randomly thinking in another language

[Zoe Girl]

Oh dang, I am NOT sure where to put this. I speak French to some extent, I took 4 years of college level French so i was reading and writing at the college level. I didn't get very fluent ouotside the classroom. I have gone once to a speaking group.

This last week I had a child who only spoke Spanish in one of my after school classes I support. I was able to directly think of simple things in French and then had to translate to the few Spanish words I know, but couldn't go directly to Spanish from English as easily.

Last night I was tiredly driving to pick up my daughter from work and found myself thinking in French about half and half. i have mini conversations with myself in French with my limited vocab. I really want to get back to the speaking group and I will start a Spanish class on Mondays next week. I guess I just don't know too many multilingual people and I am not sure about what is 'normal' for this.

[bae]

The languages I am reasonably proficient in, I find myself "thinking" in that language when working with it.

The languages I am only so-so with, I often end up "thinking" in some other language first, then translating, which is a more stilted and confusing process. It is especially confusing if the language I am working with is much "closer" to one of the other languages I know than it is to English, so I end up with a multi-step process if I'm not careful, and then everything pretty much comes out as: "Mon aéroglisseur est plein d'anguilles" :-)

[ToomuchStuff]

There is an old joke:
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual
What do you call someone who speaks more then two languages?
multilingual
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
An American


I have some friends who at the minimum are bilingual. Most of them are immigrants. I am not around them or the languages enough, to actually learn the languages, as I don't get enough feedback. I do know a friend of mine, grew up fluent in enough languages, to get a job at the justice dept. This was pre internet days, and I didn't have the educational access he did, nor the ability to use him as a cospeaker.
I think access it our biggest factor personally. Grow up around a border town, with its access and most of them can speak more then one.


PS: Pig latin, doesn't count.

[Tammy]

I know un poquito espanol. When I was in Germany and the Netherlands on vacation, I kept trying to answer people in Spanish. I think I have one brain lobe for English, and one for "all other languages". ;)

[SteveinMN]

I know un poquito espanol. When I was in Germany and the Netherlands on vacation, I kept trying to answer people in Spanish. I think I have one brain lobe for English, and one for "all other languages". ;)
That must be the way my brain works. I studied Spanish and German in high school (and some German in college) and I find myself much more conversant in German than Spanish. But when I'm reading/speaking Spanish and I can't think of the word, my brain lapses to German (in which I usually can remember the word). Makes conversations a bit interesting.

[Mrs-M]

Originally posted by ToomuchStuff.
PS: Pig latin, doesn't count.I never did understand Pig Latin.

[JaneV2.0]

I dream in other languages occasionally. Once I found myself troubleshooting a circuit in Spanish. Lord knows what subconscious quirk kicked that off...

[bae]

That must be the way my brain works.

Interesting observation. I do feel as if I have different sections of my brain for "Germanic languages", "Romance languages", 'Celtic languages", and "Other". Things in "Other" are a real bother for me.

[JaneV2.0]

I briefly participated in a questionnaire about how my brain works, retrieving memories, etc. I came to the conclusion it worked like a shape sorter, but it often reminds me of a Magic Eight Ball, as well. The answer just "shows up." I don't seem to have a dominant brain hemisphere; if I'm pushed, I come out slightly right-brained, but only slightly. It should be good for many years to come; I don't use it much.

[Zoe Girl]

I have had lot of evidence that my brain is more 'balanced' than either right brain or left brain. I am not sure if that is part of the facility to move around linguistically. It is part of not knowing left and right well, I can by a little ambidextrous. Just very interesting overall how the brain works.

[bae]

I don't buy the "left brain/right brain" business. My own perception of my brain is that it is more complicated than that, that it is a loosely-connected network of individual processors, each of which has a specialty and overlaps a bit with the others, and communicate and "vote on" or judge results. I've seen some research papers done with MRI studies of peoples' brains trying to solve problems, and they parallel my perception.

[iforonwy]

I class myself as bi-lingual - Welsh and English.

Welsh is my second language although I did my college teacher training course of 3 years through the medium of Welsh.

In Welsh medium schools (schools that teach using mainly Welsh not mainly English) other languages such as French, Spanish, German are taught in Welsh and so the pupil goes from Welsh to French and then to English if they require an English translation of the French.

For me it depends which language I am using the most. If I am in Wales and using Welsh as the main language then I suppose I think in Welsh and if I am using English as the main language then vice versa. However, when I was learning the language - it skipped a generation in my family and my mother was monoglot English - I would find myself internalising the language in order to practice it in the same way as say translating from English to Welsh when writing term papers.

Now that I am retired and have moved away from Wales I use the language rather infrequently. But if I have a telephone conversation with a Welsh speaker I might find myself continuing in Welsh around the home. My DH only speaks a very little of the language and is much better at German so sometimes if I forget and speak Welsh he answers me in German and we revert to English very quickly!

[CathyA]

I sometimes talk to myself in German.........in very short sentences.

[Aqua Blue]

As a very young child I had grandparentswho spoke German(When I was preschool age) , altho we were never allowed to answer in German. Probably at least 25 years after I last heard German I overheard some people talking, and while I couldn't speak back to them, I understood the whole conversation. It was an odd experience.