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Thinking and Speaking in a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4531 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 1 of 14 14 May 2012 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As I’ve learned more and more of my first second language (French), I’ve begun to try
to think more and more in it. I think it’s natural to catch yourself doing it sometimes, especially when you’re actively engaged in something related to the language. However, I’ve really been trying to think in French for extended periods of time, as I am now fairly close to a B2. Last night I managed to do it for an hour while play a video game. It was actually quite tiring, oddly enough. I think that was because I had to keep telling my brain to think in French. After 18 years, it’s easiest to think in English! Not to mention that it isn’t exactly easy to think about the complex worlds created in a lot of videogames! More vocabulary will certainly be needed and will soon be learned for that. Anyway, the experience of thinking in a foreign language is amazing for me, even if my thoughts aren't exactly amazing. My question is this; is there a difference between thinking in a language and speaking to yourself in it? I remember reading some posts here where people said they sometimes speak to themselves in their TL language to get themselves to think in it. For me, it is easier for me to speak aloud in French than to think in it. Is that because I have only just made my first foray into trying to think in it for hours at a time? Or is it actually harder to think in a language for certain reasons? The answer probably isn’t very quantifiable, but I found the thought of this question very interesting! I’d love to hear your experiences. Edited by Swift on 14 May 2012 at 10:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5304 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 14 14 May 2012 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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All I would say is that if you're going to just think in the language rather than talk, make sure you still formulate complete sentences and finish difficult utterances because it's too easy to just get parts of unfinished sentences and move on.
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| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4612 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 3 of 14 14 May 2012 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I personally think it can be difficult to tell whether you are actually thinking in a certain language or not. When I really try to break it down and pay attention to what's going on in my head when I think, I usually just pick out abstract thought rather than actual language. When I look around the room and I see a glass of water, I don't feel like I say in my head: "A glass of water" or "Ein Glas Wasser" or "Verre d'eau". I just "know" what it is in an abstract sense. I know it is a container, I know it contains something that will make my thirst subside, I know how it works, but I don't translate directly to any single word in my head. The only time I find myself really thinking in a definable language is if I'm looking for a way to describe something or communicate something to someone. At that point I have to make a conscious effort to word it in my head in the language that I need it in.
I "feel" like I think in whatever language I'm currently speaking for any period of time, but I'm not sure if I really am or if I'm just thinking about that language. For example, when I speak to my friends in Louisiana for a few hours (in French)it feels like I'm thinking in French for the next couple of hours, but when I am working all day, I feel like I think in English because that's what I've been using all day. On a side note, a friend of mine who is Japanese but speaks predominantly English (as she moved to the US when she was 10) says that when she thinks about regular stuff she thinks in English but when she does Math or thinks about numbers she thinks in Japanese. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5455 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 14 14 May 2012 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Throughout the day, I have this little "rehearsal" loop running in my head. I'm
constantly thinking of things to say to various people, or things to write. If I avoid speaking and writing in English, then I can start this loop running in French. There's a reason I'm keeping my log in French these days, and speaking French with my wife. This shifts a good 80% of my "rehearsal" over to French. I think this is one of the reasons that immersion works so well: It gives you every reason to keep your L2 system active, and to shut down your L1 system for extended periods of time. When I can avoid English, I can now think in French for a couple of days at a stretch, with only scattered moments in English. When I wake up, there's at least a 30% chance that I'll be thinking in French. It's really weird to wake up at 2am and have a half- baked L2 at your fingertips and your L1 still deep asleep. I'm stupid in French, and I don't like that. Well, except sometimes I think very fast, without words, in little quicksilver chains of logic. I never really noticed this before, but the contrast with my labored internal monologue is really startling. Sometimes, when I force myself to think in French, I immediately get a splitting headache. At other times, it's completely natural and stress-free. But most commonly, it's like wading through molasses: Everything is slower and more labored than it should be. I know when I'm thinking in French, because (1) my English grammar gets weird, and (2) I lose the ability to understand really strong accents in English. Sometimes the switch back to English is gradual: At first, I translate from French to English, at least for simple stuff. Several minutes later, I have a weird echo: I think in English, and the French version arrives a few seconds later ("…seconds plus tard. Ah, ça y est. C'est bizarre."). Ten minutes after that, my French will shut down unless I force myself to keep using it. I don't really think of English as a way to relax right now. Usually it feels like an unpleasant obligation, occasionally like a guilty indulgence. Right now, for example. My apologies for these scattered thoughts. The words above have been trying to sneak into my internal monologue for a few days now, and I want to purge them. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| RMM Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5150 days ago 91 posts - 215 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Swedish, Japanese | Message 5 of 14 14 May 2012 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think that it's best both to speak out loud and to think quietly to yourself in a foreign language. I find thinking in a language to be more difficult too than speaking it out loud. It seems to me that thoughts simply tend to be more fleeting and vague (and as Arekkusu points out, incomplete), so you need more effort and concentration to keep them solely in a foreign language. For this reason, as a sort of mental exercise, it probably is good to think in the language if you can, especially since you can do this at times when speaking out loud would be impractical or embarrassing. (However, German's the only language I can really think in at this point and like you I need more vocabulary. I'm sure this will get easier with more practice--it consistently is getting easier for me and will for you too if you keep up with it. I now find it MUCH easier to think in German than I did just a month or two ago.)
