English is my (default) language
Hello,
My native language is Romanian and I could not speak any other language until I was probably 14 years old. However, most of technology, including the internet, was in English, and since most of my friends could speak it to some degree, I wanted to be part of the group. We obviously had English classes in school, but as with any foreign language classes, you study to pass the test and then you forget everything you've learned.
I started learning English on my own, up to a point where I decided to force myself to think in it. While imperfect at times, it has sort of become my native language, my default language, my main language. It is the language I think in, I plan things in, I talk to myself in and I dream in. I feel like I am my truest self when I speak English.
The issue now is that I have been studying German for probably 15 years and have been living in Germany for 11 years as well. My German is pretty much on par with my English, but since I have mostly only used it in professional and formal settings, I don't feel as comfortable in it as I do in English. I do know common slang and even make use of regionalisms naturally, but my German is still somehow in a weird spot.
Recently, I started wondering if I should try and make German my default language instead; after all, I am also officially a German citizen now. I sometimes feel like while I do live here, I am not "German enough." I don't have many German friends, I don't know a lot of things about Germany, and the things that I do know and consume, I've learned about them through English. I've been feeling like I should be making an effort to become more German, speak more German and consume content in the German language.
About two weeks ago, I changed the language of my laptop and my phone to German and... to put it millennially, I literally can't even. I can understand everything, obviously, but it's so disorienting. I have to talk to Siri in German. I have to look for "Sofort beenden..." instead of "Force Quit" on my MacBook. Also, since my English is just as good, if not slightly better in some regards, I don't really have a reason to watch content dubbed or translated into German, when I can understand English just fine.
The thing is, I do consume content that is originally in German. I have podcasts I listen to, YouTubers I watch and books I read. I speak German to everyone who can speak it, and I sometimes even find myself talking to myself in German. This language is not some random foreign language to me, either.
Today, however, I am officially letting English be my main language while engaging in German whenever the occasion arrises, but I am not going to try to force it anymore. The more I interact with people, the more content I consume and the longer I live here, the more German I will probably start to feel, and that's fine. Also, having an American boyfriend does not help in this regard at all, but he is already B1 in German and we do kind of speak in a mix of English, German and Romanian most of the time. I also plan on making French "one of my daily languages," so I am just making things worse for myself.
The question that remains is "what about Romanian?" Well, I don't have an answer. I don't talk to any of my old friends anymore except for two of them, who happen to live in Denmark. Also, they've had a similar situation with English, so we text each other in English and sprinkle some Romanian here and there. I do the same thing with my cousin. Otherwise, I only use it with my parents and once a week with my grandmothers over the phone. I moved to Germany when I was 21 and the Romania I know does not really exist anymore. I spent my childhood and teenage years there, so I am still Romanian. I believe that where you spend your childhood matters a lot and is a huge part of your identity. Adults can more or less choose to live in other countries, children cannot.