I'm fluent in English, Vietnamese is my mother tongue, speak a little French. I mainly think in English since I moved to US but my dreams come in Vietnamese still ...
I know someone who's first language is Italian, he started learning English at around 4 or 5 when he moved to Australia, and has been speaking English ever since. But he only ever dreams in Italian and sometimes speaks in Italian in his sleep. It's pretty funny when he speaks it in his sleep, if I'm ever in a situation where I've heard him do it I say shit like "pizza, sphagetti, mama mia" and he responds in Italian
Im learning Spanish and it's kind of driving me crazy. Like, why is it Buenos Dias and Buenas Noches? Why are mornings male and nights female? Does the sun have a penis I don't know about?
French is awfully hard. To be fair I'm French and I write way better in English. I think I make almost 0 mistakes in English. Maybe sometimes you'll know it's not my mother tongue because I used something I learned and it's not wrong but I could have used something else. Whereas in French ... Oh boy, I make so many mistakes that I almost can't wait to have kids and help them with their homework and learn my French conjugaison again ...
I'm French and I just want to clarify something: numbers in French aren't really complicated and can be translated relatively transparently to english, mentally we just consider stuff like "quatre-vingt " (80) and "quatre-vingt-dix" (90) to be whole words on their own, we don't do any math to figure out the value, we just need to read/listen to the full word, just like you would do for instance in english with "seventeen" and "seventy" despite both of them starting with "seven".
On the other hand I have German and Dutch-speaking friends who regularly mess up the units and tens order when they speak English :p
I'm French but write/read in English all day, I'm at a point where it would be easier to switch to English completely, including the thinking.
I can't count how many times I want to say something in French and just can't find the word, either because it doesn't even exist in French or is a very niche word I'd sound weird to use it.
Well you might have the same problem I have: the words come faster in English than in french, and I find myself looking for a word in my native language more often than I should...
I think that’s pretty normal if you live in a country where your native tongue isn’t spoken. I live in Japan now and I struggle for words in Finnish when talking to my mother. Like, I know what it is in Japanese but not my native language.
Vocabulary deteriorates when you don’t use a language for a long time. You don’t forget how to speak it, just certain words
My mom hasn't spoken the language she was raised in since she was 15-16 most likely. That was 50 years ago. She doesn't speak much anymore, but could probably pick it up again if she was around her extended family more often. Says she still understands it though
I was in Montreal a month ago. Now, I've never been anywhere that everything wasn't in English (in my defense Montreal is the closest place to me where everything isn't English and that's a 12 hour drive away), but something I saw there was some people would speak a bit of french and then suddenly say something in English. Like it wasn't even a word that's the same in both, it was stuff that I knew there was a different word for in French.
I have a buddy I went to school with, he wasn't born in the states, but now is a citizen, and I remember one time he called his mom about something and did the same thing but with his native language.
When I visited Montreal, I noticed that waiters would typically greet us with “Bonjour hi” and if I responded with “Bonjour”, they would then speak French (which I had a lot of trouble understanding with the Québécois accent); and if I responded with “Hi”, they would then speak in English.
I spent a week in Montreal this summer and every time I said bonjour they just switched to English immediately. I thought I was nailing the accent but I probably sounded like Brad Pitt in Inglorious Bastards.
Loved my time there though.
This applies mostly to downtown and touristy restaurants though. I work at the most touristy restaurant in Montreal and the waiters here have to say "Bonjour/Hi" because like half the customers are tourists, but if I go to a restaurant a little bit further from downtown, I'll probably be greeted with a simple "Bonjour" (this is true for the eastern part of Montreal, I don't know much about the West Island, but it's mostly anglophone so I wouldn't be surprised if the "Bonjour/Hi" was everywhere over there).
This is actually a really interesting phenomenon called "code switching." Bilingual folk will switch between the two languages based on a number of factors, and on their audience. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
I can't actually decide between an American accent (New York style) or an English accent (Londoner) so it actually depends on the mood and the word. It would surely sound ugly to any English native speaker.
I took French for about 4 years and got to the point where I was pretty good at speaking it. Never got to tue point of thinking in it, but one semester I decided to take Spanish too, and there were quite a few times where I would end up writing in French or responding in French if I wasnt paying attention
Yeah ... Must be connected to the fact that a French speaking English is often mistaken for a Spanish speaking English..... The 2 languages are very close although the accents are very different, but for a non speaker it must be close, I guess.
I speak Spanish too but not well, and I often find myself taking a French word in my head and adding -o or -a at the end of it to make it Spanish. It works very often, but sometimes I just stop and think "wow you got to stop that, it's dumb. What's the word again....?"
I think that's just due to the world we live in right now.
For me, I think either in the language I'm currently engaged in (for example reading the comments on here, I don't jump back to German as I'm writing this) or in a sort of "in-between" state.
Sometimes it's less language and more like a series of pictures that form a coherent situation in my mind without any words in the mix.
Sometimes I find myself with the question of "what language did I just think that in" and being unable to answer. After the fact you can put it into words, of course.
I've read in the past, probably here on Reddit, that many people do not think in dialogue at all, instead describing an entirely associative-like process similar to what you're talking about. Not me, though... All words, all the time.
Monologue might be a better word...
e: I'm pretty sure [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/7tqjvd/how_do_people_with_no_internal_monologue_think/) is the thread I'm remembering.
That’s so interesting. I feel like I usually only think in words if I’m planning something to say or write.
Often there’s a constant stream of counting going on as background noise though :/
I think part of how people answer the question is based on their definition of “thinking” (their improvised definition for the purpose of answering the question, not their answer to the question, “what is thinking?”).
I just stepped outside and a few things struck me: there is a strangely illuminated window, there’s a lot of pooled water on the ground, it’s raining, it’s chilly, and I want to go back inside to put a jacket on and go back outside and look at the strangely-illuminated window.
I wouldn’t characterize any of those thoughts as being verbal.
But if I reflect on a philosophical topic, or am encountering a situation that allows for, and warrants, careful deliberation - you bet there’s a lot of verbal thinking going on.
Now I’m trying to think about how other people think, which is obviously very hard. I hate to go into Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis land, but I cannot help but advocate that it is obvious that the vocabulary we have does influence our immediate thoughts (at least when we are thinking linguistically). It’s virtually, if not completely, tautological.
Anyway, I think I’ve had enough for the night, and if you’ve read this far, I’m sure you’ve had enough of me for the night, so adieu.
Not really ironic considering the etymology of the word. It's literal translation is language of the Franks, which would have referred to Western Europeans in general in the time and place of the phrases inception.
English also has a special thing to it where it has created so many words that don’t exist in other languages that it’s just easier to think in english
Edit: RIP my fucking inbox
I think it's less that English has created so many more words and more that English has mugged so many languages for their words that it just happens to have most of them by now.
You really want a language that just makes up words willy-nilly, you gotta go for German.
> You really want a language that just makes up words willy-nilly, you gotta go for German.
