+Doc+

Its always fascinated me how people can speak numerous languages.
Is there anyone that can and what do they speak?
When speaking in another language is the thought process always referring to your native tongue to find the correct words or does it come naturally when you are fully lingual?

markGT

My wife and I both speak English and French. We are English but moved to France nearly four years ago. The thought process is different in another language as the building blocks of the language are different. As I speak French every day I find that I am forgetting lots of English words and sometimes struggle to remember them.

LG John

So when you are sitting thinking, 'hmmmm, what will I have for tea tonight' are you thinking in the french language?

mrtheedge2u2

My wife can speak 5 languages......She says at first you tend to quickly translate from mother tongue to the language you are speaking, but as you pick it up you start to think and speak in the "other" language.

HTH

DCI Gene Hunt

Oui, monsewer hon-he-hon-he-hon

SJ_Skyline

I always had you down as multilingual. It's just a question of raising your voice.

DCI Gene Hunt

Bon-jaw mon amy, ou eh vous? je ma pelle DCI Gene Hunt

munna

my thought process normally works in all 3 languages!!,just what ever comes first!,i can speak bengali (both versions,when heard they are literally 2 different languages)and when i do speak i can spurt out a sentence involvng both versions as well as english!!

GazTheHat

I've often asked my wife the same thing. It baffles me. She speaks 5 languages, but has been in the UK now 7 years.

She started to forget native words, which was funny listening to, or even asking me what is is.

She even dreams in English and everything, which i just couldn't get my head round.

I can speak basic Finnish, but far from profficient. I found that words just come naturally after a certain time.

At the start you translate the sentence to mother-tongue, then back again to reply. Conversations in pubs, or where alcohol is just don't exist. