To people who were born speaking a language then moved to somewhere with a different language. Do you find your inner monologue speaking the new language or do you think natively and translate for speech?
I’m American (US) but when I lived in Germany, by the end of two years there I thought in German. I remember it, but there are two anecdotes that underscore it:
- When I returned to the States, I’d occasionally not be able to remember the English word for some things. I lost “trashcan” for a good half hour, once.
- I occasionally talk in my sleep, and for a few years after I returned my wife would sometimes tell me that I was speaking German.
I didn’t spend much time around English speakers when I lived there; I met my wife the year after I returned, and the person I was seeing when I lived in Germany had barely spoken English.
Both. Also some concepts may exist in one language and not the other.
Contrary to most people, most of my thoughts are in the form of a dialogue. When it’s a monologue, it’s still a monologue delivered to a crowd. So the language basically depends on who I’m thinking to speak to. Sometimes the mechanism is faulty so I snap out and realize I would never speak English to a certain person.
For context, I’m Italian, living in Germany with an American partner.
Certain topics (mostly household things), I’ll think in Irish.
Or sports… it’s easier for me to think “tá an cailis déanta aige” than “he fouled the player” because my sporting life has generally been through Irish.
Depends on the context of what I’m thinking about. I think that is the case for anyone that is truly fluent in more than one language.
My internal monologue is always in my native language but if I need to talk to somebody my brain switches to the language I need so I need no ‘translation’
I do not live in a English speaking country. And my mother tongue is not english.
I still sometimes think in English. As I use it a lot.
Same here. I also found myself trying to express things in my language using English constructs or colloquialisms that don’t have a direct translation. And my English isn’t even that great, but I have to use it daily for work.
I dont think I have an inner monologue. I think in words only when imagining a conversation, or in this case, writing this comment. Otherwise I think in …images maybe?
That’s wild! I can’t imagine having thoughts without an inner monologue. I often wonder how animals think without language and it seems so limited and alien to me. It’s just unimaginable.
I’m with @anguo, while if I have to express something I will have inner monolog, but day to day it is thought in concepts. I find it especially concept spacey when doing engineering work, it will be 3D virtual world of structures and forces (for lack of a better term) along with thought process of the problems, but there is no language to it