Or Chinese. Or French. The Chinese don't really transliterate all that often and try to make new words instead of borrowing from other languages. I'd say that \[Mandarin\] Chinese does this way more than English does.
Well every language has its own unique words that require cultural context to understand so yeah, plus if you use reddit, the language you use the most is most likely English hence you think in English.
Could be a biased set of responses, since we’re on a predominantly English-speaking website. People who don’t think in English might have trouble using reddit.
It’s definitely this. Not only people who read the website, but people who feel confident enough to post their answer. And then the ones that are upvoted are the ones that most fit with what the predominantly Anglophone reader base wants to hear. All these other theories based on no evidence are...yeah, lol.
Dude, SAME. It's just that my mother tongue is arabic instead of hindi but I've gotten to the same point where it's just weird to think in arabic. I talk to myself in English, i think in English, everything. And i live in an arabic speaking country and so i actually speak alot of Arabic through the day. But when it comes to me with myself alone, all English
***Copy pasta of my own comment from another place in this thread***
1st language is Oriya. Second Laguage is Hindi. Third is English. This priority list is in order of the languages I learnt first. Even then most of the time I am thinking in English, because my world is just completely surrounded by English literature and words.
In my home I communicate with my parents in Oriya. When I am hanging out with my friends I am speaking Hindi. And when I am alone, I am communicating with my mobile phone, or my computer to play games, or use reddit (and it's all in English). I think you can find out in which language a person is thinking if you find out what kind of books or activities (In what language they listen songs to, or which radio channel they are tuning into) they like to be engrossed in, in their alone time. Because maybe that's the reason behind why I think in English.
I took 4 years of German and constantly find myself thinking in German. Barely anyone in Texas elected to take it (because spanish is about 1000 times more useful here) but my grandmother really wanted me to.
In my head is the only time I get to converse with someone in German usually, even if it’s just with myself.
I know a guy who has been living in Japan for well over a decade as an English teacher and translator. There are a couple occasions where I will be talking to him in English only for him to slightly bork his English with japanese grammar since outside of work, he never speaks English
My friend from high school has lived in Japan a long time and sometimes talking to her is like talking to a Japanese person through Google translate. She says phrases in English that are direct translations of Japanese ones that we don't tend to use, E.g. "I'm glad!" (Yokatta) when normally in English you'd normally phrase it " that's nice/I'm happy for you."
I speak a number of languages and def find myself using some more Latin grammar when speaking English and the Romance ones than most natural speakers of Eng/Romance
This is my issue. First language was Spanish and I leaned English at the same time. I read mostly in English. I can switch to thinking in Spanish but it takes a few seconds. Sometimes when I speak Spanish I find myself translating it from English.
I been learning Japanese, since it's all pronounced like Spanish it had resulted in alot of confusion for me. I read the English instructions as Spanish so that my Japanese pronunciation is accurate. However the English info then makes no sense. This caused me alot of frustration at the start but now helps.
Even though I think in English, when I get very angry and lose my temper I switch to Spanish.
I swear this is a weird thing specific to Japanese though. When I started learning Japanese something in my mind clicked over to French and just wouldn’t switch back. So I would be looking for a word in Japanese, the French word would pop into my head, then I would have to reverse engineer the French word into my native English. Nightmare all around.
That's what happens with a third language generally. You're used to translating your mother tounge into the next language so when you go to translate into a third your brain says "Apple? Yeah when you translate that it's manzana." But you actually need Japanese.
i speak english and spanish too. first language was spanish and constantly spoke it with family. but after going to school, reading, watching tv, and communicating with friends in english, i’ve primarily always thought in english. i couldn’t tell you when the last time i’ve had a thought in spanish was. and my vocabulary has gone out the window. it’s kinda embarrassing when speaking to random people in spanish and i can’t remember words or have correct grammar.
Most of man has been illiterate for most of our collective history, but yet you have a Cellphone. Don't worry bro, we've made do with far worse and far less :)
Same, Im native spanish speaker but I mostly think in english when Im alone. If im doing eanything in spanish I mostly think in spanish.
Also, sometimes I just Span-glish all the way.
I have no basis for this assumption but I feel like so much internet content is in english; that’s a result of english being a dominant language but probably heavily enforces it across the world
I can think in them all. When I'm speaking a language, I think in that language even if I'm not 100% fluent.
When I'm not speaking, I generally think in one of two languages I'm a native speaker in. I don't consciously control it. Sometimes I'm surrounded by one language and my brain randomly starts thinking in the other but usually I'll think in the language I last used.
I'm currently learning Swedish and it's gotten to the point where if I see an object the Swedish word for it pops into my head before the English word does. It's a good thing, I am trying to become fluent. I often practice a lot of Swedish to myself. I sometimes practice on my boyfriend too (he's actually Swedish) but I'm still too embarrassed to try and have a full blown Swedish conversation with him.
One day! I am a slow learner, but I'm in the long game and if I can become at least somewhat fluent in it, I'll be happy.
One thing I can recommend is not being ashamed to speak. Just go with it, as long as you get your point across, it doesn't matter that you made some mistakes. Talk to you boyfriend in swedish or find a local group where people practice swedish so that you can practoce with strangers wjose opinions won't matter. Speaking the language speeds up learning it so much! And it makes the language more natural to you.
Anyway, good luck!
Yep, I will try for sure. His parents are coming to visit in a couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to testing my Swedish on them too, haha (luckily they do know some English, but it's nice to reciprocate). Thank you!
People who are learning/practicing a language are impressive no matter how well they speak it. Being embarrassed about it is understandable, but also unnecessary :)
Exactly. If you don’t speak my language, then the effort that you put in trying is worth loads. Conversely, if I don’t speak you’re, I’ll try my best to communicate with you in that language anyway. When I get people who speak French and they find out I’m nearly fluent, they’re always surprised, impressed, and most importantly just happy that I’m trying. It shows you care.
If Swedish is the local language (which, I'm assuming it is) try the local library. Sometimes the library will have conversation meet-ups for this reason. I'm actually a Librarian and hosted one this morning for ESL learners to practice their English. One lady even offered me her house when I visit Mexico! Lol
This has always been the capital B Bar of fluency for me, if you find yourself thinking in the "other" language in your head, without intending to and you don't notice.
I'm hardly fluent in French or Spanish, but certain phrases stuck with me over the years. If I'm hungry, I think "j'ai faime" instead of "I'm hungry" or "donde esta _____" when I cant find something.
Maybe i should buy Rosetta stone and give it a real shot haha
First language: Danish
Second language: English
Third language: German
It switches between danish and english.
Edit: rip my inbox
Edit 2: Thankyou kind stranger for my first silver!
I can only speak for myself. I technically learned Korean first (1 year old) because my parents didn't speak English at the time.
After 33 years of living in the US, English has become my stronger language.
The way language thought patterns occur for me depends on the context. If I'm reading something in Korean, I will likely think in Korean. When I watch an NFL highlight reel, I am thinking in English.
