If you are fluent in more than one language....which language do you think with in your mind?

Answer 1

I am Armenian......

I am fluent in Armenian, Farsi, Spanish, English.

I know you asked, which language we are fluent, but I am working on my French and Arabic, also recently stared to learn Turkish with the help of my grandma and Internet, she is a victim of Armenian Genocide 1915(she was 8 moths old when she lost her parents and their neighbor a Kurdish family took care of her, then somehow (it is a long story and I am trying to make it short) an Armenian merchant from Iran found, adopted and took her to Iran, she insists that I have to know our country's enemies language, she thinks it is the best weapon.

And despite the fact that my mind's language is %100 Armenian, when I am with my friends from different nationality, I can think and feel their mentality and I respect their culture and language, and enjoy it.

Answer 2

I speak 4 languages and tend to think in the language I am using at the time. If on my own I think in English. Not uncommon to hold a conversation using two or more languages, as some things are better excpressed in different languages.

Answer 3

This questions deals with introspection actually... Thinking in a specific language comes to be rather intuitive and it's hard to tell. While I'm writing these lines I sometimes have glimpses of Catalan (my native language). There are isolated words or idioms that come to my mind in Catalan as easily although the overall sentence is thought, I guess, in English. There's a sort of linkage between what you experience with a language (speaking or reading it in everyday use) and whether you're good at thinking in it. I think this depends on what areas in your brain are involved. When you learn two languages at the same time there may be some sort of overlapping between them and you may be speaking in "Anglicized" French or the reverse and you may even be unaware of it. This is easily spotted when you speak Catalan or Spanish, which are Romance languages and are very much like the same.

Answer 4

If you are really fluent, it depends on the circumstances. I think in German, French or English. I dream in those three languages and sometimes in Spanish and Turkish, which is a bit disconcerting, since I am not fluent in those languages.

Answer 5

I am fluent in Portuguese (first language) and English. I must say sometimes I start thinking in Portuguese and then spontaneously I change over to English. Now, I am learning French and the other day I was dreaming in Portuguese, English and French.

Answer 6

If you have to ask this Q, then you are maybe struggling to accommodate a second language, like I went through when living in Germany and absorbing myself into that culture and language.

Naturally, you will think in your first language when learning a second.one. With enough exposure though to this second one, you will (your brain) "flip".

This can be very disconcerting. But do persevere. It's worth it for many reasons which you will only fully understand when you arrive there

The crunch comes when your brain "twists" (which can physically hurt") normally in dreams first of all

Answer 7

I speak fairly good Spanish and after I got back from exchange I think I really started to get a grasp of the language. I think and talk in English, but then in my head try to translate everything into Spanish.

It's getting bloody annoying now!

Answer 8

The language you use every day . Fluency is very much overrated. Very few people are fluent in several languages and to what extent? I can claim I speak several languages fluently in a very limmited vocabularly.

Answer 9

I have near-native fluency in French and a good level of fluency in German. When I'm in France or Germany for extended periods I find I begin to think in those languages ... I think it's quite usual at that level .... you are hearing the language around you, speaking the language yourself, and your brain just replies without "translating". I don't think I'm the only one to have experienced this .... others have told me they do as well.

Answer 10

Iam British and fully fluent in German I don't think in English first when speaking German and I also dream and talk in my sleep at times in German.

it depends on what I am watching or who I am speaking to if I will think in English or German. This is when you know if you are fully fluent in another language.