Probably mainly interesting for philologists and linguists and free-time language fanatics, so skip this if you don’t count yourself to any of these groups, but looking back now, I see an interesting pattern in development of the hierarchy among my languages.
While at the language school I spoke some German to other students during the break and I read all 350 pages of my German chemistry book, but English has been the main language throughout the stay. I realized that I felt more comfortable with my English when speaking to Americans as opposed to either people with a heavy Arab accent or a very British pronunciation. And it obviously became my default language within the first two or three weeks: When I met Helma and her husband, a German couple in church I afterwards found myself remembering in English the conversation we had in German.
Always a funny experience, but not that unexpected. I was more puzzled by my Latvian popping up especially in the times when I was really focusing on Arabic. Many times I found myself thinking in Latvian and I got the impression that one year after my last visit in Latvia I would actually speak quite well and without a strong accent now (I missed the opportunity to try that by millimeters: a Latvian lady attended our service on my last day at church and I only hear of her after we left for lunch – one more reason to come back soon!). My wild theory is that in the course of trying to learn a new language my brain kind of opens up the last one I learned.
Less than a week before leaving I send my Latvian host mom a text for her birthday, she replies, I make some mental notes of what to write in an email to her – and find myself throwing in Arabic words with Latvian endings. I don’t realize at once because some expressions and the way they are used in Egypt and Latvia feel quite similar to me. Again, I’m not yet sure if it’s just me or if they actually are.
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