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Thinking in a foreign language... | ||
Tags: Thinking | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5798 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 33 of 36 21 January 2010 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm confused now. I thought we'd agreed that this internal dialogue wasn't thought, but just unspoken language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6490 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 36 22 January 2010 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||
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No no: I accepted the idea that 'unsymbolised' thinking is the basic (partly unconscious) kind of thinking and thinking in words represents a non-compulsory step beyond that. But Cainntear (and his father) apparently live in a zen-like state where they generally don't think in words (unless they speak, I presume), while my severely un-zen-like mind keeps babbling to itself all day long, except when I'm thinking in images or reacting automatically.
I definitely do think in words, but know from my experiences with doors that it is possible to think without uttering a single word or viewing mental images. Apparently Cainntear and I represent the two extremes in our thinking styles, but both apparently work. Edited by Iversen on 22 January 2010 at 1:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5938 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 35 of 36 22 January 2010 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Between these two extremes, I think I find myself in the middle ground. My thoughts have language associated with them, but aren't fully structured grammatical sentences, unless I'm planning spoken or written communication. E.g. I would never think the sentence, "I want a cup of tea now", but the word "tea" would be associated with a general sense of desire and immediacy. In some ways, my average thoughts are closer to dreams, with words, emotions, sounds and images intricately linked.
When it comes to thinking for communication in an L2, my brain does a mixture of translating and thinking directly . The first thing I would think in any language, without translating, is simple affirmation and negation. I believe most language learners will quickly use "Yes" and "No" without resorting to translation. It becomes automatic quite quickly to respond "Sí" or "No", or Да (Da) or Нет (Nyet). As the structures become more complex are when the problems arise. A very common error in spoken Spanish occurs, for English speakers, when you automatically associate, "Me gusta" with "I like". You start using "Me gusta" without thinking the full sentence, and forget that in the Spanish contruction the thing you like is the subject of the sentence, not the object. This leads to the incorrect sentence *Me gusta los libros* (Correct: Me gustan los libros). In the Michel Thomas courses, he labelled this as "giving into sound waves". This type of error is rarer in the written language as your aware of the whole sentence as it's been written. Edited by DaraghM on 22 January 2010 at 2:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5519 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 36 of 36 03 February 2010 at 4:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Being perfectly honest, I never had any internal monologue at all until my teens. None. I know that probably sounds weird but I only thought in words if I was planning ahead how I would explain something to someone. I only changed and began thinking in words because as a teenager it helped me work through my issues to imagine speaking to someone about them and how the person would respond. I would do this for hours on end and eventually it became a habit.
It REALLY surprised me to discover most people were thinking in words all their lives. It's just one of those things you never talk about, especially as a child. I wish I could stop thinking in English now because I think it would help in learning a new language from scratch but I can't turn it off anymore. Edited by Astrophel on 03 February 2010 at 4:14am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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