In what language do you think?

I think in C++.

hmm when i grew up i went to normal (living in germany, german-)school in the morning and twice a week to greek school in the afternoons. my mum would speak german, my dad greek (or horrible german) but mostly i spoke german.
so i started normal school english in grade 5 i think and got into online gaming.. which kind of forced me to learn more english, as everyone spoke english. adding to that i had 5 years of french in school, which didn't stick at all. no idea why but i remember NOTHING.

when i met one of my ex boyfriends (who was from the uk) i would travel there a lot and my english got better.

now i'm married (not to the same guy) and i live in canada. the english speaking side. i would have offended every french speaking person i think
my husband is first nation. so some of his family members speak blackfoot... which i want to learn.

i took japanese classes as well but at some point my brain just said STOP. too much. i kept mixing up words and it got really confusing.

the language was actually a huge issue for me when i started writing. for the longest time i couldn't decide on the language i wanted to write in.
in the end english came out as the winner. mostly because i speak and hear and write it every day and i didn't have to 'switch' my brain to different language mode just for writing.

reading all the other posts i was a bit surprised though. when i think about the languages i know, it's always about how they feel.

greek feels completely different from german or english. it feels warm and liquid. german feels cold but precise. english feels open and relaxed.

it's hard to describe but for me every language i know has it's own emotions/tastes/moods/feelings.

miseh said:

the language was actually a huge issue for me when i started writing. for the longest time i couldn't decide on the language i wanted to write in.

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Why don't you write in different languages? That's what I do. I write in English and in Finnish. I spend time in both California and Finland, sometimes months at a time in one place (more in California nowadays though). I like having that connection to both of the languages regardless of in which country I am.

miseh said:

reading all the other posts i was a bit surprised though. when i think about the languages i know, it's always about how they feel.

greek feels completely different from german or english. it feels warm and liquid. german feels cold but precise. english feels open and relaxed.

it's hard to describe but for me every language i know has it's own emotions/tastes/moods/feelings.

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That's an interesting thought. I've never really thought about different languages feeling different, but I guess in a way they do. One manifestation of it could be how certain ideas are easier to express in one language than the other.

I'm German born and bred. After completing my education in 1988, I left for good. My two grown-up children are servants of Her Majesty. I think, dream, (sometimes) swear in English. My German is a little rusty and sports a British accent into the bargain.

Artifex said:

Why don't you write in different languages? That's what I do. I write in English and in Finnish. I spend time in both California and Finland, sometimes months at a time in one place (more in California nowadays though). I like having that connection to both of the languages regardless of in which country I am.

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the idea is actually pretty good. i never even thought of just doing both. maybe i'm just scared of mixing things up again. just now i was working on a part of the text and couldn't think of the damn word for cloud. i mean obviously i figured out it's cloud now but i sat there for five minutes thinking 'wolke wolke WOLKE' (cloud in german). and i was too proud to just look it up

but honestly, i should just do it when i catch myself obsessing with my story too much. thanks for the idea !

What I learned in Chinese, I think in Chinese. (That why I still do math in Chinese and translate the answer into English.) The rest, English.

Have spend 20+ years in the US, most of it married to my white-bread American husband, I have found that it is survival necessity to be fluent and English, but thinking and speaking. After all, my husband and I fight a lot. I have to think fast in English if I want to win any argument with him. ^_-

miseh said:

the idea is actually pretty good. i never even thought of just doing both. maybe i'm just scared of mixing things up again. just now i was working on a part of the text and couldn't think of the damn word for cloud. i mean obviously i figured out it's cloud now but i sat there for five minutes thinking 'wolke wolke WOLKE' (cloud in german). and i was too proud to just look it up

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I have lost my pride ages ago. I frequently look up words in the dictionary; sometimes I can only remember the Finnish word or expression and I need the English one and sometimes vice versa. Of course sometimes I can't really find what I want, because some expressions just don't feel the same in the other language... but then again, other times I end up finding something better than what I had in mind. It's a good thing though that I have a digital dictionary, otherwise I'd probably need to buy a new one every few months.

This thread is quite interesting to me, and I am happy it has surfaced again or I would have probably missed it altogether.

I am Italian born and raised, but spent the best part of the last few years in English speaking countries.
Thing is, now that I am back in Italy, I still retain English in my mind. I think a lot in English, and dream it too.
When I write I mix English and Italian words... I just type down whichever word comes first (no time to spare in trying to remember the right word in the Other language!). But the drafts are mostly in English anyway, not in Italian. Reviewing and editing also means translating the text in Italian so that other people around here can read it
When I started learning English I just found it a perfect language for me, and I don't know why. It has become so much a part of me, that sometimes I consider it my first language of choice.

Then there is the problem that when I am speaking English to an Italian I have the most trouble, because I know they don't speak it as well as I do and I find it difficult to speak slowly... I come out with a horrible Italian accent, which I usually don't have while speaking English with English people!
I also have the same thing that happens to other posters happen to me: sometimes the best way of saying something is in the language I am not speaking at the moment, and that can be problematic. Another thing I have found is that sometimes they ask me to translate an English word in Italian and I have to clue of the Italian word (and I do know the meaning of the word, in both languages!), and it takes me ages to fluff around with synonims and descriptions until we figure it out.

Sorry for the long post!

It depends, I think my everyday thoughts in Dutch (since I've been born in the Netherlands and lived there all my life), but if I'm thinking about anything writing-related or something related to my online activities, I think in English. I also watch the occasional television program in German or Flemish and even though some of them are dubbed in Dutch, I can't stop myself from thinking in the original language of the program when thinking about that program comes up.

