I recently had an AHA! moment which I thought I should share for the simple reason that I thought I should share it.

It all started when I was talking with one of my friends in English and a third friend joined the conversation speaking in Shona. I noticed that my first friend's personality shifted every time he switched languages. In English, he was calm and composed but the moment he switched to Shona he was more rough and excitable.

That got me thinking, do I do that also? After some thinking (yes I actually think sometimes), I realized much to my own shock that I did. I realized that I have multiple personalities based on the languages that I know.

English Mike is always polite to strangers but cracks the occasional joke to ease tension, he sounds professional when required but has his crazy moments when he is around people he is close to. If he does the evil laugh (Mwah ha ha ha!) around you then you can count yourself as one of the people he is close to.

Shona Mike is another creature altogether, he is crude and outspoken. If you give him half a chance, he will tell the raunchiest joke involving a string, your mother, a rubber duck and a spoon. Most times I've been in trouble, it was usually Shona Mike's fault. These days I keep him locked up and he rarely sees the light of day.

In short, you bring English Mike to a boardroom meeting and Shona Mike to a fight.

While I was having my epiphany another little voice came out and asked　“私はどうですか。”
It appears I'm pregnant and have a third Mike growing inside me. Japanese Mike is still too young to have a fully formed identity but from what I see, he is super, mega, hyper, overly polite... or is that just Japanese?
He can't tell when to crack a joke in Japanese or *IF* he should crack a joke in Japanese, because he's afraid;

• It might be taken wrong
• He might say it impolitely
• He might say it too polite

Or worse

• He cracks that joke and the nice Japanese people scream セクハラです！

Or even worse

• They scream へんたいです！

 Don't get me wrong I love Japanese but the politeness levels are scary. Oh well, I hope I will get comfortable sooner or later.

However, I digress, the AHA moment I had postulates that all of us who learn multiple languages develop multiple personalities based on our learned languages. The question then becomes; "is my theory correct or am I just crazy?"

If I'm right then what are your personalities like? If on the other hand I'm crazy then just write "Crazy" in the comments and don't read anything I wrote above　笑。