[birdsongs]

Wow, thank you! This is really validating for such an odd experience.

That happened (and still does) with my second language, absorbed mostly through immersion/native exposure on a day-to-day basis.

When I go into that language mode and am having a conversation, my brain can pick a word and speak it, and I have no idea where I learned it, or even if it was correct? It will immediately sound strange and "unknown" to me. I would struggle to define the word, and if it was spoken to me I probably wouldn't understand it. It just felt correct to fit it there in the conversation.

Then I google translate it and find out "huh, yeah, that was actually correct and completely appropriate in that context".

It's so strange.