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Asked by headboywin to Carolyn on 15 Mar 2010 in Categories: Theories.
Question: Do bi-lingual people listen to someone talking then translate and understand it? Or are they capable to think in another language?
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Carolyn McGettigan answered on 15 Mar 2010:
Great question! Fully bilingual people are those who have been speaking two languages equally from a very early age i.e. from when they started speaking. The evidence would suggest that fully bilingual people don’t have to translate what you say into one or other language, but rather they can process each very efficiently and so can switch between the two when required. In fact, if you ever hear someone bilingual talking to a close relative, you often notice that they will switch back and forth between their languages very rapidly, even within one sentence or phrase.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t say that, for example, a bilingual French-English speaker definitely processes English in the same way a monolingual English speaker would. There’s a whole field of work dedicated to bilingual populations as specialist language users. So, while there are probably differences between monolingual and bilingual speakers, it’s not the case that everyone can only process messages in one ‘preferred’ tongue.
As to whether we even think ‘in words’ at all is another, quite philosophical question! From my experience talking to bilingual colleagues and friends, I’d say we don’t…
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Comments
Mariana commented on :
Hi! great question! I’m not a language expert but I do speak two languages (I am native speaker of Spanish and learned English at 18). I don’t translate when someone talks to me in English, I just understand it as it is. I seem to have an English and Spanish mode and I seem to be able to switch easily between the two. And many bilingual friends have the same experience. Sometimes I even dream in English! The only thing that I just can’t manage in English is mental arithmetics…so I do my maths in Spanish when waiting for my change at shops!
Moderator - Sian commented on :
I’m bi-lingual (my first language is Welsh) and I often switch from english to Welsh and vice versa when speaking to my friends! I have some people i can only speak Welsh to (even though they speak English too – it’s just feels weird doing it) and also vice versa. There are sometimes when i can’t think of the Welsh word I’m trying to remember and so I use an English one instead and there are also times when only a certain Welsh word can explain how I’m feeling. Every word is a symbol which has a different meaning given to it by the people who use it. I think therefore sometimes you can’t really translate every word to have the exact same meaning in another language because it comes from a people who have had different experiences and who live within a different culture with a different history.
I once heard the moment you start to dream in a language is when you can truly speak it and I dream in both too.
Joe commented on :
Sometimes it is important to remind monolinguals (like myself and most Brits and Americans) that we are really in the minority. Across the world, most people are raised speaking two or more languages. All the evidence certainly supports what Mariana and Sian say: one thinks either in multiple languages or perhaps in no language at all, with language only coming in for input and output.
donatil commented on :
im bi-lingual in english and french and i dont find it hard to switch between the 2 languages, however i often translate the words dirctly and alot of the things i say in english do not make sense in conversation, what part of my brain is it that makes me do this?
Joe commented on :
Not sure that any part of your brain makes you do this. 😉 The extent to which a person translates between language often depends on their level of ability in the two languages. Fully fluent speakers rarely translate — unless they are doing it for someone else.
For those of us who are less than fully fluent (and I’m sadly rubbish at French despite a lot of years of learning) translation can be helpful sometimes. Particularly idioms — sets of words that mean something beyond their literal meaning (like “hold your horses”) — often make us stop and think what a weird phrase it really is because the translation doesn’t follow at all.
headboywin commented on :
Thanks for you reponses, i’ve always wanted to learn Welsh, being half myself! (Lloyd Huw Dafydd Evans!) What would you guys say is the best way to learn a new language? I imagine its easier as a young child?
Joe commented on :
Hi Lloyd,
Yep, it is far easier as young child (under 10) but since that doesn’t apply to any of us… The best way to learn a new language is immersion. It’s a bit brutal, but being thrown into an environment where your only choice is to stop communicating altogether or learn a new language, it’s not surprising that learning is more common.
headboywin commented on :
sounds like a plan!
Carolyn commented on :
It’s great that this topic has taken off – nice one, headboywin! Joe made an important point that monolingual speakers are fewer and fewer these days, so understanding more about multilingual speech and language use, and how that all happens in the brain, is really very important.