How do multi-linguists and animals think?

I'm not implying that the two are the same, lol.

I have two branches of a similar question;

How do multi-linguists think? My native language is English and so my thoughts are articulated in English. The only real experience I have is studying German in school. I can't recall ever thinking something in German, but I'm not very skilled in the language.

So to any multi-linguists out there, do you think entirely in your native language, or sometimes English, or mostly English? Does it change? For example, if you're from France, and speak French, and you think in French, if you moved to the UK and spoke English 99% of the time would you start thinking in English, or still French. And then if you moved back to France would you change back to thinking in French. I'm really interested to find out




On to my second branch of this thought. How to animals think? Obviously we think in our language of choice, but animals have either no language or a very limited vocabulary. It doesnt seem plausible to assume they think in the native human language, but I dont really understand how you can think without using words in your mind, I guess thats because thats what we do. I guess a lot of animal behaviour is instinctive, and doesnt require too much thought, but yeah, just weird. I suppose this would also apply to babies

What are your thoughts

 

Good question.

Having studied a shit ton of languages myself, I have a very strict definition of fluency. True fluency in a language is exactly the question you have asked: being able to THINK in a language.

Spanish is my main second language. I can think in it, in small amounts, when I focus on it. So I suppose I have some fluency in the language, but to a lesser extent.

Having said that, it seems to be something you can choose to do, or something that often times happens naturally. For example some of my hispanic friends will be chatting with me in english, then half way through the sentence will switch to spanish. Its obvious they dont realize it, and as such it demonstrates that sometimes a trigger switches their verbal (and therefore thoughts) into a different language.

Good question though, linguistics has always been a topic of interest for me.

 

So if you're having a Spanish conversation do you think in Spanish throughout the conversation?

And then once the conversation is over go back to English?

 

I can't speak for the animals in this instance.

If you speak multiple languages you think in the language you speak fluently (whatever is easiest to speak). I speak English, Spanish, Hebrew and some Arabic. I think in English because that's what i was taught as a child, it's where I'm from and it's the longest spoken language in my history.

I travel a lot, go to many different parts of the world, wherever i am, regardless of the language they speak i always think in my native because it's easier for me. I don't have to process what different thoughts and words mean in my head.

 

Surely if you're talking in Spanish or Hebrew and thinking in English you still have to process what the words mean in your head, wouldn't you be translating to English in order to think, and then translating to the other language in order to speak?

 

When you're speaking your second, third or fourth language (depending how good you speak it) your mind automatically acknowledges the similarities of pronunciations and processes through them requiring minimal thinking. In my case, being able to speak Arabic with the consideration that i don't speak it as well as the natives, i recognize an Arabic word and in my head it's processed through English.

 

I wish I could learn a new language but I think I'd find it too difficult to become fluent in a language in a classroom, I'd have to move to the country

 

Not necessarily. There are a lot of good programs out there that taken seriously and performed correctly can do great things for you.

I used Pimsleur for all of my languages over the past years. They're contracted with government agencies such as the FBI and CIA to train their employees in multiple languages before deploying them to different countries.

 

How long did it take you to become 'fluent' in a language through one of these programs? Also how do you know when to deem yourself fluent? :L

 

I've always thought about this, because thoughts aren't really something you plan out, they are kind of just nature and just happen, whether it be something good or bad. I always wondered if I stayed on track to finishing a language to where I was fluent if I would actually just forget my native language when it wasn't necessary to be using and only use my second language.

 

I'm not entirely sure. One day i would be having a conversation in Spanish and i suddenly realized i didn't have to process the words before i said them, it was natural.

There is really no set time to expect being completely fluent in a language. I would say, once you're comfortable speaking it with a native and you don't have to examine words before they come out of your mouth, you're fluent.

Be careful not to take an absence from the language, it is easier forget than to learn it.

 

I speak fluent english and spanish, spanish being my native language. I oddly enough think in english most of the time. I learnt when I was a child so perhaps that has something to do with it. Also the fact that pretty much everything I do on the computer is in english, i'm always thinking in english. Even when I watch TV, most stuff is in english with spanish subtitles, and most of the times I just listen to what they say and if I wasn't able to catch a word properly i'll just quickly read and see what it was they meant.

A friend of mine said, the moment you know you really know another language, is when you have a dream in that language. I to be honest most of the times (that I can recall at least) dream in spanish. But oddly i'll have to say a higher percentage of my thoughts every day are in english, rather than my native language.

It's pretty different for everyone honestly.

 

I think starting to think in another language is possible, just you, yourself should be wanting to.

 

The first language I learned to speak was Spanish. However, living in the U.S., I'm been exposed to English much more than I am to Spanish, mostly because of school. I speak Spanish with my family, and I listen to a lot of Spanish-language music, but most of the movies and T.V. shows I watch are in English.
The majority of the time my thoughts are in English. Sometimes Spanish thoughts pass through out of nowhere, which is kind of weird.
Still, I can read, write, and think in Spanish (if I want to). It's kind of like flipping a switch. I just start going about my thoughts as I would in English, however the way I think about them tends to be a little different (not just the language, but what they actually meant to me). It's kind of difficult to describe exactly what I mean by that.

 

Clearly animals don't think the same we do, but they have the same emotions/instincts as we do. When we are hungry do we really think about? We just want food we don't give it much more thought than that, same for animals. There thought process may not be exactly the same as ours, but it's not all just instinct.

 

Being from Czech Republic, all my thoughts are in Czech, however I caught myself several times thinking in English after watching movies in English etc. Czech language is amazing, I don't recall any time I had to spell something to anyone, as almost every Czech word, even scientific, sounds the same as it is written. That's a major difference between English and Czech.

 

I'm a native English speaker, but I used to be completely fluent in Italian and Spanish. I tend to think in whichever language I'm using at the time. I'm trying to learn Mandarin now, and I still think in English when I speak Mandarin because I don't have a full enough vocabulary to think in Chinese.

 

My dog eats rabbits, birds, and rocks. When I'm hungry I do tend to think about what I'm going to eat >.>

 

I truly believe animals have no consciousness and that's what differentiates us from them, they have what i like to think is an advanced form of response system that keeps the lights on and running and constantly reacting but never making complex choices or decisions based on anything other then reactions.


An example; You don't think about your heart at all, it's constantly beating and doing it without any form of consciousness it's silly to suggest your heart has a thought process even though it's a living organ that is constantly moving.

 

I think you'll always think in your native tongue. My English teacher in high school was German but said she still thought in German most of the time despite living & working in the UK for over 25 years. But I can't really say because I always start learning language and give up when it gets to grammar rules.

You could say animals think like we do in a simple sense.. like how we use our brains to coordinate a walking movement.. although you wouldn't even have to think twice to get up and walk away. They also experience emotion, and can act out of annoyance or anger. Most animals brains are more simplistic than the human brain though, obviously. They don't plan ahead, they don't analyse, they don't reason, they can't imagine like a human. That's why when you have, for example, a dog or a horse, you have to become their pack/herd leader, because that's what they understand.