When in French: Love in a Second Language

It is often assumed that the mother tongue is the language of the true self. And in many ways it remains the primal vehicle, the first and most effective responder in moments of celebration or crisis. [...] But if first languages are reservoirs of emotion, second languages can be rivers undammed. A Swiss friend who speaks Spanish with her parents and siblings and French with her husband and children told me that she feels a certain freedom in English, where she occupies the role of neither sister nor mother. People are more likely to say they'd push a man off a bridge - in order to save five other people, about to be hit be a train - when the dilemma is presented in their second language. Scientists call this the emancipatory detachment effect.

while learning a foreign language is considered prestigious, acquiring one naturally is stigmatized. We think of foreign languages as extremely hard to learn, but we're incensed when immigrants don't speak English perfectly.

as soon as we sat down for dinner, the table exploded into chatter, followed by rebuttal, counterargument, rejoinder. That was my impression, at least, judging from the unsmiling looks, the disputatious mais nons, the blowing of air out of cheeks. [...] I felt like an explorer picking her way through a jungle, turning toward stimuli as they chirped and hooted. The language came in an oxytonic rush. It sounded like heavy rain, sluicing down a roof.