What languages do you speak? read? write?

[hanster]

Chinese is my first language and my English is just as fluent, if not better, than my Chinese. I can speak/read/write well in both languages.

I have always wanted to pick up a third language, but instead I just focused on improving the two languages that I'm fluent with. What's everyone's thoughts on that?

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I don't have a second language. However, I have always wondered about the thought process of people who are fluent in more than one language. Specifically, when you speak a foreign language do you think in your own language and then translate or do you think and speak in that language?

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People have asked me that question many times, and in the beginning, I would say the first 4 years of learning English in America, I was still translating stuff into Chinese in my mind process during a conversation. As time progresses the process becomes faster and eventually it reaches a point where I can process in both languages, where my Chinese level fell to meet the rising level of English. As of now I would give myself a 7 in both languages, a 10 being a great writer, grammatically correct in everything and perfect pronunciation.