On the other hand, speaking out loud is important too in order to get used to actually speaking. If you can get your mouth around easy, fluid pronunciation in private, then you should be able to speak better with other people later on. Speaking out loud can also allow you to better evaluate your own pronunciation. Regardless of whether you find it easier or more difficult, I'd still suggest using the "speaking out loud to yourself" method as a form of conversation practice too. On BaronBill's point, I've got to say my experiences are radically different. I almost constantly have a stream of thoughts largely translated into words flowing through my brain. Although I do not say in my mind "a glass of water" when I see one, I will typically say in my thoughts, "I think I'll get some water now" or some other action or plan I intend to take. I also often think in words about my evaluation of things ("That's brilliant--I'll have to remember that!" "Oh, that's so stupid!" "I need to quit wasting my time with this," etc.). In this regard, I find it extremely easy to tell if I'm thinking in a foreign language or not. I suppose this would simply depend on the way your individual mind works. Of course, even if you do not normally put your thoughts into words, you could still try to do so precisely in order to practice your foreign languages. As something you can do at just about any time of the day regardless of where you are at or what you are doing, thinking in a language is a terribly practical way to practice it. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4531 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 6 of 14 15 May 2012 at 12:01am | IP Logged | |||||
I think you're definitely right. This is bound to happen to me (and has happened) when I've thought about more abstract topics. Thanks.
Hmm, well I can kind of relate. I know that recently I have sometimes had trouble remembering if a conversation I had was in English or French. In terms of the thinking I was talking about, I think my thoughts are very intentional and direct at this stage, thus I know explicitly what I am thinking. This is because I am just trying to get myself more and more familiar with the language. Am I right in assuming that when you're fluent, thoughts come naturally in the manner you described? My feelings would be that if you're more fluent, your greater knowledge of the language makes vague concepts easier to deal with (i.e. you know lots of meanings for one thing). You don't really "think" about thinking. On a related note, I find it difficult to think in French with loud spoken English in the background. It's easy to speak, but when I hear English my brain's instinct is to think in it. This doesn't make much sense to me, considering that I have to think in French to speak it, but yeah. Perhaps the physical aspect of doing makes the difference. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4611 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 14 15 May 2012 at 12:08am | IP Logged | |||||
I love these kinds of discussions about language and how the brain uses it. I've found that any sort of intensive use of an L2 can lead to that "waking up in L2" feeling, and the more intensive, the more likely and the more long-lasting the "L2 hangover" can be. I certainly feel like English is a guilty indulgence, as well. I also find myself having very complex and very fast conversations in English and now I really FEEL how different it is from L2, as opposed to just feeling like I'm talking. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4531 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 8 of 14 15 May 2012 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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@emk: Well, it's good to know that I'm not the only one that has rather simple
thoughts! Of course, that's only natural when you're not fluent, or even just not a native. It's actually because of a post that I saw in your log that I decided to start trying to think more in French, so thanks. I can relate to so much of your post. For instance, I am amazed at how easy thinking has been for me the past few hours, but it does shift like you said. I also make lots of mistakes in spelling after doing lots French, for instance confusing "you're" with "your" without realising it. Also, is thinking "immersion"? I've seen the word used on these forums before, but I'm not sure of exactly what it means. Some people seem to use it in the sense of going to a foreign country and learning its language while they are surrounded by it. I always think of it as integrating your language as much into your daily life as possible, so that you are constantly using. Thinking must certainly do that! @RMM I'm glad to hear that you were able to make such an improvement! That is pretty much my hope. It's pretty important for me to improve as much as possible as I have fairly big ambitions. In terms of speaking out loud, I could not agree with you more. When I read a novel, an article or even a textbook written in French, I almost always read it out loud. My thoughts are the same as yours; hearing your own pronunciation is important! As I am lucky enough to also be able to speak with natives, I don't speak aloud to myself too often for extended periods. Although I find myself doing it in the shower, haha :P 1 person has voted this message useful |
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