I don_t want to be trilingual anymore

I don_t want to be trilingual anymore 

Speaking multiple languages is often seen as an incredible advantage. Many people dream of becoming bilingual or even trilingual. But what if being trilingual also comes with unexpected challenges?
In this thought-provoking episode of Mind Life In English, host Profe Lao explores the hidden side of speaking multiple languages and why sometimes the experience can feel overwhelming. Language learning is not only about vocabulary and grammar — it also affects the way we think, communicate, and connect with different cultures.
🎙️ In this episode, you will discover:
• The real challenges of managing three different languages
• Mental fatigue and confusion that multilingual speakers sometimes experience
• Cultural identity and how language shapes the way we see the world
• Why learning languages is both a gift and a responsibility
• Honest reflections about the journey of becoming multilingual
This episode is not about giving up on languages — it’s about understanding the real human experience behind language learning. Being trilingual can be powerful, but it also requires patience, balance, and continuous effort.
Whether you are learning your first foreign language or your third, this conversation will give you a deeper perspective on what it truly means to live between languages.
🎧 Join Profe Lao on Mind Life In English for an honest and reflective discussion about language, identity, and the realities of being trilingual.

Transcript

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I tried to be trilingual and I can't. I it's uh it has has ruined my brain. My brain is in Spanish I say se me juió la mente, se me juió el cerebro y la vida. Anyways, the the here the problem is this. I didn't just try to be trilingual with any any languages. Okay. If you're new here, I'm a native speaker in English and I learned Spanish to what I consider to be basic fluency, okay? Basic fluency, yeah. It's like fluent, but it ain't it ain't some crazy advanced stuff, but it's it's I c I call it basic fluency. I got in Spanish. And then I said, you know what, let me learn Brazilian Portuguese. The thing about Brazilian Portuguese though is that it is so similar to Spanish, but different. It is just similar enough to confuse the hell out of you, your m your everything, your mouth, your head, but it is just different enough to make it a completely different language. You will you will constantly be speaking wrong if you are mixing them or you are speaking one when you should be speaking the other. They're close enough to mess with your head, but different enough to make you wrong. To make you have to learn another language. So my Portuguese, I got to like an intermediate level. Maybe you're like I don't know, I don't like to use B1, B2, but I I got to like an intermediate level, maybe lower intermediate. I don't know. The the video where I'm speaking Portuguese, you know, Brazilians they always think like if you just have good pronunciation and if you can say stuff well and sound authentic, they think you're fluent, you're not, if your vocabulary is super basic like mine. I do great pronunciation, I can trick people to thinking my level is higher than it really is, but it's really not that high. It's just that it's it's an illusion because I'm good at like what I know how to say, I know how to say very well. The problem is there's a ton of stuff I don't know how to say. So, yes, my Portuguese is like the intermediate. I don't know exactly, I can't give you any more specifics than that, but my Spanish is stronger, and I learned that first. So here's the thing. This is this is why my my mind is a little bit messed up now. When I'm speaking Spanish, I often have words and phrases in Portuguese that are popping into my head while I'm speaking Spanish. And I'm a person who is dedicated to not speaking portunhol, the mix of the two languages. Like I want to keep them separate. I love them for the way that they are, as unique languages, and I want to keep them separate. I do not want to mix them. I want to speak them correctly, I want to speak them well. I don't care if it could still I could still be understood. That's not my goal. But I find that when I'm speaking Spanish, um, even though I speak Spanish well, I find that I I'm just constantly being flooded with stuff, not constantly, but frequently getting having Portuguese stuff come into my head. And it really distracts my focus, which like it really makes me second guess and almost sometimes not forget, but like almost like forget my Spanish. Like for like one second or like 0.5 seconds, it makes me get confused and doubt. Like I focused on Spanish so much for so many years that Spanish just it became so natural to me. I mean, literally fluent. Like I like I don't even ha I don't have to think when I speak in Spanish that much. Like it just my brain just it just knows it. It just knows what to say. It just feels it, you know? But Portuguese makes me like second guess myself. Portuguese makes sometimes it interferes and it makes me like get confused or say it wrong in Spanish or something. Or it just frustrates me because sometimes there's a phrase or something that exists in Portuguese that doesn't exist in Spanish or I don't like it as much or it doesn't work the same way. Yeah, I d I just didn't I never expected this. I never thought that being trilingual or being like attempting to be a polyglot I'm not even motivated I don't even want to learn any more languages after this. This is traumatizing. Like I never thought that this would like hurt my brain so much. And normally I I think I'm someone who is good at learning languages, who really