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#1
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I'd like some people to chime in on this with their own experiences or good resources to look at. Some things to think about - Orwell's 1984, bilingual kids, the tendencies of different cultures (The Germans and Japanese come to mind). Does having words for things determine if you can think about them? Does being taught a larger vocabulary make you smarter?
I'll put some more of my thoughts later. |
#2
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huh? :P
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#3
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there's definitely a correlation b/w bilingual and intelligence.
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#4
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There are many artful words of other languages that I have heard that mean something you cannot really express that well in english. This means to me that english is sort of a simple language. As well, different structures of languages really make a difference I believe in how people think. I mean, I can only have cognitive thoughts in my own language. It's like, my brain speaks English, and not other languages. So other people who think in a language with different structures are thinking in a different way at the base of thought than me.
I'm tired and watching the Simpons movie on bootleg so I'll stop now. Something that's really funny that is sort of related to this topic is that I'm watching a german copy so at the beginning it said in the intro sequences, DIE SIMPSONS, not THE SIMPSONS, and I thought that was put in there for some funny reason. Turns out it was because it was the German version, but if they did that for the real one it would be funny imo. |
#5
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Kurosh, u seem like a smart guy, wtf are u SSing for?
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#6
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For my emotional and mental health
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#7
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[ QUOTE ]
There are many artful words of other languages that I have heard that mean something you cannot really express that well in english. This means to me that english is sort of a simple language. As well, different structures of languages really make a difference I believe in how people think. I mean, I can only have cognitive thoughts in my own language. It's like, my brain speaks English, and not other languages. So other people who think in a language with different structures are thinking in a different way at the base of thought than me. [/ QUOTE ] There're also English words that describe concepts that some other languages don't. They're generally technical concepts, but that doesn't really lessen the language. I know a few bi/trilinguals, and they tell me that they think in the language they were most recently talking in. I once spent so long learning French that I was using random French words in my thinking. What I find interesting is whether people act the same if they speak one language vs. another? You presumably use different pathways in your brain to access the different knowledge, does that affect anything else? |
#8
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Bilingualness is weird.
I think my bilingual GF mostly acts the same whichever language she is speaking. Maybe a little different with Spanish but that might be as much a cultural/family thing than anything. People from Peru and Venezuela are a bit different than people from the U.S. afterall. And people act differently with their parents or brother than they do with their BF or other friends. It's funny listening to her and her brother chat on the phone. They both grew up in South America but both took a ton of english classes and have slightly accented but otherwise mostly perfect english. His accent is stronger than hers. Anyway, they alternate between english and spanish from one sentence to the next a lot of the time. Usually has nothing to do with trying to keep part of the conversation private or anything like that. It's just comfortable for them. If she's speaking in english, and then comes to a word that comes to her in spanish then she switches. And they'll yap in spanish until they get to a point where she first thinks of the english version of a word. She does this with her best friend also. Obviously her instincts prevent her from doing anything like that with me. She has VERY rarely said "si" instead of "yes" around me and that is about it. Same thing mostly with her parents on the phone who speak no english but she does occasionally interject an english phrase with them like "exactly" or "I don't know" instead of the spanish phrase and probably doesn't realize it. What's weird is that she can only do it instinctually. If I ask her "how do you say such-and-such in spanish" she has to really stop and think and it's like she temporarily can't access that part of her brain. Even for really simple phrases that I know she knows because, well, Spanish his her native language afterall. So she can go back and forth when chatting with her brother just fine. But when she's just talking with me then her brain shifts to english-only mode. If the pressure is on and she has to think of spanish for "turkey" or "fish" or something insanely simple she occasionally draws a total blank. And completely forget about confirming the correctness of a phrase with her. If I say, "Is such-and-such how you say, 'The blue cars are on the road'?" she'll think about it and then say "Yes, that's right." Then she'll stop and think, "Wait, that's not right at all. The word order is all messed up. It's like this." Thus, even though her spanish and english are both close to perfect she is pretty much the worst Spanish teacher ever because of how her brain accesses each language or something. |
#9
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[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, they alternate between english and spanish from one sentence to the next a lot of the time. [/ QUOTE ] Probably an obscure reference, but Nabokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle explores this quite a bit, as I recall, discussing siblings who grow up *tri*lingual and who are able to switch mid-stream from one language to another to another. And understand each other perfectly while anyone listening is probably lost. Wiki also lists this book with the tag "Category: Incest in Fiction", but that's another story. So to speak. *** In my experience with language, I've seen where the second language bleeds into any later language learning. So if you learn some French or Spanish in high school, then later learn something of another language, the French/Spanish will bleed into the third language. But not the first language; you never start popping in English words--or at least without knowing it. So often struggling with limited vocab you throw in the English word and hope for the best... It's as if there's an area in the brain that's first-language reserved, and then another area for all-other-languages. The two areas don't mix, but whatever's in them, does. And people who grow up with several languages have them all mixed together (but in the first area rather than the second). |
#10
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This is a really interesting thread.
If I stay in an English speaking country for a couple of days, I start thinking mostly in English. And I feel like I'm a different person when I switch to English mode. I'm much more extrovert, for example. This does of course not necessarily have anything to do with the languages (Norwegian and English) in themselves, but but I find it to be an interesting phenomenon. |
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