[QUOTE="MrGeezer"][QUOTE="kirk4ever"]kinda yes ...ive recently moved to toronto and have to speak english everyday...i can think very smoothly in my native language but its been a year since i came..i just met some ppl at school from my country and i couldnt speak as fast as i used too..i was more comfortable with english..you wont forget it just gets harder to usecamreeno360
That's different though, because that involves SWITCHING a language. That involves thinking in a new language, and over time your original language gets harder to understand.
But if you just go out and live in the woods and you speak (for example) primarily English, there's nothing to REPLACE that language. You still may get worse at speaking since you lose having to constantly practice speaking, but you're not gonna suddenly forget the only language that you know without there being something available to replace it.
Sure if you only have one language in your head, I guess there's nothing to replace it. But you think you might lose a ton of your vocabulary, right? Since there aren't any cars out in the wilderness, or other objects where people live, it seems like all of the words associated with those objects and their parts would be forgotten if you never encounter them and have a conversation with anyone to use the words in. For instance a conversation like going "I was wondering where I put the wrench, and I needed it to fix the radiator of my sedan". Would the words "wrench", "sedan", and "radiator" fade away in your mind since you won't be really thinking about subjects like that? Also some adjectives and verbs that you would never think about in the wilderness....Such as "indict", "adjourn", "cruise"....I don't know. I mean, if you pick up a book, I'm sure that you might come across the occasional case where you run into a word that you haven't seen or heard in years, and yet you still remember what it means.
Of course, I'm not saying that you won't lose any vocabulary. But considering that you drive a car every day, and have probably heard the word "car" nearly every day since you were a baby, I doubt that you're gonna forget what "car" means. Same with "the", "and", and "but".
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