Multilingual people what language do you think in?

[vinstage]

this is super interesting for someone who studies language (ironic).
i'm not bilingual/multilingual in any way and my brain (definately a mentality i've built over time) does not really understand other vocabulary, so i fit the lazy brit trope but it's really interesting to look at how many of you guys think in terms of language so from what i can gather it's a mix of incoherent thoughts which are then translated verbally to whichever language you semantically see fit to convey the thought or purpose?

also maybe fair to say a recurring theme is users picking up japanese (props to you guys) is that because you push yourself to think or translate a lot of things you're sensing into japanese to subconsciously improve?

 

[FAST6191]

"Translated verbally" is not really how I would describe it for me. There are no sounds in my head, though some others have said they have what could be said to be sounds (albeit not "voices in my head").



The bit where he says some people think of translation as a word replacement and faff with the word order is kind of how I do it, just with a lot more iterations and the benefit of the brain computer being more complicated/powerful (see also how brains can solve 3d shapes faster than computers) in case grammar, concepts or phrasing needs to be addressed. If there ever is a sound component it might be where I am twisting a common/important/contextually important phrase to suit my needs.
That, and my tendency to write multiple paragraphs at the same time, is probably why my writing can appear so disjointed at times if I don't keep on top of it.

 

[vinstage]

"Translated verbally" is not really how I would describe it for me. There are no sounds in my head, though some others have said they have what could be said to be sounds.

honestly it's the only way i could personally phrase it at least shortly and in that context. i think a lot of us would have difference descriptions of how it works or how we personally interpret it as working, i think that would also depend on the extent of technical vocabulary/vocabulary in general of course.
for me it's super hard to think about how i'm able to speak/write what i think? or even describe the thought process inside my head as to me, semantically, it's a silent process? no one else can 'hear' it? but do i 'hear' it, because i don't 'hear' anything and to me i 'think' it. so i guess i just use 'think' in this case as an umbrella term if any of that makes sense?

The bit where he says some people think of translation as a word replacement and faff with the word order is kind of how I do it, just with a lot more iterations and the benefit of the brain computer being more complicated/powerful (see also how brains can solve 3d shapes faster than computers) in case grammar, concepts or phrasing needs to be addressed. If there ever is a sound component it might be where I am twisting a common/important/contextually important phrase to suit my needs.

also interesting that you pay more attention to your word order and iterations which i think most people would do, actively taking into account the suitable and appropriate vocabulary in certain word orders or replacements to better represent their thoughts? as for grammar i can't really get my head around that one atm, only recently did a linguist present his argument that really there are three potential entities of language for us now: spoken, written and transcribed (internet slang colloquially). do each have their own set of grammatical rules for different reasons and within each entity different contexts?

i probably sound very embarrassingly uneducated because my understanding of language is pretty limited right now but it's fascinating for me.

 

[FAST6191]

honestly it's the only way i could personally phrase it at least shortly and in that context. i think a lot of us would have difference descriptions of how it works or how we personally interpret it as working, i think that would also depend on the extent of technical vocabulary/vocabulary in general of course.
for me it's super hard to think about how i'm able to speak/write what i think? or even describe the thought process inside my head as to me, semantically, it's a silent process? no one else can 'hear' it? but do i 'hear' it, because i don't 'hear' anything and to me i 'think' it. so i guess i just use 'think' in this case as an umbrella term if any of that makes sense?

also interesting that you pay more attention to your word order and iterations which i think most people would do, actively taking into account the suitable and appropriate vocabulary in certain word orders or replacements to better represent their thoughts? as for grammar i can't really get my head around that one atm, only recently did a linguist present his argument that really there are three potential entities of language for us now: spoken, written and transcribed (internet slang colloquially). do each have their own set of grammatical rules for different reasons and within each entity different contexts?

i probably sound very embarrassingly uneducated because my understanding of language is pretty limited right now but it's fascinating for me.

When you say verbalise though it tends to bring up that thing they sometimes "have to"* break older kids of where they will mouth out sounds as they read/write/type (and usually drop any potential reading speed down to a fraction). That does tend to be an audio thing though.

*while probably not as great a transgression against good taste as forcing all those left handed type to write with their right hand (ask your grandparents, possibly even your parents) I do wonder at its overall merits.

More generally some of psychology would recognise differences in people here -- for today's "can't unsee" type thing then it was generally noted most people think visually (usually expressed in phrase choice as I see it, I view it this way), some fewer might hear it (similar idea with word choice) and a very small fraction might feel it instead, and in any case it also influences their actions (your hearing person might not make eye contact, which can frustrate the eye contact set). It is probably of limited use, though not none, in this discussion.

Word order and phrasing is usually more to avoid or add connotations. For many monolingual types I do instead often find they use basic constructions and fill it in from there.
Classically this would be something like
"I want" [pause] and then the rest of the sentence, maybe iterated to add an adjective. Or if they have some manners then as "I want never gets" then "I would like" substitutes.
I would usually approach that backwards and have a mental concept, or possibly picture if it is something that has a picture*, and then construct a sentence around that.