loves learning languages, but I think that this is killing my motivation to keep learning. But I think that it's just because I chose two languages that are too similar. If instead of Portuguese I had chosen like like Mandarin or like some I don't know, any other like very different language, then maybe I wouldn't be dealing with I probably most likely would not be dealing with this issue. It's it's just because I decided to learn a language that's very similar but not the same. I will never learn Italian now. I will never learn French because I uh because I can't my brain can't handle it. I can't. And for all those people out there who can handle it, who don't feel like they're going crazy, great, fantastic for you. I feel like I'm going crazy. And yeah, if I was okay with only having like an intermediate level in all of these languages, then that okay, maybe it would be fine. But because I take my Spanish so frickin' seriously, because I want to maintain mastery and also keep improving my mastery of Spanish, because I I want to do it so perfectly, it really grinds my gears, it really irritates me when I'm getting Portuguese coming in my brain when I'm trying to just focus on Spanish. And so I think this is one of the reasons that I have kind of like lost some motivation to continue my Portuguese study. Um also I'm leaving Brazil, so and I'm going back to living in Spanish-speaking countries, so it's like this, you know. But I I got to a level of Portuguese where I can understand most content in Portuguese that I watch, that I listen to, and I can have conversations with people. If I meet a Brazilian when I'm in Mexico or whatever, like we can talk in Portuguese, I can I can talk. So I'm satisfied with it. I don't think I'm going to try to be fluent in Portuguese because I I kind of just want Spanish to maintain my like my priority and I feel like I'm going crazy a little bit with these with these languages in my head and uh competing for my my focus, my intention. And so yeah, um uh this video is not to discourage anybody from trying to be trilingual or or a polyglot. I think no, it's it's it's you should absolutely go for it if that's what you want. Um, but I don't really recommend doing Spanish and Portuguese. Doing those t like I recommend if you want to learn multiple languages, like maybe learn like languages that are not so similar. I don't know. Yeah, and my question for people who do know several Latin-based languages, my question for you is this are you truly fluent, fluent, fluent in all of these languages? And do you not experience this? Do you not feel like do you not get confused and feel like you're going crazy sometimes? Because I'm not saying it like I could totally do it and I know I could do it, I know I could be fluent in Portuguese, I know I could I can I know I could keep going and I I know I I can do it. It's just it's too annoying in my brain. Like I just I don't know. I just like speaking English and Spanish because it's like English is my native language. I never never ever confuse it with Spanish, obviously, is my second language, so I have no issues there. Another thing about Portuguese is like Portuguese is a very efficient language. And by the way, nothing I'm saying in this video is like hating on like I love I love Brazilian Portuguese. That's why I'm that's why I learned it to a conversational level because I I love it. And and one of the things I love about Portuguese is that it's it's super efficient. It's super efficient and there's just the way of saying things, not only does it make more sense in my English speaking brain, I just find that there's certain things that they're just so efficient to me. Like, um I have I wrote down some examples. I really like that in Portuguese you can say dá pra fazer like dá pra fazer algo, like dá pra caminhar, dá pra comer, dá pra cocinar. Like you can just say if if you can do something, if if something can be done, if we could do something, if I can do something, if you can do something, if they can do s like it doesn't matter who. It doesn't matter who. If something can be done, you can say da para pra andar. And in Spanish you'd have to say like se puede hacer se puede and like yeah you can say that. It exists, but there's just something satisfying about like um no da para fazer algo I don't know. I have no examples in my head right now, but Brazilians know what I'm talking about. I like this. It's I like this way of talking, I like this phrase, I think it's efficient. I always want to say that when I'm speaking Spanish, but I can't. I can't because it'll be like what? 'Cause no, they don't say that in Spanish. Um I like the the the phrase si virar, like you posso me virar. Yeah, you posso me virar. In English it would be like to get by or like to make it work. I like this expression in in Portuguese, it's it's a good one, it's useful. Um I like that in Portuguese you can just you can use achar like to find something and also to like find something like your opinion, like you to sync something. It has like this double double use here, and you can just say like you avo. And you don't have to say eu acho que maravilhoso. It's super efficient because in Spanish you have to say like yo creo que es, yo creo que es maravilloso, yo creo que es fantastico. You have to use like the KS, you have to use a connector, or you say me parece, me parece genial. And that's that's usually what we say, right? Totally fine, but I just really like saying like yo a ótimo, like yo acho, uh yeah, I I like that. I just think it's it's efficient, it's nice. Um I like the verb pegar. Pegar in in Portuguese, it's it's a very good word to translate like get uh from English, you know. The the infamous