thinking in other languages

I realized I use foreign languages a fair bit to destress... sometimes I will tell myself that I can only think about something I am worried about in french. I am not fluent altho I know it fairly well. But it forces my thoughts to slow down. i usually have to pause and think what word i want to use or think about what verb tense i should use.

I also imagine balloons floating into the air if I need to calm down. But I try to describe them to myself in danish. I started learning the language a few years ago and then got bored. But I remember color, size and number words. i try to focus only on the danish words and imagining the balloons without using english words.

Fnally, when I lived with vgoraz, he would talk to me in farsi if I was stressed and needed to relax. i told another friend this and she told her husband a night night story in farsi to help him sleep. she said it worked

 

I try to write in Spanish and I am sure that if a native Spanish speaker ever read it they would either laugh hysterically, think it unbelievably poetic or shake their head in utter confusion and throw it in the trash; but I find it relaxing and mentally unhinging to try to get into stream of consciousness writing in a language I don't know very well. The thing that I like about it is how hard I have to work at it--if I don't know a word I have to use all the words I do know to try to describe the thing I don't know the word for--like quasi-charades. I've never thought of this aspect before but it is de-stressing because it takes all my mental faculties and it is impossible to have break-through worrying about anything else. If I'm thinking in English my mind is in half a dozen places at once.

BTW--your avatar always makes me want a late night snack

 

i find it relaxing for the reason you described, it takes a lot of effort for me but not enough that i find it mentally exhausting. if i am focusing on using another language, i can't be thinking of the million of reasons the thing is stressing me out. i've tried more traditional forms of mediation like focusing on breathing but my mind always seems to sneak thoughts in.

i am surprised you recognize my avatar! many people are confused by it. i've had since i joined and think it would be weird to change it now.

 

All my swear words are in English. Cause I'm half English half French.

 

i love learning swear words in other languages

 

when i was learning conversational german, i would try and force myself to think as much as i could in german, in my head. it made it very easy for me, and while i no longer study Deutsche, I certainly think a lot of phrases in my head (that sometimes come out when im drunk or stressed).

 

^lol. i think it is good for fluency to think in the language you are learning instead of thinking in english and translating to whatever language. i know rosetta stone has a bit of a bad rap but that is how it teaches you. and that is how my french high school teacher taught us french. from day one, she rarely spoke in english. she would use pictures or gestures to get across the point. it was only later one when she would use engllish to describe more complicated grammar.

 

You know that you're properly fluent (and this generally happens when you're immersed in the language a lot sooner) when you start dreaming in your non-native language. It's pretty neat when it happens.

I learned French in an immersion program, which basically worked by learning French while I was still learning English. Until grade 6, my classmates and I mostly spoke a loose hybrid of the two, even away from school. I still find it easier to express certain things in French, and now that I'm learning German I'm finding that the same is true there. Some languages really are better equipped than others to describe certain aspects of reality, which is why I'd love to be fluent in Mandarin someday. Learning something so far removed from the Indo-European languages would hopefully give a vital new perspective on the world. Or just confuse things further, perhaps...

 

^i know people say it but i don't think it is always true. maybe because i force myself to think in different languages, i occasionally dream in some weird world where i speak the language. i once had a dream where i was speaking german. which is odd because i know very little german but i wrote down lots of the things i said in german and asked a friend if it made any sense. he said i was using real words but horrid grammar.

 

English is my seventh language. I speak more than a dozen fluently. It is funny, people will say, "Wow you are SOOOO smart" thinking that polygotism equals superior intelligence, if only it was true.

My first language is Arabic, or to be exact, Syrian Judeo Arabic which is a bit different than standard Arabic. I learned Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish as a toddler. Both these gave be a great foundation for Semitic and Romance Languages. When I began school at age 3 I was made to learn Hebrew (Classical) , Western Aramaic, and Yiddish (Judeo German). Then, I was easily able to learn Modern Hebrew and Spanish. Later I learned Italian, French and Koine Greek. I was also forced by necessity to learn Chavacano, a Philippine Languaged based upon Spanish and Cebuano, the lingua franca for non-Muslims here on Mindanao.

I dream in Arabic and to a lesser extend Spanish and Ladino. Sometimes in my dreams I speak in English but never think in it. English is very difficult for me though I did earn my university degree in an English speaking school (Ithaca in New York).

 

English is a messed up language, and I have nothing but respect for anyone who learns it as a second (or greater!) language. It comes from being a mish-mash of two major language groups that aren't horribly compatible, along with the influence of dozens of other languages from the time of the Empire. The history of English is fascinating, but the language itself is ugly, unwieldy and yet (perhaps unsurprisingly) highly expressive.

@a_c: Good point. I usually think in whatever language I'm speaking the most of, so I've never noticed such a change unless I'm immersed in another language.

 

When I was 13 we moved overseas and for a year my sister and I went to a French-speaking school. I did not speak one word of French when I got there but picked it up fast as kids do (sigh). Unfortunately when we left I never used it and so most of my vocabulary and grammar just sort of withered on the vine. (My sister continued to read books in French and so retained her fluency.) All I am left with at this point is a very convincing accent that causes French people to speak very rapidly to me and that's it.

The funny thing is that I continue, every few years to have the exact same recurring dream in French. I am in the line to buy a ticket at the Lausanne train station and I am by myself. As I get closer and closer to the window I start to panic that I will not be able to speak or understand French and so I will not know how to get my ticket, get to the right track, etc. In the dream I hear French being spoken on the loudspeaker and all the people around me are having conversations in French. I always wake up just as I arrive at the window and I think,"how can I have a dream in French and not be able to speak it?!" (It must still be back in the old brain somewhere!)