For people that know multiple languages, code-switching can be a subconscious effort. They can revert to their first language based on finding comfort in a tense situation or being among a group of people who speak their first language. However, code-switching can also be a conscious effort made depending on the environment in order to assimilate and avoid judgment through not only using different words but also a different accent. They “select the correct ‘language mode’ for the context in which they are speaking" (Reich).

Other reasons why multilingual people code-switch is to talk in secret or because they cannot find the correct term in one language. They cannot find the correct term because either they do not know the term or the term does not exist. Languages are created around cultures and societal objects/events, so the word might not exist in one language because there is no use in that culture. For example, “French kids eat lunch in the school cafeteria; the notion of bringing lunch from home is, well, foreign. So is the notion of having a designated container to bring your lunch from home. So we all refer to ‘le lunchbox’” (Thompson).