Language is one of the things you always take with you, no matter where, when, or what your baggage restrictions are. Our phonological system is hard to fool (or, as Christoph says “phonology always works”). If you don’t believe it, try for one hour to exchange all Fs and Ks. Should you succeed, you are a genius. If not, you’ll have a lot of fun.
This leaves us with the realisation, though, that we will always be spotted a s foreigners: German final devoicing and the whole trouble with “th” and “wh” are dead giveaways, and my “vowels are not American”, as a friend pointed out.
Language is not only grammar and vocabulary, but also pronunciation subtleties: American “sh “s have less friction than German ones, less rounding, and the “a “s in “aber” and “garden” are absolutely not the same. Over the past few months, I have been identified as South African, British, or, well: German, but nobody ever seriously considered me to be American.
Even as a linguist you cannot beat your own system: The brain happily abstracts and throws everything into neat categories. Don’t bother it with details…
I have tried to pick up a few Chinese phrases, but my Chinese friends have either smiled politely or sadly shaken their heads. Even when I thought that I had repeated everything I heard, I hadn’t, since Chinese not only uses sounds, but also tones, and if you are not trained, you frankly don’t hear them…
It is only slightly consoling that on the other side, foreigners never get a German “ch” right.
It gets even worse when we get to meaning: Subconsciously, one a builds up a fine grained taxonomy of meaning nuances: Langauge is like a well worn rapier, which can pinpoint a meaning and win an argument.
Only when you start argueing in another language you realize you are suddenly handling a club. Sure, you can hit at the general meaning area, and you can win an argument, provided you hit first and hard. Yet it has no elegance or style, and too often, one is left searching for the right words to express a thought.
There are words, though, that I would like to have in both languages: “random” is such a word. I know that it can be translated as “zufällig”, but that does not cut it in a sentence like “That comment was so random!” And why does English not have an equivalent for “doch “: “yes, it is” is clumsy, and does not guarantee that satisfaction to prove someone wrong with just one word (I was also told that “jein” should be introduced, being an indecisive mix of “yes” and “no”).
One of the biggest obstacles in learning Engish is the fact that over the years, it has acquired Scandinavian, Germanic and Romance influences and mixed it all up. There is irregular inflection, yet not consistently: goose-geese and foot-feet, yet not moose-meese or wood-weed. I try to advocate the innovative use of “one shoop, two sheep”, yet people seem reluctant to take it on.
The only way out of this seems to me founding my own language which incorporates all these wonderful concepts. As a result, nobody will understand what I am saying any more, but I guess that is the price you have to pay if you want to express yourself clearly…