verb get in English that has like a million meanings, but one uh one very common meaning of get in English is like, you know, to get something like this. Like let me go get an apple. Let me go take an apple like this, let me go get an apple. So you you can see that in Portuguese and say like vou pegar uma san, mama san and you can just use it for a lot of things. I think pegar is a great verb that uh sometimes it's like doesn't really have a good translation in Spanish in the way that I like a good like I don't know, it's just not as satisfying to sit to try to translate it to Spanish. Um, so there's there's some things like this I've noticed about Portuguese. There's just some verbs and some expressions that I think are really efficient, really useful, and like everybody who learned multiple languages can relate to this probably. There are certain things that are really enjoyable to say in one language, and then things that I prefer saying in another language. Yeah, so each language has its own things. And there are things that I prefer saying in Spanish that it's not the same in Portuguese. Like some things only exist in Spanish that don't really have a good translation of Portuguese, or like j I just prefer saying it in Spanish. Um and same thing with English, obviously there are things in English that they don't really have good translations in the other languages, or or I just don't. I just prefer to say it in English for whatever reason. So this this happens with all languages, like there's just things that are better to say in certain languages than others. That's inevitable. Um gonna learn different languages. But that's not really what this video is about. But I just wanted to give you some examples of like some things that I find myself wanting to say when I'm speaking Spanish, but I can't because it's in Portuguese. Also, like little little simple words that we use all the time will sometimes confuse me. Like even even though I know it's not when I say that it confuses me, it's not that I don't know what is correct, it's that it just gets into my head, it com it pops into my head. Like sometimes my mouth almost says that word instead, even though I know it's wrong, but like when I'm speaking fast, sometimes it just comes out, right? Like sometimes I'm speaking Spanish and like I want to say but like pero but sometimes the the mas más word comes out, like my mouth goes to make the word in Portuguese. So stuff like this happens um where because it's a it's a such a common word that we use so much, it's it's so stuck into my mind and way of thinking that my brain associates whatever it is that I'm trying to say in that other language so much that it's like it just pops in my head whenever I'm thinking. And I also whenever I'm talking and also another thing that I deal with, um, as somebody who travels a lot and has been exposed to a lot of different dialects of Spanish, I have a lot of different vocabulary words and expressions for the same things based on different Spanish dialects, different countries. So this is another confusing thing in my head. So this is what it's like to be me. I look at something or a situation or a thing or whatever, and I have like a lot of different words and phrases to describe that in my head. And some of them are just different regional words from different Spanish speaking countries, and then now I have Brazil's version in there. So, you know, I look at um something like beans. Different Spanish speaking countries have different names for beans, you know. We have like frijoles, we have habichuelas, we have porotos, like it just depends on the country. We have different words for beans, and then in Brazil we have feijung. So now I have like all of these different words. So I I'm looking at beans, I'm talking about beans, and I got like four words in my head for this one thing. That's con that's that's a little confusing. It's a little overwhelming. I usually have one default word that I will use, or I will just use the word of the country where I currently am because I'm always traveling and stuff. So yeah, I'm good. I'm I think I'm pretty good at adapting and I'm very curious and I like learning the different ways of saying things, like the different regional differences and stuff. The different regional differences. So it's okay. Like if somebody's gonna do it, I think I can do it pretty well, but it's it's still making me go a little crazy. So I just want to make a video just sharing my experience. Sorry if there's noise. It is like 11 p.m. on a Sunday and like there's like construction noise outside. I don't even know why I don't know. I'm in Brazil. Um in Sao Paulo. Anyways, so yeah, so that's it. That's all I think that's all I have to say in this video. You could say that I'm just complaining. I'm just sharing. I'm just sharing my honest experience if you were curious what it's like for me try in my journey of trying to be trilingual. I mean, I'm leaving Brazil in a week and I'm going to Mexico, so I think I'm just gonna kind of just go back to my Spanish, you know, single focus. And um, yes, but I will always carry the Portuguese that I have learned with me, and I will always want to use it sometimes, and I love it. And I love to teach Spanish speakers things in Portuguese. I like to show them a lot of them don't know anything about Portuguese. Like I think it's interesting and I want to show them like there's this other language that is very similar to yours, but a little different. But if you just learn some things, you could understand them and it's cool. Okay, I don't know. I'm just rambling at this point, I have nothing else to say. So thank you for watching, thank you for listening, as always, and