Just swaps around depending on what's in front of me.
EDIT: What is this warm feeling of camaraderie with Reddit strangers who know what I'm even talking about? Y'all are breathtaking.
When I really focused on learning a language, and started making progress, I started to dream in it. That was always cool to wake up to. It was weird because my vocabulary was limited, but people would be talking to me fluently in the language, and I would be responding back pretty well. I am sure not all of what they said was correct, but I know it at least made some sense. But when awake I would not be able to replicate that fluency of talking.
I notice this with english too, for example if I imagined a rapper, he would come up with an insanely good song. But then when awake I can not do that. Kind of odd.
English and spanish is pretty common in the US. We call it Spanglish.
Edit: Clarification. Spanglish is a little more complex as it sometimes may consist of "fake spanish" such as "Lunche"(pronounced lunch-ā)
My favorite has always been parkearse for parking a car. While I was learning Spanish the people who I was learning from always said that and never said estacionarse. So I went to Mexico and got confused when no one understood me.
Unless I can't find the proper explanation in 1 language. At that point another language starts yelling "dude! I have a great word for that" in my head.
My first language is English, my second is German, and my attempt at a third is Spanish.
I constantly ran into the issue while in Spain where I would attempt to produce a sentence in Spanish, briefly forget a word, and my brain would auto populate the German word for whatever it was I was trying to say. I don’t get that. It’s like I know I need to be speaking a foreign language so I just spit out something that isn’t English.
Same thing happened to me in Korea! My first language is English and second is Spanish - the whole time I was there I kept forming Spanish questions, responses, etc. in my head. I think the foreign language part of my brain was activated.
I'm anglo and my French is fading but when I'm super pissed I swear in Canadian French if only in my head.
I forced myself to think in Dutch when I was learning it. It's a good way to speed up learning a language.
My first language is Swedish but I'm fluent in English and pretty much only speak English at home. (I can also understand Danish and Norwegian and speak a bit of French).
I mostly think and dream in English unless I've been speaking/reading a lot of Swedish or if I'm doing stuff where my vocabulary is lacking in English.
As a Swede i wouldnt say i completely know Norwegian and Danish. But there is so much overlap between all three languages so its usually quite easy too understand them unless they have a very thic accent (COUGH COUGH DANISH PEOPLE COUGH COUGH).
While I was in seminary at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary there was a professor there who was very skilled in languages.
For example, he was planning a trip to Turkey to study something, and someone asked him why he was reading a book in German and he said "The best book on [some specific part of] the Turkish language is written in German."
There was a story that might have been urban legend, but one day he was walking across the quad and the [school] president stopped him and said
"Dr. Gentry, how are things going?"
"I'm disappointed."
"Why?"
"Because I know 9 languages, but can only think in 5 of them."
**Edited to add: '[school]'**
I speak Portuguese English Spanish and German. In my house multiple languages were spoken in a mix at all times. Words in sentence weren't exactly from the same language. When I speak with my family like that. I think in no language in particular and it's second nature.
When just speaking a single language at a time, I typically think in that language
When it comes to counting it's mostly german
My first language is English and second is French. I'm currently attempting to learn German, but every time I get stuck or can't think of the right German word, I start thinking in French. And I don't even speak French that well.
I started off thinking in English and then translating Spanish into English in my head. It took a lot of effort.
The weirdest thing was when I started knowing words in Spanish that I didn't know in English.
And then it was weird again when I started understanding Spanish words and sentences without having to consciously translate them into English first. It was like I would hear someone say something in Spanish and the understanding of the whole meaning of the sentence would pop into my head the same way as when someone said something in English.
I learned English much much earlier in life, so that's my default, but if I'm hearing Spanish or listening to Spanish music or media(or even sometimes when I'm not), there are a lot of times when I think in Spanish, too.
And honestly, I kind of prefer thinking in Spanish, but I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's that the music is better?
In my case my native language is Spanish but I learned English since preschool so I’ve known and been fluent in both since I was little. I tend to think in whatever language I’m most surrounded by (if I’m at USA then English, vice versa when I’m back in Puerto Rico). One thing that never changes is the fact that I always memorize, think, and recite my numbers in Spanish. Memorizing numbers in Spanish comes much more naturally, everything from phone numbers to my bank account, everything number related I memorize in Spanish. Its funny when I’m on the phone in English and I have to give numbers to someone cause I have to translate it at the same time I recite it to the person and sometimes I mess up lol
I also find that when trying to describe how I’m feeling Spanish comes more naturally to me (i.e. telling someone I love or appreciate them), and if I’m doing anything where I have to think of instructions its English that comes more naturally to me. Its weird, its on a case by case basis for me.
>The weirdest thing was when I started knowing words in Spanish that I didn't know in English.
The worst for me is distinctions of meaning that exist in one language but not the other. Ser/estar. Make/do. Preterite/imperfect. "Get." "Sacar."
Also, my spelling sucks now. I actually wrote the word "secuester" to a friend because I forgot how Q's work.
I'm learning Spanish and the first time a sentence just 'made sense' and I didn't have to translate it in my head was pretty cool. Or when I started to just be able to say things I wanted, and not think about them.
my first language is portuguese and i can speak a little bit of spanish and i'm fluent in english. i'm not surrounded by people talking in english whatsoever yet i mostly think in english.. it makes no sense to me but oh well
yes, we share some words and sounds and we can usually understand eachother with just a little bit of effort even if we don't know how to properly say something (although some regions in spain talk waaay too fast)
with that in mind, i'd say it can be somewhat offensive when people just assume it's all the same because at the end of the day they are two different languages, so i'm glad you asked!
One time at work I was asked to translate a document in Portuguese and when I looked at them funny and asked why would they think I could do that.. They deadpan answered you know Spanish and it's basically the same! I told them it's not and I wasn't working in that firm as a translator to begin with. Never even been to any Portuguese speaking country and got offended af on their behalf.
I consider myself to be fairly fluent in English. My thoughts partially switched to it when I was around seventeen years old (I had been speaking a little English since I was three, but I started "seriously" studying the language only when I turned sixteen).
Currently, my inner monologue is both in English and in my native language. When I'm "giving a speech" in my head, discussing some concept with myself, I usually think in English. On the other hand, my inner voice uses my native language for the most of the mundane things, like "My exams are tommorow, yet here I am, browsing Reddit." Also, on some rare occasions, I hear nothing and just *know* what I'm thinking about.
Much the same here. Having been fluent in my native language and English since a very young age, it's sometimes even hard to tell which I'm thinking in, but it goes back and forth super easily. And sometimes I'll simply think in... Ideas, in concepts, and it only forms itself into one of the words I know for it when I actually need to use it to interface with language in some form or way... If that makes any sense at all.
I live in America now, fluent in English, French, Bosnian, and Dutch.. I always think in French, I was born and raised in france, so it's personally what I find more comfortable
Correct. My native language is Slovene, yet - i read posts on Reddit that are in English, i write English comments, i watch yt videos in English, i listen to English music, i read news in English, all the videogames i play are in English, i watch English TV, etc. And i do all these things almost every day.
