Foreign Language Fatigue

Hi,
So I recently returned from spending a week in a foreign country, in which I spent the time only speaking that language in order to better my A-level fluency and spontaneity in it. My plane landed in the evening and I didn’t get home till around 2am foreign country time. I was tired all that day and I figuired it was because of the late night. But in all honesty it has been the worst tiredness I’ve ever had (compared to 8hour jet lag etc), I hallucinated and ran into things etc. My plane landed on the Sunday evening, it is now Tuesday, my eyes keep blurring and I can’t really focus. It’s embarrassing that I’m still tired because it’s almost as though it’s all from that one night. Has anyone else experienced this? Ie as in language fatigue, is this a thing?

Reply 1

QE2

I've not had your specific symptoms, but I do find spending long periods speaking a foreign language mentally exhausting.

Reply 2

Quick-use

Not sure this is the appropriate sub-forum for this thread...

In any case, I've spent multiple years overseas speaking various languages and although I have felt 'foreign language fatigue', it was different to how you're feeling. I suspect what you're feeling is probably something more so related to mental or physical fatigue. I'm not a doctor so I can't really say for certain. Maybe it's a combination of jet-lag and a bug?

Foreign language fatigue, or whatever the actual term might be, for me is why I feel mentally drained and my mouth feels extremely exhausted. I remember going to parties in my first few months while studying in Tokyo and halfway through I'd become incredibly quiet to the point that I couldn't speak. Both my mouth and mind were exhausted. My mouth muscles weren't used to making the movements necessary for Japanese speech/sounds and my mind was working over-time trying to translate, conjugate, remember and construct sentences every single second. I remember every time this would happen my friends would become concerned and ask me if everything was OK. They'd think that I was having a horrible time or that something bad had happened. I didn't even realise it myself until it became a recurring pattern.

As an aside, what country are you in and what foreign language is it? Certain languages like French that utilise different mouth muscles for speech are non-existent when speaking English making it all the more exhausting to speak it for prolonged periods of time.