|
 |
What is it like being Bilingual? | ||
Tags: Native Language | Multilingual | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Biscotti Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4941 days ago 29 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish | Message 1 of 22 09 December 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I was wondering the other day what it would be like to be bilingual (having two mother tongues).
Are there many bilingual people here who can share? Do you think equally in both languages? Are ideas or memories specific to a certain language? It would be great to hear what it's like, thank you for any responses. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| justberta Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5396 days ago 140 posts - 170 votes  Speaks: English, Norwegian* Studies: Indonesian, German, Spanish, Russian | Message 2 of 22 09 December 2010 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I am not bilingual from birth but my English has become better than my Norwegian
somehow. My memories don't have a language, all of my thinking in is English. As of 5 a few years ago or age 20. I often wondered the same thing about bilingual children, I guess now I know. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5192 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 22 09 December 2010 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Come to think of it, the only people I've ever met who could actually speak 2 languages equally well were not raised speaking them both.
I work with several people who grew up speaking French at home, in an English environment, and my kids also live in a bilingual home, but all speak English best, and French to a lesser degree, at a level of competency that is lower than that of an average native speaker. But I can think of 2 or 3 people who truly speak 2 languages at the level of an educated native speaker and all learned their second language later in adolescence. Edited by Arekkusu on 09 December 2010 at 8:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Desacrator48 Groupie United States Joined 5119 days ago 93 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 4 of 22 09 December 2010 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | ||
|
This is more or less the premise I had for wanting to learn another language.
However when I started in school at 14, the potential for ever thinking in the language on my own apart from speaking it in the moment to someone else had already passed me by. I am also curious to know for the bilangual people who were exposed to two languages from birth if they indeed do their daily thinking in two languages or after growing up, have only one being dominant in their thoughts and the other reserved just for speaking. I hope that last question made sense! Edit: I just had an hypothetical example that I would like to ask to native bilinguals related to my first question. Imagine you are walking in a park all by yourself from point A to point B. You are just reflecting on the day that was yesterday in Language X. At no point in this round-trip walk will you say anything out loud. Now my question is this: when you get to B and turn around to walk back to A, is it possible that you might now be thinking about your day tomorrow in Language Y without making a conscious decision to switch your language of thought? Edited by Desacrator48 on 09 December 2010 at 8:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5214 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 5 of 22 09 December 2010 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Well I was raised bilingual and I peak both Slovak and Serbian on a relatively equal fluency level. However I cannot say in which language I think or have thought in the past. My thoughts are usually either purely in images and sounds rather than words. The only time I do think in words is when I'm thinking of what to say to someone and that depends on the language of that person.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5192 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 22 09 December 2010 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
|
My instinct tells me that there is no difference between true native bilinguals who almost always have a predominent language and a person who later reached near-native level in a second language.
From what I gather, people who are equally comfortable in 2 languages, whichever of the 2 groups they may belong to, may switch back and forth between the 2 languages on a whim or based on the language in which the experienced occured or the people involved in the thoughts, with little recollection of which language the thought occurred in -- when it was worded, of course. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4984 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 7 of 22 09 December 2010 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm bilingual in English and Mandarin, although my command of English is stronger. The
curious thing is that I think in English when I'm speaking Spanish, Arabic and (sometimes) Swahili. However, I think in Mandarin when I'm speaking Cantonese. (Probably because of their vast similarities.) Is this the same for everyone else? Let's say you're bilingual in English and Spanish and you're learning Portuguese and Hebrew. Would you similarly think in Spanish when speaking Portuguese and in English when speaking Hebrew?? Or would you think in English for both languages? Edited by strikingstar on 09 December 2010 at 9:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4941 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 8 of 22 09 December 2010 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't believe they're really equal. People I've met that have been raised from birth as bilingual tend to code-switch - something different from what you describe in your second paragraph - they will switch on a word-by-word basis as they see fit, based on circumstance and context. If you then asked asked them to repeat what they said in a single language they'd hesitate. They could certainly do it, but it wouldn't be automatic. That's not something I've seen or heard from people that have later learned a second language to native-like fluency. At least that's been my observation. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