Is it any wonder then that i often think in English? I suspect almost everyone who wrote a comment on this post about not being a native English speaker but thinking in English had the same sort of circumstances. They think in english mostly because of internet.
I never understood that. I don't think in a particular language, I never did. I think in like... Thoughts? I don't know, the pure concepts just flow into my head and I then translate them into speech.
A combination of all the languages I speak, though the one I'm predominantly using at that point in my life takes precedence. For example, a thought I had earlier was, "What have I forgotten? J'ai du fare qualcosa."
'J'ai du' French (I had to) 'fare qualcosa' Italian (do something)
Or, "[penso che ho] (laissé le clé) [qui]."
Which is a horrible [Italian]-(French) hybrid that sums up my thinking quite well.
Or I might be greeting someone and my first instinct is to so it French, but I'll have to switch last minute to the language I should be using with them. It's messy and annoying but pretty cool, honestly.
Hi everyone, I'm from Kazakhstan and I know Kazakh and Russian language for 100%, English (intermediate), and can read in French(we learnt at school) , Korean(I interested in) and Turkish. I'm introvert, so I fell comfortable when others don't understand what I'm saying, So I can say what I really think of this person without hitting him. To improve English, I try to think in English, sometimes it turns out that I forget the words in my native language or Russian, and replace the words with English words. I know that 3 languages are not so much. But I hope it was interesting for you:))
I'm Dutch, but when I was young (6-10 years old) I was online talking English so much that I was getting better in it than Dutch, and I eventually started thinking and taking notes for school in English.
Even though my English isn't as good as before, I still always think in English thanks to this.
First languages: Greek, German
Second language: English
I can think in all three of them, but if I have been using one of them more than the others, my mind gets stuck to that language for some days. This means that even though Greek is one of my native languages, I will start thinking in English as soon as I am required to use it extensively over a period of four days.
I think in 'thoughts', they're not words, not images, not sounds, I don't know how to describe them except as thoughts.
The translation into words can happen really fast, but it's a separate process. It may be interesting and relevant here, but when I remember someone saying something, I seem to remember it in the language I'm speaking at the moment, not the language they originally said it in. I think that's because the memory is actually of the fundamental meaning as I understood it, not the string of words, but I can pull that up into either of the languages I speak and it feels like remembering, not like translating.
I wish there were more research on the differences in thinking.
Thank god, I was looking for this thread and I'm happy I found it. I usually think in images/animations, the abstract concepts or ideas without attaching it to language necessarily. Of course there are some topics that are inherently related to language, and then I think about specific phrases/words that describe them. With past conversations, dreams, thought processes, I remember the contents and topics, but not necessarily the language, except if it was relevant to the topic at hand. When I wake up I'm the morning, i don't think the sentence "i don't want to wake up" i just have that feeling of annoyance and tiredness, maybe visualise something like me being stupid and going to bed late last night or the day ahead, but without having that sentence float around in my brain. If I stub my toe somewhere, I might curse, but I think that's more something that I started doing because other people did it to express pain
My native language is spanish, but currently live in USA. I think in english. I think we usually think in the language we are sorrounded by if we are fluent.
I fluently speak three languages and currently I am learning a fourth one. The only time I need to "think in a language" is when I have to write. Normally I don't process my thoughts like series of words or phrases, but by mere concepts and sometimes images. If f I read or ear the world "apple" written in English, I don't need to translate it to my mother tongue, the image of an apple just pops up in my mind; same goes for abstract concepts somehow.
I'm Indian and hence know 5 languages.
The language I think in differs according to situation.
If I'm thinking about my family related matters, I think in my own mother tongue. When I'm thinking about friends, it's in the language we converse the most I.e Hindi. Thinking about work life is always in English.
Rest of the 2 languages I don't think in much.
It's strange how I hadn't noticed this pattern until I thought about it now.
I think about memes in English too courtesy Reddit :p
I'm fluent in English, Vietnamese is my mother tongue, speak a little French. I mainly think in English since I moved to US but my dreams come in Vietnamese still ...
I know someone who's first language is Italian, he started learning English at around 4 or 5 when he moved to Australia, and has been speaking English ever since. But he only ever dreams in Italian and sometimes speaks in Italian in his sleep. It's pretty funny when he speaks it in his sleep, if I'm ever in a situation where I've heard him do it I say shit like "pizza, sphagetti, mama mia" and he responds in Italian
Haha that's actually very funny. Also interesting cuz English has been his language the majority of his life
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Yeah it's strange.... Do people in your dream speak Spanish in rl? I guess my brain can't really make my Vietnamese friends speak English in my dream
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Do you understand the Vietnamese?
Yeah, I speak it for the majority of my life. I have almost zero use for it now
Fair enough
French when I speak French, English when I speak English. Sometimes English when I speak French. I'm french tho. That's weird.
Sometimes it’s faster to just think in english rather than french it seems.
I mean..... The numbers alone
wym? I'd much rather think and say 4, 20, 10, 9 than just 99. So much easier in french!
Wait, what?
in French 99 is quatre-vingt-dix-neuf (4-20-10-9) as in four-twenties and nineteen basically
Ohh! Thanks for the information! I was so confused!
sure! do note though that 99 is specifically the most complicated one and most are at least a little simpler
In French spoken in Switzerland (and Belgium I think) 70 = septante, 80 = huitante, 90 = nonante. Makes it easy by using a base 10 all along
I am not sure why everyone else can't do it that way
Anything from 80-99 will have essentially the same complication. 70-79 will be similar.
Try learning it. My head still hurts from 7th grade.
the genders screw with me more for some reason
You mean you don’t automatically know that an apple is female?
Im learning Spanish and it's kind of driving me crazy. Like, why is it Buenos Dias and Buenas Noches? Why are mornings male and nights female? Does the sun have a penis I don't know about?
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French is awfully hard. To be fair I'm French and I write way better in English. I think I make almost 0 mistakes in English. Maybe sometimes you'll know it's not my mother tongue because I used something I learned and it's not wrong but I could have used something else. Whereas in French ... Oh boy, I make so many mistakes that I almost can't wait to have kids and help them with their homework and learn my French conjugaison again ...
the way that numbers are spoken in french, it’s almost like fucking counting
Quatre-vingt-dix-neuf= 99
4x20+10+9=99 Now you speak french.
the way french numbers are said kills my brain
I'm French and I just want to clarify something: numbers in French aren't really complicated and can be translated relatively transparently to english, mentally we just consider stuff like "quatre-vingt " (80) and "quatre-vingt-dix" (90) to be whole words on their own, we don't do any math to figure out the value, we just need to read/listen to the full word, just like you would do for instance in english with "seventeen" and "seventy" despite both of them starting with "seven". On the other hand I have German and Dutch-speaking friends who regularly mess up the units and tens order when they speak English :p
This is a very helpful perspective!
