cultural values you place on it play a part in how you label your personality when speaking that language, say experts at Stockholm University.

Nathan Young. Photo: private

Nathan Young is a lecturer at Stockholm University’s Centre for Research on Bilingualism and a Marie Curie research fellow at the University of Oslo, with a PhD in Linguistics. He says the idea that our personalities shift when we speak different languages is linked to personal history. “It’s about how you think about the place where that language is from, or where you are getting that experience of the language – for example home, work, TV.”

One exception to this culture and history link is how well you speak a language.

I’m sorry, I’m much funnier in Swedish!

Klara Skogmyr Marian. Photo: private

Klara Skogmyr Marian, is an assistant professor and researcher at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism at Stockholm University, a researcher at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and an author, whose expertise is in social aspects of language learning and bilingualism. She says: “The question about personality effects is interesting and I am sure that many people recognise themselves in feeling like slightly different people when communicating in different languages.”

Your own attitudes towards a culture and a language come into play, and what you associate with that culture.

Read the full article on TheLocal.se:

Hej, hello, hola: Does your personality change when you speak another language?

Nathan Young

Klara Skogmyr Marian