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Zekebomb
sociophagus

Registered: 08/24/03
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thinking in different languages
#3668473 - 01/23/05 03:37 PM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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this if from an old post:
what if you think in a different language, like German, instead of English? is the flavour of your thoughts different as a result? imagine the Sum Total of Concepts About Which to be Thought as a 2-D landscape, and the English language as a see-through plastic sheet dropped onto the landscape with fences drawn on it. inside each fenced enclosure is one word. the meaning of the word is very similar to the meaning of the words immediately surrounding it. if you now drop a German sheet onto the landscape, perhaps the fences are slightly different. holding up the two language sheets together against a bright light, you see the fences are fuzzy and undefined, because they almost match up, but not quite. Perhaps a language like Korean, which is far differenter from English and German than they are from each other, would have totally displaced fences.
er, yeah, fences, so does the location of one's fences make a difference to the flavour of their thoughts? if that phrase means anything? and indeed, most of us on S&P here speak English as their first, maybe their only language, but I contend that our fences don't match up anyways.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: thinking in different languages [Re: Zekebomb]
#3668519 - 01/23/05 03:45 PM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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you certainly can feel your mental gesturing shift like a tongue moving into a differnt psychic space of your mind when you switch between languages and paradigms.
the thing I am most interested in is the tongue it self and that universal space in which it seems to move
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skystone
stop the motion
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Re: thinking in different languages [Re: Zekebomb]
#3668559 - 01/23/05 03:54 PM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Zekebomb said: this if from an old post:
what if you think in a different language, like German, instead of English? is the flavour of your thoughts different as a result? imagine the Sum Total of Concepts About Which to be Thought as a 2-D landscape, and the English language as a see-through plastic sheet dropped onto the landscape with fences drawn on it. inside each fenced enclosure is one word. the meaning of the word is very similar to the meaning of the words immediately surrounding it. if you now drop a German sheet onto the landscape, perhaps the fences are slightly different. holding up the two language sheets together against a bright light, you see the fences are fuzzy and undefined, because they almost match up, but not quite. Perhaps a language like Korean, which is far differenter from English and German than they are from each other, would have totally displaced fences.
er, yeah, fences, so does the location of one's fences make a difference to the flavour of their thoughts? if that phrase means anything? and indeed, most of us on S&P here speak English as their first, maybe their only language, but I contend that our fences don't match up anyways.
As a "foreighner" (to english language) I can tell you from my personal experience.
English is not my native language, I have learned it through TV, movies, and refined it on internet (never got the spelling right though )
I think on both languages, I literally sometimes think (talk-internally) on english, and sometimes on my native language.
I see no difference, my thoughts come up, it is just that sometimes I can't find a word for them in one language and find them in the other one, or vice versa, sometimes I mix and swich those languages in my head as my thoughts flow.
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!


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Re: thinking in different languages [Re: skystone]
#3668579 - 01/23/05 03:58 PM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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skystone
stop the motion
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Re: thinking in different languages [Re: Gomp]
#3669306 - 01/23/05 06:44 PM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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-------------------- "..and suddenly it began to rain"
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Zekebomb
sociophagus

Registered: 08/24/03
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Loc: BC province
Last seen: 16 years, 5 months
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Re: thinking in different languages [Re: skystone]
#3669593 - 01/23/05 08:30 PM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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hmm, so it's almost like I got it backwards. thoughts come to you, and you apply the word that fits best, whether it be in English or Norwegian or whatever. I always find that the longer I've thought about something without saying any of it aloud, the more difficulty I have expressing it in words when the time comes. perhaps this is because without the 'fences' of whichever language, my thoughts can roam freely over the terrain, which doesn't work once you lower the see-through plastic sheet o' language over it
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skystone
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Re: thinking in different languages [Re: Zekebomb]
#3669658 - 01/23/05 08:42 PM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Zekebomb said: hmm, so it's almost like I got it backwards. thoughts come to you, and you apply the word that fits best, whether it be in English or Norwegian or whatever. I always find that the longer I've thought about something without saying any of it aloud, the more difficulty I have expressing it in words when the time comes. perhaps this is because without the 'fences' of whichever language, my thoughts can roam freely over the terrain, which doesn't work once you lower the see-through plastic sheet o' language over it
It goes both way actually. Your thoughts chose words, and your words influence the further flow of thoughs.
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