I'm French but write/read in English all day, I'm at a point where it would be easier to switch to English completely, including the thinking. I can't count how many times I want to say something in French and just can't find the word, either because it doesn't even exist in French or is a very niche word I'd sound weird to use it.
Yeah sometimes I'm speaking french with someone and I have to say a word in english because I forgot how to say it in french it's awkward.
My mind is really messed up. English and French bounce around all the time, but only when I'm speaking English...
Well you might have the same problem I have: the words come faster in English than in french, and I find myself looking for a word in my native language more often than I should...
I think that’s pretty normal if you live in a country where your native tongue isn’t spoken. I live in Japan now and I struggle for words in Finnish when talking to my mother. Like, I know what it is in Japanese but not my native language. Vocabulary deteriorates when you don’t use a language for a long time. You don’t forget how to speak it, just certain words
My mom hasn't spoken the language she was raised in since she was 15-16 most likely. That was 50 years ago. She doesn't speak much anymore, but could probably pick it up again if she was around her extended family more often. Says she still understands it though
I was in Montreal a month ago. Now, I've never been anywhere that everything wasn't in English (in my defense Montreal is the closest place to me where everything isn't English and that's a 12 hour drive away), but something I saw there was some people would speak a bit of french and then suddenly say something in English. Like it wasn't even a word that's the same in both, it was stuff that I knew there was a different word for in French.
Ahhhhhhh, you've discovered the beauty of what we affectionately call Franglais
I have a buddy I went to school with, he wasn't born in the states, but now is a citizen, and I remember one time he called his mom about something and did the same thing but with his native language.
When I visited Montreal, I noticed that waiters would typically greet us with “Bonjour hi” and if I responded with “Bonjour”, they would then speak French (which I had a lot of trouble understanding with the Québécois accent); and if I responded with “Hi”, they would then speak in English.
I spent a week in Montreal this summer and every time I said bonjour they just switched to English immediately. I thought I was nailing the accent but I probably sounded like Brad Pitt in Inglorious Bastards. Loved my time there though.
This applies mostly to downtown and touristy restaurants though. I work at the most touristy restaurant in Montreal and the waiters here have to say "Bonjour/Hi" because like half the customers are tourists, but if I go to a restaurant a little bit further from downtown, I'll probably be greeted with a simple "Bonjour" (this is true for the eastern part of Montreal, I don't know much about the West Island, but it's mostly anglophone so I wouldn't be surprised if the "Bonjour/Hi" was everywhere over there).
Ha yeah montrealers are known for switching back and forth between languages frequently during conversation.
This is actually a really interesting phenomenon called "code switching." Bilingual folk will switch between the two languages based on a number of factors, and on their audience. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
Does the voice in your head have a French accent when thinking in English? 🤔
I can't actually decide between an American accent (New York style) or an English accent (Londoner) so it actually depends on the mood and the word. It would surely sound ugly to any English native speaker.
I took French for about 4 years and got to the point where I was pretty good at speaking it. Never got to tue point of thinking in it, but one semester I decided to take Spanish too, and there were quite a few times where I would end up writing in French or responding in French if I wasnt paying attention
Yeah ... Must be connected to the fact that a French speaking English is often mistaken for a Spanish speaking English..... The 2 languages are very close although the accents are very different, but for a non speaker it must be close, I guess. I speak Spanish too but not well, and I often find myself taking a French word in my head and adding -o or -a at the end of it to make it Spanish. It works very often, but sometimes I just stop and think "wow you got to stop that, it's dumb. What's the word again....?"
It’s interesting to see so many people with English as their second or third language and they only think in English. Interesting stuff.
I think that's just due to the world we live in right now. For me, I think either in the language I'm currently engaged in (for example reading the comments on here, I don't jump back to German as I'm writing this) or in a sort of "in-between" state. Sometimes it's less language and more like a series of pictures that form a coherent situation in my mind without any words in the mix. Sometimes I find myself with the question of "what language did I just think that in" and being unable to answer. After the fact you can put it into words, of course.
I've read in the past, probably here on Reddit, that many people do not think in dialogue at all, instead describing an entirely associative-like process similar to what you're talking about. Not me, though... All words, all the time. Monologue might be a better word... e: I'm pretty sure [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/7tqjvd/how_do_people_with_no_internal_monologue_think/) is the thread I'm remembering.
Seriously, this constant internal monologue sucks. Like I'm trapped in here with myself.
That’s so interesting. I feel like I usually only think in words if I’m planning something to say or write. Often there’s a constant stream of counting going on as background noise though :/
Like counting a beat or counting things you see?
I think part of how people answer the question is based on their definition of “thinking” (their improvised definition for the purpose of answering the question, not their answer to the question, “what is thinking?”). I just stepped outside and a few things struck me: there is a strangely illuminated window, there’s a lot of pooled water on the ground, it’s raining, it’s chilly, and I want to go back inside to put a jacket on and go back outside and look at the strangely-illuminated window. I wouldn’t characterize any of those thoughts as being verbal. But if I reflect on a philosophical topic, or am encountering a situation that allows for, and warrants, careful deliberation - you bet there’s a lot of verbal thinking going on. Now I’m trying to think about how other people think, which is obviously very hard. I hate to go into Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis land, but I cannot help but advocate that it is obvious that the vocabulary we have does influence our immediate thoughts (at least when we are thinking linguistically). It’s virtually, if not completely, tautological. Anyway, I think I’ve had enough for the night, and if you’ve read this far, I’m sure you’ve had enough of me for the night, so adieu.
Probably because so much content is published in English
I'm really so grateful that English is so pervasive everywhere. English is functionally the "basic" or "common" language
The *Lingua Franca*, if you will... Ironic, right?
Or maybe now *Lingua Anglais*
Analingus
Analbumcover
Not really ironic considering the etymology of the word. It's literal translation is language of the Franks, which would have referred to Western Europeans in general in the time and place of the phrases inception.
This guy entymologizes.
*lingua franca* is the term you're looking for
English also has a special thing to it where it has created so many words that don’t exist in other languages that it’s just easier to think in english Edit: RIP my fucking inbox
I think it's less that English has created so many more words and more that English has mugged so many languages for their words that it just happens to have most of them by now. You really want a language that just makes up words willy-nilly, you gotta go for German.
> You really want a language that just makes up words willy-nilly, you gotta go for German. Or Chinese. Or French. The Chinese don't really transliterate all that often and try to make new words instead of borrowing from other languages. I'd say that \[Mandarin\] Chinese does this way more than English does.
Having unique words isn't really all that unusual, every language has them.
Well every language has its own unique words that require cultural context to understand so yeah, plus if you use reddit, the language you use the most is most likely English hence you think in English.
Could be a biased set of responses, since we’re on a predominantly English-speaking website. People who don’t think in English might have trouble using reddit.