*I am now really curious what people with synesthesia (various types but tasting words is a popular one) have here.

At the same time
https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/
I find that incredibly hard to read, which does also mean a lot of internet slang (thankfully for me we have since left the era of txt speak).

On grammar then that quote immediately brings to mind one of the first concepts in linguistics of prescriptive (there is some authority making rules on the language, see French with the story of the circumflex being a good start and recent example) vs descriptive (rules change, a linguist merely notes what they are) and that does not fit at all neatly into that model, or maybe presumes a prescriptive approach.

 

[Cyan]

When I imagine I "hear" a thought, to me it's like "saying the word in my mind" like if I was reading it or remembering the sound it makes.
when you read, don't you hear what you are reading?
I know some people just "visualize" words and they know their meaning like seeing an object (like reading book without "thinking each word one by one in your head)".

Reading a book without "hearing" each word can be done very fast. some people manage to read lot of book per day. I read very very slowly, word per word in my head, it can sometime even be tiring.

To me, reading out loud, or reading in mind, takes the same time. I actually "hear" the word I read, syllable by syllable. Like if I talked, without opening the mouth.
reading a book I could even "hear" different voices based on different characters speaking. I can imagine a woman voice being different than a guy voice, etc.

I don't know if that's what you mean when you say it's hard to imagine for you to "hear" words in mind as you don't really hear with your ears.

When you remember something that someone told you, don't you remember the sound of it too, and not just the meaning?
If someone say "OH HEY" to you, you hear that, and I thing you "store" that sound too to be able to reproduce it if you want to reply or make the same sound to the person. now if you remember what that person told you, is that "sound remembering" or "action that person wanted to pass to you" as a though the the action? which apparently seems to be "trying to get your attention".

i probably sound very embarrassingly uneducated because my understanding of language is pretty limited right now

I don't find you have issue with writing, and grammar seems good too.
what do you mean when you say you have limited understanding ? in general studying different language in the world, or understanding the way you actually communicate?
And I don't see why you should be embarrased, on the contrary it's always good and interesting to discover we are not all "working" the same way.
You apparently do things differently than me, or maybe you do but never thought about it. it's either just different views, or really different method to access language and thought in your mind.
nothing wrong if it's different, there are no standards.

 

[E1ite007]

'Cause most of the time I consume english media as YouTube, music, and videogames, I tend to think in english when I'm outside of school, unless I'm cursing, then I become "trully mexican" and I say: "Chinga a tu puta madre", which translates roughly to a more intense 'fuck you'.

 

[aos10]

for me i think in English. but when im angry i think in Turkish.

what language do you think in and why?

this isnt a wish thread. if you know the language for real.

Thinking in English, and cursing in Arabic or English sometimes
I remember one time my supervisor told me:"Miss A, did you make the request i ordered you to do it 3 days ago?" at first i didn't remember what is she talking about, then it hit me and i said "fuck" in English while we are talking in Arabic, everyone start looking at me and my face turned red, after that everyone pretended they didn't hear any thing.

 

[CallmeBerto]

I speak English and Spanish.

However since I use English far more in my daily life I think in it.

 

[spotanjo3]

for me i think in English. but when im angry i think in Turkish.

what language do you think in and why?

this isnt a wish thread. if you know the language for real.

Hahah. I know what you mean. For me, in English mostly but when I am angry.. I spoke in Portuguese like that, haha!

 

[slaphappygamer]

I only speak English, but when I dream, it’s like a silent movie. There are no words spoken, but body language is what I see. I read that.

 

[gamesquest1]

When I imagine I "hear" a thought, to me it's like "saying the word in my mind" like if I was reading it or remembering the sound it makes.
when you read, don't you hear what you are reading?
I know some people just "visualize" words and they know their meaning like seeing an object (like reading book without "thinking each word one by one in your head)".

Reading a book without "hearing" each word can be done very fast. some people manage to read lot of book per day. I read very very slowly, word per word in my head, it can sometime even be tiring.

To me, reading out loud, or reading in mind, takes the same time. I actually "hear" the word I read, syllable by syllable. Like if I talked, without opening the mouth.
reading a book I could even "hear" different voices based on different characters speaking. I can imagine a woman voice being different than a guy voice, etc.

I don't know if that's what you mean when you say it's hard to imagine for you to "hear" words in mind as you don't really hear with your ears.

When you remember something that someone told you, don't you remember the sound of it too, and not just the meaning?
If someone say "OH HEY" to you, you hear that, and I thing you "store" that sound too to be able to reproduce it if you want to reply or make the same sound to the person. now if you remember what that person told you, is that "sound remembering" or "action that person wanted to pass to you" as a though the the action? which apparently seems to be "trying to get your attention".


