ich wrote:My mother tongue is English. I guess, what I was trying to ask was if anyone had the experience of finding difficult transfering a concept from one foreign language to another. As far as I am aware, "hel" in Norwegian works very similarily to the German "ganz," so in theory, I should just be able to use the word "hel" whenever I would use the word "ganz," but for some reason, my brain does not do that naturally because my English instincts are still stronger, so I still prefer to say "alle" in Norwegian for phrases like "all alone" even though it is completely wrong. This is weird to me, however, because my knowledge of German is advanced enough that I find a phrase like "alle alleine" to sound completely wrong, so it seems like I would have learned this concept already. I transfer concepts from English to my new target language, but I won't transfer concepts from my second language to my new target language, even if it is more accurate. It is like I have to start all over with acquiring this concept. I hope that made more sense than my first explanation. It is kind of a weird little thing I noticed. It is hard to explain.
Yeah that explains it better. It does sound odd at first, but I guess it makes sense because English is still your first language. You're also surrounded by an English environment. Maybe instead of trying to tie Norwegian "hel" to German "ganz" in your mind, try to tie it to whatever the English equivalent of "ganz" is?