I was born French speaking and only learnt English after hitting 22, yet now I think, dream and write in English though I live in Israel and spend most working days in Hebrew.
for me the difference between French and English can be summarized as follows: "in English, all that is not forbidden is permitted whereas in French, all that is not permitted is forbidden." This means that writing has to be inEnglish as my thoughts in French are constrained by the arbitrary requirements of the Academy.
Hebrew is a much better language for working as it is a straight to the point language, where efficiency lies in maximized use of the grammatical rules to convey nuances with minimum quantity of words.
I guess my cultural roots in "verbose" French means I am still biased in favor of using the appropriate word rather than resorting to grammatical construction, at least for literary purposes, but Hebrew is by far more efficient when it comes to getting things done, so now I clean and cook in Hebrew.

I always answer this question in the same way, but find that very few people agree with my theory, or even believe me.
I don't think in language; I think thoughts. When I want to express or share those thoughts, I must choose a language, so my thoughts are expressed in English or Spanish according to the listener. Once in a while I stumble for a word in either language, although I know in my head what I want to say, so I will reach for the closest word, be it in Spanish or English and then, if I need to, will translate it.

The more I think about this, the more I know it to be true.

Born in Canada, lived 12 years in Polska as a young adult before deciding to move back. I think mainly in English, but I've found myself ordering meals in restaurants in Polish, and some phrases/words just don't work in English (and vice versa), so there's often some stumbling.

To complicate matters, my new novel is written in English and set in Poland and featuring exclusively Polish characters. I've "anglocized" some of the names and place names for American readers, and now I'm hearing from Poles that I "got the names wrong." (Heavy sigh)

www.stevenowad.com

Yeshanu said:

Ran across this article today. Unfortunately, I don't fluently speak any language other than English, and can read only French and English, so I've never had the chance to experience any of the phenomena mentioned. It does make me want to learn another language, just to understand more viscerally what he's talking about though.

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Well, I think mostly in German (upwards of 75%), but also in English.

And it does make sense that your language influences the way you experience the world.

For instance, there is a difference between "Soul" and "Spirit", although both seem to are mistaken for one another often.

However, Germany doesn't have this difference. For us, "Spirit" either means "Soul" outright or "Geist" (usually meaning "Mind", sometimes "Ghost")

But knowing the English language empowered me to differentiate between "Souls" and "Spirits". So yeah, different languages really do shape the way we experience reality.

I was born in England and (like many English it seems) I struggle with other languages and feel shy trying to speak in any language but English in case I make a fool of myself. But now I am living in Spain I have had to overcome my initial reticence and speak in a language I know I am not pronouncing very well!

My children speak Spanish at school and a lot of the time at home (and my husband doesn't talk that much ), so I have now got to the stage where I can go for days and hardly speak English at all. So I do often think in Spanish, but it's my particular version of Spanish - no one else's

I definitely think in English, but my wife, who is Finnish, started to think in English after living in Scotland for a few years. She remembers when it started happening. Kind a cool.

Sometimes I find myself thinking in English and other times in Arabic (my mother tongue). I don't write Arabic stories, and so when I'm musing over a story I'm writing (or am planning to write), I always think in English. If I'm thinking of something that I saw/heard that was in English, then I think about it in English. When I feel creative and am thinking up new ideas for something, it's in English. Mentally revising for a test? English, because I take all my subjects in English (except Arabic, of course!). However! When I'm very angry at someone or something I usually think in Arabic, mainly because we have some of the most, ah, phenomenal curse words known to humanity.

So for me, it depends. But most of the time I think it's safe to say I think in English.

I think most of the time in English, since it's the language I speak, write, and definitely read better. But I think in Japanese, too, usually if I've been speaking in Japanese (or, my brand of Japanese, which isn't standard but Kyushu-ben) recently. But then sometimes, there's an idiomatic expression that we don't have in English and it'll just pop in my head.

epublishabook said:

for me the difference between French and English can be summarized as follows: "in English, all that is not forbidden is permitted whereas in French, all that is not permitted is forbidden." This means that writing has to be inEnglish as my thoughts in French are constrained by the arbitrary requirements of the Academy.

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Wow.
I'm French, living in Ireland and I also write in English. I've always found writing in English was a lot less limiting than in French, but you've just explained to me exactly why. I'll remember that quote!

Interesting question. I speak (more or less) 5 languages. I find often that my thoughts are abstract. Let's say... I think maths?

I'm a German native speaker and live in Germany, but I read, write, watch shows and movies, talk to my friends in English. I'm pretty sure that by now I think in English more often than I do in German. I mostly think in German when I'm talking to people in German or am surrounded by people speaking German. But even in situations like that it's happened that I've decided to write journal entries in German and then switched to English after half a page without even noticing.

For some reason (well, multiple personal reasons) it's much easier for me to express my emotions in English which is why I am a much better writer when I write in English.

Unlike some here, I definitely think in words, not abstract thoughts or feelings. I have sentences in my head and I can almost see them, too. So I know for sure that I am thinking in one language or the other. And sometimes they get mixed up a little, which is when I'll say something bizarre and I get weird looks that confuse me until I realize I applied English grammar to my German sentence or something.

Well, I live in the Netherlands, so I usually speak Dutch. But I'm fluent in English, I lived there for a bit and I always write in English, so I could probably say that I think in English most of the time.

However, I study French, so these days my thoughts are becoming more and more French.

I had to take a beginner's course in linguistics, which also discussed the phenomena of your language influencing the way you think. It reminded me of the novel 1984 by George Orwell, in which words are taken out of the dictionary to make sure people can't think rebellious thoughts. I'm not sure that actually works in real life.

Hungarian sometimes slipping into English, the same way my first draft is a mix of the 2