The Switch

I found when studying other languages, especially talking that language, that I kind of make a switch inside my head, and become a little bit like that language’s native speaker.
For instance, when I talk French, I pretend to be a Frenchman and behave like one. Mimicking the native speaker makes it easier to speak that language.
Do you have that as well? Do you make big gestures with your hands and arms when speaking Italian?

In order to do that, it’s important to know the culture of those speakers. Very often, if not always, the language is a reflection of the social behavior.
I’m sure someone must have made a study on that. How do French people behave? What do German people act like? How do Japanese people live together, and go about their lives?

That’s why I think it’s very important to know and learn such cultural behavior as well, by watching movies or the news broadcast, reading about it in books or internet, and so on.

(Note to myself: make sure not to mimic the Japanese schoolgirls’ way of talking, like so many gaijin do on Youtube…)