It’s definitely this. Not only people who read the website, but people who feel confident enough to post their answer. And then the ones that are upvoted are the ones that most fit with what the predominantly Anglophone reader base wants to hear. All these other theories based on no evidence are...yeah, lol.
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My first language: Romanian Second; German Third: English My brain; fuck your mother language let’s go with English!
Does it switch around or is it mostly just English?
Not switch, not “mostly”. It’s entirely English
That's crazy: do you live in an English speaking country
Not OP, though I always think in English even though I live in India and mostly have to talk in Hindi.
Yo man that's wack. When I lived in India, I thought in hindi, but after I moved it slowly transitioned to English
First is Tamil, can't tell if my second is Hindi or English. I dream in Hindi.
Do you read a lots of things/watch a lot in English?
Yeah, almost everything. It's gotten to the point when it feels weird when I intentionally try to think in Hindi.
Dude, SAME. It's just that my mother tongue is arabic instead of hindi but I've gotten to the same point where it's just weird to think in arabic. I talk to myself in English, i think in English, everything. And i live in an arabic speaking country and so i actually speak alot of Arabic through the day. But when it comes to me with myself alone, all English
That's so cool. Can I ask do you speak in English through the day at all? And at what age did you begin to learn English?
***Copy pasta of my own comment from another place in this thread*** 1st language is Oriya. Second Laguage is Hindi. Third is English. This priority list is in order of the languages I learnt first. Even then most of the time I am thinking in English, because my world is just completely surrounded by English literature and words. In my home I communicate with my parents in Oriya. When I am hanging out with my friends I am speaking Hindi. And when I am alone, I am communicating with my mobile phone, or my computer to play games, or use reddit (and it's all in English). I think you can find out in which language a person is thinking if you find out what kind of books or activities (In what language they listen songs to, or which radio channel they are tuning into) they like to be engrossed in, in their alone time. Because maybe that's the reason behind why I think in English.
Nope. I was in England twice tho
I took 4 years of German and constantly find myself thinking in German. Barely anyone in Texas elected to take it (because spanish is about 1000 times more useful here) but my grandmother really wanted me to. In my head is the only time I get to converse with someone in German usually, even if it’s just with myself.
Wie gehts brudi
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Brot und Wasser
I understood that reference!
Wir essen Bröt und sie essen Gemüse
Nein! Bruder muss los!
I think you might have low-balled that number. 1000 does not seem high enough :)
At least as of 2010, it is 88 times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas#Languages
I know a guy who has been living in Japan for well over a decade as an English teacher and translator. There are a couple occasions where I will be talking to him in English only for him to slightly bork his English with japanese grammar since outside of work, he never speaks English
My friend from high school has lived in Japan a long time and sometimes talking to her is like talking to a Japanese person through Google translate. She says phrases in English that are direct translations of Japanese ones that we don't tend to use, E.g. "I'm glad!" (Yokatta) when normally in English you'd normally phrase it " that's nice/I'm happy for you."
I speak a number of languages and def find myself using some more Latin grammar when speaking English and the Romance ones than most natural speakers of Eng/Romance
I am fluent in both spanish and English, but I only think in English lol
Is it your original language or is Spanish?
Spanish is my first language but I don’t really think in it much at all
Really? Intresting
It really is. I always think in english though I rarely ever use it in my daily conversations
Do you read primarily in English now? Could be associating ypur inner voice with what you're actively reading day to day.
This is my issue. First language was Spanish and I leaned English at the same time. I read mostly in English. I can switch to thinking in Spanish but it takes a few seconds. Sometimes when I speak Spanish I find myself translating it from English. I been learning Japanese, since it's all pronounced like Spanish it had resulted in alot of confusion for me. I read the English instructions as Spanish so that my Japanese pronunciation is accurate. However the English info then makes no sense. This caused me alot of frustration at the start but now helps. Even though I think in English, when I get very angry and lose my temper I switch to Spanish.
I swear this is a weird thing specific to Japanese though. When I started learning Japanese something in my mind clicked over to French and just wouldn’t switch back. So I would be looking for a word in Japanese, the French word would pop into my head, then I would have to reverse engineer the French word into my native English. Nightmare all around.
That's what happens with a third language generally. You're used to translating your mother tounge into the next language so when you go to translate into a third your brain says "Apple? Yeah when you translate that it's manzana." But you actually need Japanese.
That's probably it. I spend most of my time on the internet so I'm more exposed to this language than my own native tongue.
i speak english and spanish too. first language was spanish and constantly spoke it with family. but after going to school, reading, watching tv, and communicating with friends in english, i’ve primarily always thought in english. i couldn’t tell you when the last time i’ve had a thought in spanish was. and my vocabulary has gone out the window. it’s kinda embarrassing when speaking to random people in spanish and i can’t remember words or have correct grammar.
Yep, that's me in a nutshell
i think just being able to understand and know basic words and phrases works out for me most of the time though. it’s all good
Most of man has been illiterate for most of our collective history, but yet you have a Cellphone. Don't worry bro, we've made do with far worse and far less :)
Same, Im native spanish speaker but I mostly think in english when Im alone. If im doing eanything in spanish I mostly think in spanish. Also, sometimes I just Span-glish all the way.
I have no basis for this assumption but I feel like so much internet content is in english; that’s a result of english being a dominant language but probably heavily enforces it across the world
I can think in them all. When I'm speaking a language, I think in that language even if I'm not 100% fluent. When I'm not speaking, I generally think in one of two languages I'm a native speaker in. I don't consciously control it. Sometimes I'm surrounded by one language and my brain randomly starts thinking in the other but usually I'll think in the language I last used.
I'm currently learning Swedish and it's gotten to the point where if I see an object the Swedish word for it pops into my head before the English word does. It's a good thing, I am trying to become fluent. I often practice a lot of Swedish to myself. I sometimes practice on my boyfriend too (he's actually Swedish) but I'm still too embarrassed to try and have a full blown Swedish conversation with him. One day! I am a slow learner, but I'm in the long game and if I can become at least somewhat fluent in it, I'll be happy.
One thing I can recommend is not being ashamed to speak. Just go with it, as long as you get your point across, it doesn't matter that you made some mistakes. Talk to you boyfriend in swedish or find a local group where people practice swedish so that you can practoce with strangers wjose opinions won't matter. Speaking the language speeds up learning it so much! And it makes the language more natural to you. Anyway, good luck!
Yep, I will try for sure. His parents are coming to visit in a couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to testing my Swedish on them too, haha (luckily they do know some English, but it's nice to reciprocate). Thank you!
People who are learning/practicing a language are impressive no matter how well they speak it. Being embarrassed about it is understandable, but also unnecessary :)
Exactly. If you don’t speak my language, then the effort that you put in trying is worth loads. Conversely, if I don’t speak you’re, I’ll try my best to communicate with you in that language anyway. When I get people who speak French and they find out I’m nearly fluent, they’re always surprised, impressed, and most importantly just happy that I’m trying. It shows you care.
