Subtitles, si'il vous plait...tashakor!

I just got back from a nice evening spent with three new "friends." Two French guys who work at the embassy here and one French woman who works for NATO in Brussels. We had coffee at the French restaurant, La Grande Dame, and then drove to the top of a hill that overlooks the city for a nice dinner. We had shish kababs and fresh Tajik bread and had stimulating conversation to the lovely musical medley of Russian ballads, heavy euro techno, and the usual American dance club classics (I wonder if Brittney Spears ever thinks about how her music is listened to in Dushanbe, Tajikistan??)

After having intensive Farsi classes for a week (only a week!), I have noticed that words will just pop into my head while i'm brushing my teeth or out in the city and I will have to write them down because they are words that I have heard before in sentences, either picked up in class or heard all my life at home but never bothered to really look them up and use them in sentences. I also catch myself spelling out English words that are spoken in Farsi script in my head. These are all promising signs because when I was in France, I would do the same thing unconsciously. Sometimes I would wake up and words that I had picked up the day before from people would be floating in my head. I also have started instantly translating my thoughts from English to Farsi even if I don't have to. So tonight while I was out with my new French friends, I found myself having some issues switching my head from Farsi to French. Then the most bizarre thing happened: while trying to describe something in French, I would switch to Farsi words or input them into responses without even realizing that I was switching languages and then when I realized, I would say out loud "I'm sorry, I'm speaking Farsi" BUT that exact thought was voiced IN FARSI, NOT ENGLISH OR FRENCH....so basically my thoughts were in English and I wanted to say them in French but FARSI was what was exiting my mouth. This happened a few times.

Is it possible to think simultaneously in three languages? I know that I have all three in my head but why am I sometimes linguistically tongue-tied? It's delightfully bizarre....

Well, now it's 1am and I still have to do my homework for tomorrow....

Shab bekher!
Bonne nuit!
Good night!

~n.