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What language do you dream in?

When I left Bogotá to come to London, my parents gave me an English/Spanish dictionary to take with me. It didn’t seem very useful at the time. What was  I supposed to do with it, carry it in my purse just in case I couldn’t understand a conversation?

Eight years later and, of course, ha! eight years wiser, I can understand the logic behind it. The dictionary has become one of my most treasured possessions because of its emotional value.

One big part of being an immigrant is navigating between, not two, but many sets of languages. Just like anyone else, you have your work language, your ‘buying groceries’ language, your socialising language, your ‘being romantic’ language… And suddenly Spanish and English words start infiltrating from one world to the other…  Or one of them proudly refuses to give way to the other.

I will never wake up with an English sentence on my mind. If I curse, it will most likely be in Spanish. I will always answer to the phone with the Colombian ‘Aló?’ and ‘No’ will never have the right English pronunciation, even if it’s part of an English sentence.  And of course, I will always count ‘uno, dos, tres…’

I will never be able to have proper fights in English but the very British ‘sorry’ surreptitiously became part of my daily discourse. My brain still gets tired when it speaks English the whole day, but will happily handle writing. I’m not sure how you say ‘cash-back’, ‘fixed interest rate’, ‘direct debit’ or ‘bank statement’ in Spanish, because all those words belong to my adult, boring financial life. And I just love the words ‘serendipity and ‘wanderlust’ and will never find their Spanish equivalents.

Finally, I’m very sure that I dream in Spanish, but not sure what happens if I dream of an English-speaking situation with English-speaking people. Do they get translated or voiced-over? Do I dream in different languages?

Would love to hear from other people who navigate through different languages. It could even be your same language in a different country… Do you adopt the local dialect? Do your dreams feature local words? Common, give it a go…