Brain Lapse

They say once you learn a language it makes it easier for your brain to learn other languages. Theoretically, I should be on a blazing path with Portuguese.

Unfortunately, my brain seems to only be able to process one language at a time. I studied Spanish in high school for 4 years. When I started to study Japanese in college, while I may have learned rapidly, Japanese snuck in and filled all the spaces in my brain that used to harbor Spanish. I expected something similar over the course of the next 2 years, learning Portuguese and gradually losing Japanese, but I did not expect it this quickly.

This afternoon we were in the pool (where else on a sunny January afternoon?), and D decided he was cold and wanted to get out. ( It has actually been refreshingly cool the past 2 days.) As he stood on the edge of the pool shivering, I told him to please take off his floaties and wrap up in his towel, but he remained, frozen, standing on the edge of the pool shivering. Teasing that he'd lost his English, I repeated myself, but in Portuguese. Still, he stood, freezing and unmoving....but also giggling. He liked this "D forgot English game" and asked me to tell him again, but in Japanese. I stood there, as mentally frozen as he, staring blankly. I could not think of even one Japanese word in that sentence to get me started. Mind you, one month ago I was rattling sentences in Japanese because people wanted to hear what it sounded like. Today, nothing, nada, nunca, and however you say "nothing" in Japanese.