I don't find you have issue with writing, and grammar seems good too.
what do you mean when you say you have limited understanding ? in general studying different language in the world, or understanding the way you actually communicate?
And I don't see why you should be embarrased, on the contrary it's always good and interesting to discover we are not all "working" the same way.
You apparently do things differently than me, or maybe you do but never thought about it. it's either just different views, or really different method to access language and thought in your mind.
nothing wrong if it's different, there are no standards.

ok quick question, so do you not "see"/"imagine" anything at all when your reading? because like you I do hear specific voices per character, but I also formulate the image in my head of environment and even expected facial expressions, stances actions etc, I remember reading the last Harry Potter book, then watching the film and remembering previously "seeing" some of the locations in the film, or sometimes feeling like I was seeing a sub-par re-imagining of the scene I had "viewed" in my head

I had a conversation with someone about this topic a while back and they basically said they don't remember what they read in any sort of visual/tonal format, just as raw text as you would see it on a page, I think it all just boils down to how your particular brain remembers details better, I personally store it all as kind of like audio and video I could play back in my head, while they seemed to suggest theirs felt more like a Filofax and they could pull up specific pages and "re-read" it

that said I do also store factual text i.e shopping lists and things like that in what I would describe as text format what I would imagine is similar to how they described the Filofax system

 

[raphamotta]

Technical and work thing, English. Personal things, Portuguese and anything related with my wife and when I with her, Japanese. (because she is Japanese )

Angry usually I speak bad words in English or Japanese in my head

 

[Cyan]

If I watch a movie first, I see the movie scenes, actors faces/voices.
If I read without any previous visual sources, I only see and imagine the minimum, almost only the description and I don't create the missing environment around it.
It's maybe something like "Beyond eyes" PS4 game, where you only "see" around yourself in an empty world?
the more descriptions the author provide, the richer I fill that world.

I can imagine movements and action done by people.
It's not really "see" with image or video, in colors, etc., but some kind of personal interpretation, maybe some kind of concept of that scene. I'm not sure, I guess I never really thought about how I imagine book reading scenes.

 

[gamesquest1]

If I watch a movie first, I see the movie scenes, actors faces/voices.
If I read without any previous visual sources, I only see and imagine the minimum, almost only the description and I don't create the missing environment around it.
It's maybe something like "Beyond eyes" PS4 game, where you only "see" around yourself in an empty world?
the more descriptions the author provide, the richer I fill that world.

I can imagine movements and action done by people.
It's not really "see" with image or video, in colors, etc., but some kind of personal interpretation, maybe some kind of concept of that scene. I'm not sure, I guess I never really thought about how I imagine book reading scenes.

yeah its not so much creating the whole scene, It really does depend on how descriptive the text is, but if I could describe how it works in my head it would be like making a 3D scene is a game and my mind takes all the info im given and try to plot it to the scene, so anything not specifically mentioned is basically either nothing or a rough "sketch" of what should be there by extension of the rest of the description

and yeah the actions isn't really like full motion, its more like how anime game dialogue works, the specific mentioned action I "see" so for example "he swung his arm to try hit the fly away" I see that action occur but it kinda freezes at the end of that action until I then get the next "action" to play out, i.e "he then put his hand back in his pocket and looked down"

 

[FAST6191]

I forgot to ask I wonder what people that were deaf since if not birth then near as does not matter. Wonder what goes there.


As for seeing scenes.
Varies.
I can see the actors and style when reading a book, especially if the video version was good*. For instance reading the expanse series after seeing the first series of the show then most of that was played out accordingly. If it is years between show and book it might resemble things but also diverge considerably.
It can also cut the other way. I read game of thrones/song of fire and ice about 2/3 of the way through the first series and even to this day my head almost supplants the visuals it cooked up when watching the show for characters introduced post my outpacing the show.
*this can include looking good. If someone goes to the effort of doing something on location rather than bad CGI then yeah.

I may or may not adopt cover art on books. Usually not as I don't look at it that much compared to the time with the text, and most art tends to have a cool sword, aftermath of a battle, planet/space object or something on it instead (I mostly do sci fi and fantasy if it was not already obvious).

For some it is clear as day and I would be able to write a storyboard or create a scene a la those drawings of court, for others it is far more ephemeral and more stills (think warhammer 40k helsreach and Iron Man Extremis and audio, or straight up audio.

For some it is truly quite bizarre. For instance I was reading Terry Pratchett discworld and for some reason twoflower (ostensibly a human character, though and odd one) was in my head as something more resembling the black mages from final fantasy 9. Discworld and discworld art is some of my favourite fiction ever but I would almost call the cover art too fantastical to register much for my mental image, even if I would otherwise have it as a poster on my wall or even tattoo. Almost as though it is art someone else made of something which is a whole other discussion (for the most part no I don't adopt it any more than I would canonise a fan fiction work).
Never adopted a real person I know as a mental reference, and don't when writing fiction either unless directly featuring them.

Comedy also varies. I saw Bill Bailey live a few years back and while I can remember the show just fine if I were to recall it in my head it would not be up in the nosebleeds where I was but the DVD I saw of it elsewhere with all the cameras flying all over the place.

If I am doing non fiction then pure maths/language/logic, at least until I have to build something and then it becomes more like in head CAD with bonus physics simulation.