For those that are fluent in more than 1 language

compboyo

compboyo

compboyo

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When you speak in your non native language with people does it feel the same as your native language or do you still have to think more and not udnerstand everything 100%, like jokes etc...I mean say you are English and learn Spanish.

Now I put you in a bar with drunk Spainarids talking fast and drunken jibberish woulf you be clueless? Whereas talking with drunk people in English though still not making any sense lol you would understand them.

Ok that was a bad example, but anyway whats it like to be fluent in another language does it feel same as using enlgish to you or not as natural.
 
If you don't speak it much or communicate much whom speak the same language, you will begin to forgot. So yes, you do have to concentrate more. As language is always evolving, you would not understand certain phases without regular expose to the culture.
 
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Really? So there's a point where you stop having to "translate" it in your head into your native tongue? I can't imagine actually thinking in another language.
 
Zefan said:
Really? So you stop "translating" it in your head into your native tongue? I can't imagine actually thinking in another language.
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Yep, it doesn't even take long before you start dreaming in the other language either. Assuming you move to the country that uses it.
 
Zefan said:
Really? So there's a point where you stop having to "translate" it in your head into your native tongue? I can't imagine actually thinking in another language.
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Its not thinking in a language per say.

It's thinking what you want. You rather think what you are going to say instead.

For example, the desire of wanting to go see the new Blockbuster does not appear as a sentence, but an simple urge to see a movie. How it comes out of your mouth is the language.
 
Zefan said:
Do you have experience with this? I find it hard to get my head around :o
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Only a small amount personally. I had lengthy talks about it with my German friend who has lived here for a few years when she was helping me learn German though.
 
It sometimes takes some concentration that you wouldn't need in your native tongue. However, with increased fluency it becomes second nature, a little like driving a different car, it is different but the same at the same time.
 
Morgoth said:
Yep, it doesn't even take long before you start dreaming in the other language either. Assuming you move to the country that uses it.
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what about like scandanaivan people or Dutch who learn there native language plus Englsih from a young age. I think they must be able to switch between the 2 langauges without much thought?

Whereas if soemone learns a new language after high school or starts in high school surely its always going to ab a case of converting the words back to there native tongue to make sense?
 
in my house we have 3 languages on the go at once, all in the same conversation. It makes zero difference when you know it. It is not so much words, its just something you understand. There is no translation, the only translation comes is if i try to say something that doesn't exist in another language so I have to express it differently.
 
compboyo said:
what about like scandanaivan people or Dutch who learn there native language plus Englsih from a young age. I think they must be able to switch between the 2 langauges without much thought?

Whereas if soemone learns a new language after high school or starts in high school surely its always going to ab a case of converting the words back to there native tongue to make sense?
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Age of learning has has no influence, once you reach the required fluency you simply don't translate back and forth in your mind anymore.
 
Moses said:
Yes, they don't translate on the fly, they just say it. Although they don't necessarily think in a certain language - thinking can flick between different ones.
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you are not thinking in any particular language per se. You think in an abstract way and depending on your fluency you know how to state that abstraction in both languages at the same time so the choice is which language you need and subsequently saying what you want in that one.

So technically you do not think in a language, but in an abstraction. Or to put it another way you think in all the same languages you are fluent in at the same time.

It is a difficult concept to get across.
 
As somebody who speaks English and Dutch, it is basically second nature, when you first learn the language you have to stop and consciously think about each word you say but as you go on, it's as automatic as walking or riding a bike.

I've never naturally thought in Dutch though. Always been English.

The best thing to do is to share a place with a guy whose first language is the one you're getting to grips with, and vice versa. When I lived in Rotterdam I stayed with a native who spoke English while I spoke Dutch. It does wonders!
 
Morgoth said:
Age of learning has has no influence, once you reach the required fluency you simply don't translate back and forth in your mind anymore.
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The best way to learn, is not to think Table, then translate table in your mind to another language, e.g. German.

Look at a real table, and learn the german word for table. So when someone say Tisch, you don't think "that means Table". You simply understand it is a table.

Make sense?
 
I'm from Latvia and speak fluent Latvian and English. I dream, think and count in my head in English. I'd say I'm more fluent in English than Latvian. When I got back to Latvia for 3 weeks or so it starts to switch back as I use the language more and more.
 
It becomes as simple to you as your native language. You don't think how to say something you just do.

If anything it's hard for me to speak in my native language, I want to use an English word and desperately try to remember what it is in my native language.
 
Raymond Lin said:
The best way to learn, is not to think Table, then translate table in your mind to another language, e.g. German.

Look at a real table, and learn the german word for table. So when someone say Tisch, you don't think "that means Table". You simply understand it is a table.

Make sense?
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I agree with this. That explains it better than I did.
 
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