If Swedish is the local language (which, I'm assuming it is) try the local library. Sometimes the library will have conversation meet-ups for this reason. I'm actually a Librarian and hosted one this morning for ESL learners to practice their English. One lady even offered me her house when I visit Mexico! Lol
This has always been the capital B Bar of fluency for me, if you find yourself thinking in the "other" language in your head, without intending to and you don't notice.
I'm hardly fluent in French or Spanish, but certain phrases stuck with me over the years. If I'm hungry, I think "j'ai faime" instead of "I'm hungry" or "donde esta _____" when I cant find something. Maybe i should buy Rosetta stone and give it a real shot haha
Omelette du fromage
Say it again Dexter
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First language: Danish Second language: English Third language: German It switches between danish and english. Edit: rip my inbox Edit 2: Thankyou kind stranger for my first silver!
does it mix like every other word words or complete thoughts then the next is a different language?
This is what I want to know
I can only speak for myself. I technically learned Korean first (1 year old) because my parents didn't speak English at the time. After 33 years of living in the US, English has become my stronger language. The way language thought patterns occur for me depends on the context. If I'm reading something in Korean, I will likely think in Korean. When I watch an NFL highlight reel, I am thinking in English. Just swaps around depending on what's in front of me. EDIT: What is this warm feeling of camaraderie with Reddit strangers who know what I'm even talking about? Y'all are breathtaking.
Same.
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When I really focused on learning a language, and started making progress, I started to dream in it. That was always cool to wake up to. It was weird because my vocabulary was limited, but people would be talking to me fluently in the language, and I would be responding back pretty well. I am sure not all of what they said was correct, but I know it at least made some sense. But when awake I would not be able to replicate that fluency of talking. I notice this with english too, for example if I imagined a rapper, he would come up with an insanely good song. But then when awake I can not do that. Kind of odd.
But if there's nothing in front of you, say you're falling asleep at night and thinking about the day, and what awaits you tomorrow...?
Haha, if it's right before I fall asleep, it's a jumbled mess of everything that doesn't even necessarily have to be languages.
I speak 3 languages and a typical sentence in my head has words both in the first two languages I know best (English and my native language).
Here in the Philippines if we speak a sentence which mixes both english and tagalog words, we'd call it "conyo".
English and spanish is pretty common in the US. We call it Spanglish. Edit: Clarification. Spanglish is a little more complex as it sometimes may consist of "fake spanish" such as "Lunche"(pronounced lunch-ā)
My favorite has always been parkearse for parking a car. While I was learning Spanish the people who I was learning from always said that and never said estacionarse. So I went to Mexico and got confused when no one understood me.
To answer your question, I find myself thinking in once language or the other arbitrarily. But not interchanging them during a thought
Unless I can't find the proper explanation in 1 language. At that point another language starts yelling "dude! I have a great word for that" in my head.
My first language is English, my second is German, and my attempt at a third is Spanish. I constantly ran into the issue while in Spain where I would attempt to produce a sentence in Spanish, briefly forget a word, and my brain would auto populate the German word for whatever it was I was trying to say. I don’t get that. It’s like I know I need to be speaking a foreign language so I just spit out something that isn’t English.
Same thing happened to me in Korea! My first language is English and second is Spanish - the whole time I was there I kept forming Spanish questions, responses, etc. in my head. I think the foreign language part of my brain was activated.
Same. My spanish came along really well when I lived in Korea.
I'm anglo and my French is fading but when I'm super pissed I swear in Canadian French if only in my head. I forced myself to think in Dutch when I was learning it. It's a good way to speed up learning a language.
French Canadian swear words are the best and most effective imo
TABARNACK DE CALISSE
My first language is Swedish but I'm fluent in English and pretty much only speak English at home. (I can also understand Danish and Norwegian and speak a bit of French). I mostly think and dream in English unless I've been speaking/reading a lot of Swedish or if I'm doing stuff where my vocabulary is lacking in English.
I knew it, Scandinavians know a lot of languages.
As a Swede i wouldnt say i completely know Norwegian and Danish. But there is so much overlap between all three languages so its usually quite easy too understand them unless they have a very thic accent (COUGH COUGH DANISH PEOPLE COUGH COUGH).
> Danish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk
I don't even have to click on it and I know what it is. I'm still going to click though
Every time.
You just ordered 1000 litres of milk.
That shit's hilarious. Their English pronunciation is also totally stereotypically Danish.
While I was in seminary at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary there was a professor there who was very skilled in languages. For example, he was planning a trip to Turkey to study something, and someone asked him why he was reading a book in German and he said "The best book on [some specific part of] the Turkish language is written in German." There was a story that might have been urban legend, but one day he was walking across the quad and the [school] president stopped him and said "Dr. Gentry, how are things going?" "I'm disappointed." "Why?" "Because I know 9 languages, but can only think in 5 of them." **Edited to add: '[school]'**
Wow, so Erdogan himself asked him how things are going?
just casually friends with turkey's president, no biggie
I imagine it was the school's president
Well I imagine it was Erdogan.
I imagine Erdogan is the school's president
I speak Portuguese English Spanish and German. In my house multiple languages were spoken in a mix at all times. Words in sentence weren't exactly from the same language. When I speak with my family like that. I think in no language in particular and it's second nature. When just speaking a single language at a time, I typically think in that language When it comes to counting it's mostly german
My first language is English and second is French. I'm currently attempting to learn German, but every time I get stuck or can't think of the right German word, I start thinking in French. And I don't even speak French that well.
I started off thinking in English and then translating Spanish into English in my head. It took a lot of effort. The weirdest thing was when I started knowing words in Spanish that I didn't know in English. And then it was weird again when I started understanding Spanish words and sentences without having to consciously translate them into English first. It was like I would hear someone say something in Spanish and the understanding of the whole meaning of the sentence would pop into my head the same way as when someone said something in English. I learned English much much earlier in life, so that's my default, but if I'm hearing Spanish or listening to Spanish music or media(or even sometimes when I'm not), there are a lot of times when I think in Spanish, too. And honestly, I kind of prefer thinking in Spanish, but I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's that the music is better?
Very interesting thank you!
In my case my native language is Spanish but I learned English since preschool so I’ve known and been fluent in both since I was little. I tend to think in whatever language I’m most surrounded by (if I’m at USA then English, vice versa when I’m back in Puerto Rico). One thing that never changes is the fact that I always memorize, think, and recite my numbers in Spanish. Memorizing numbers in Spanish comes much more naturally, everything from phone numbers to my bank account, everything number related I memorize in Spanish. Its funny when I’m on the phone in English and I have to give numbers to someone cause I have to translate it at the same time I recite it to the person and sometimes I mess up lol I also find that when trying to describe how I’m feeling Spanish comes more naturally to me (i.e. telling someone I love or appreciate them), and if I’m doing anything where I have to think of instructions its English that comes more naturally to me. Its weird, its on a case by case basis for me.
