"Well, the Dutsch speak four languages and smoke marijuana!"

People sometimes ask me if I get confused having four different languages in my head. To really answer the question, I don't get confused so much as I get the urge to substitute words in every direction. For every word or phrase, there is often a different language that comes to mind the most quickly or automatically.

I have several friends here who can speak both German and English very well, and I ramble in Denglisch (Deutsch/Englisch) with them all the time. It sounds something like, "Just make sure you das mir morgen unbedingt bring over when you um Mittag zu mir kommen. It's auf jeden Fall ziemlich wichtig, I would say."

So aside from the fact that I still play the game of "Taboo" in German here every day, just like all students of a foreign language, it's typically not much of a problem. But a problem I've come to realize over the course of the semester starts showing up when I get online and talk to my family on webcam. I get urges every which-way to put in filler and substitute words -- in German -- to my definitely-does-not-speak-a-lick-of-German, Asian family. Last night, I was talking to my mother and just wanted to say, "Exactly," after something she said, and I had to veer clear of just blurting, "Genau." There was also no convenient contextual equivalent in Chinese. That phrase also somehow sounds less natural to me in English now, as do countless others.

The brain seeks a certain efficiency in expression. So now in my head I just end up speaking Eng-chin-erman. And occasionally, Cherglish. I am just dying to know what I really sound like when I sleep-talk.