[jgrahamc]

I learnt French at school and did badly and then as an adult learnt French to a very high standard (I would call myself fluent and not bilingual). Something definitely happened to my brain as my French got really good; it was like I became two different people.

[david927]

Most people think of language as a dictionary of words -- but it's really the codification of a culture. So when you speak it (fluently), you change yourself to express yourself through that culture. The same expression (perfectly translated) can mean different things in different cultures, for example.

I speak two other languages fluently, and I'm a slightly different person in each language. It's really fascinating.

[personlurking]

On being a slightly different person, I also speak two other languages which I learned from 18 yrs old and onwards. While I wouldn't say I'm a different person in either of the three, I would say I'm not quite me in the second and third. All the nuances, humor, etc that a person shows in their first language can be lost in translation and therefore being yourself isn't as easy. People are likely to think you are quieter than you normally are (in your own language), basically that you are less of everything you actually are.

It takes a long time, I find, to reach a comfort level in another language that rivals that of how you express yourself in your mother tongue. I've been speaking Portuguese (my 3rd language) at least 50% of the time for the past 7 years or so and I'm still not able to hit my mark, as if it were my own...but I'm close. Btw, these last few years, I speak it 80% of the time.

If I were to venture a guess as to why 'hitting my mark' isn't so easy, I'd say that with most language learners, there's a certain point in your learning where you say to yourself, "I'm fluent enough". Reading and writing, I'm in the 95 percentile in Portuguese but with speaking (seemingly no matter how much I speak), I stay at around 85%.

[WiseWeasel]

Not me; my French self is also a total dick.

[mootothemax]

I've noticed similar as I become more and more conversant in Polish - adapting to new grammatical forms definitely makes me think in a different manner.

That, and a new, huge, appreciation for anyone that learns the easy-to-start, nightmare-to-master, English as a second language.

[agrostis]

You might find interesting Anna Wierzbicka's essay on her own experience of bilingualism (http://www.une.edu.au/bcss/linguistics/nsm/pdfs/double-life....). Wierzbicka is a Polish-Australian linguist specializing in semantic universals and their cross-cultural manifestations, so it's kind of an insider's account, but charmingly personal at that.

[mootothemax]

Hey, sorry for taking so long to reply, that's an awesome link, thanks! :)