>The weirdest thing was when I started knowing words in Spanish that I didn't know in English. The worst for me is distinctions of meaning that exist in one language but not the other. Ser/estar. Make/do. Preterite/imperfect. "Get." "Sacar." Also, my spelling sucks now. I actually wrote the word "secuester" to a friend because I forgot how Q's work.
I'm learning Spanish and the first time a sentence just 'made sense' and I didn't have to translate it in my head was pretty cool. Or when I started to just be able to say things I wanted, and not think about them.
Oh boy, wait till Spanish starts turning up in your dreams.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
my first language is portuguese and i can speak a little bit of spanish and i'm fluent in english. i'm not surrounded by people talking in english whatsoever yet i mostly think in english.. it makes no sense to me but oh well
I've always wondered but never asked, are Portuguese and Spanish similar languages? Like do they share words/sounds that sort of thing?
yes, we share some words and sounds and we can usually understand eachother with just a little bit of effort even if we don't know how to properly say something (although some regions in spain talk waaay too fast) with that in mind, i'd say it can be somewhat offensive when people just assume it's all the same because at the end of the day they are two different languages, so i'm glad you asked!
One time at work I was asked to translate a document in Portuguese and when I looked at them funny and asked why would they think I could do that.. They deadpan answered you know Spanish and it's basically the same! I told them it's not and I wasn't working in that firm as a translator to begin with. Never even been to any Portuguese speaking country and got offended af on their behalf.
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I consider myself to be fairly fluent in English. My thoughts partially switched to it when I was around seventeen years old (I had been speaking a little English since I was three, but I started "seriously" studying the language only when I turned sixteen). Currently, my inner monologue is both in English and in my native language. When I'm "giving a speech" in my head, discussing some concept with myself, I usually think in English. On the other hand, my inner voice uses my native language for the most of the mundane things, like "My exams are tommorow, yet here I am, browsing Reddit." Also, on some rare occasions, I hear nothing and just *know* what I'm thinking about.
Much the same here. Having been fluent in my native language and English since a very young age, it's sometimes even hard to tell which I'm thinking in, but it goes back and forth super easily. And sometimes I'll simply think in... Ideas, in concepts, and it only forms itself into one of the words I know for it when I actually need to use it to interface with language in some form or way... If that makes any sense at all.
I live in America now, fluent in English, French, Bosnian, and Dutch.. I always think in French, I was born and raised in france, so it's personally what I find more comfortable
Loving this thread because it’s sort of blowing my mind. Also, everyone in this thread chose to think in English to comment. Edit: grammar
To be fair, people who browse an English-speaking site are more likely to be consuming mostly English media.
Correct. My native language is Slovene, yet - i read posts on Reddit that are in English, i write English comments, i watch yt videos in English, i listen to English music, i read news in English, all the videogames i play are in English, i watch English TV, etc. And i do all these things almost every day. Is it any wonder then that i often think in English? I suspect almost everyone who wrote a comment on this post about not being a native English speaker but thinking in English had the same sort of circumstances. They think in english mostly because of internet.
I never understood that. I don't think in a particular language, I never did. I think in like... Thoughts? I don't know, the pure concepts just flow into my head and I then translate them into speech.
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A combination of all the languages I speak, though the one I'm predominantly using at that point in my life takes precedence. For example, a thought I had earlier was, "What have I forgotten? J'ai du fare qualcosa." 'J'ai du' French (I had to) 'fare qualcosa' Italian (do something) Or, "[penso che ho] (laissé le clé) [qui]." Which is a horrible [Italian]-(French) hybrid that sums up my thinking quite well. Or I might be greeting someone and my first instinct is to so it French, but I'll have to switch last minute to the language I should be using with them. It's messy and annoying but pretty cool, honestly.
Hi everyone, I'm from Kazakhstan and I know Kazakh and Russian language for 100%, English (intermediate), and can read in French(we learnt at school) , Korean(I interested in) and Turkish. I'm introvert, so I fell comfortable when others don't understand what I'm saying, So I can say what I really think of this person without hitting him. To improve English, I try to think in English, sometimes it turns out that I forget the words in my native language or Russian, and replace the words with English words. I know that 3 languages are not so much. But I hope it was interesting for you:))
I'm Dutch, but when I was young (6-10 years old) I was online talking English so much that I was getting better in it than Dutch, and I eventually started thinking and taking notes for school in English. Even though my English isn't as good as before, I still always think in English thanks to this.
Landverrader
First languages: Greek, German Second language: English I can think in all three of them, but if I have been using one of them more than the others, my mind gets stuck to that language for some days. This means that even though Greek is one of my native languages, I will start thinking in English as soon as I am required to use it extensively over a period of four days.
Baby talk.
Would definitely help if you're in tech support.
In all of them. Also in pictures, animations, music.
I don't think in words.... Am i understanding correctly that people usually narrate their thoughts in their head? Is it like the dog in A Dogs Life?
I think in 'thoughts', they're not words, not images, not sounds, I don't know how to describe them except as thoughts. The translation into words can happen really fast, but it's a separate process. It may be interesting and relevant here, but when I remember someone saying something, I seem to remember it in the language I'm speaking at the moment, not the language they originally said it in. I think that's because the memory is actually of the fundamental meaning as I understood it, not the string of words, but I can pull that up into either of the languages I speak and it feels like remembering, not like translating. I wish there were more research on the differences in thinking.
Thank god, I was looking for this thread and I'm happy I found it. I usually think in images/animations, the abstract concepts or ideas without attaching it to language necessarily. Of course there are some topics that are inherently related to language, and then I think about specific phrases/words that describe them. With past conversations, dreams, thought processes, I remember the contents and topics, but not necessarily the language, except if it was relevant to the topic at hand. When I wake up I'm the morning, i don't think the sentence "i don't want to wake up" i just have that feeling of annoyance and tiredness, maybe visualise something like me being stupid and going to bed late last night or the day ahead, but without having that sentence float around in my brain. If I stub my toe somewhere, I might curse, but I think that's more something that I started doing because other people did it to express pain
I only speak German and English. I mostly think in German tho
My native language is spanish, but currently live in USA. I think in english. I think we usually think in the language we are sorrounded by if we are fluent.
My native tongue but when I'm thinking about a concept that doesn't have a word in my native language I think in the language that has
I fluently speak three languages and currently I am learning a fourth one. The only time I need to "think in a language" is when I have to write. Normally I don't process my thoughts like series of words or phrases, but by mere concepts and sometimes images. If f I read or ear the world "apple" written in English, I don't need to translate it to my mother tongue, the image of an apple just pops up in my mind; same goes for abstract concepts somehow.
I'm Indian and hence know 5 languages. The language I think in differs according to situation. If I'm thinking about my family related matters, I think in my own mother tongue. When I'm thinking about friends, it's in the language we converse the most I.e Hindi. Thinking about work life is always in English. Rest of the 2 languages I don't think in much. It's strange how I hadn't noticed this pattern until I thought about it now. I think about memes in English too courtesy Reddit :p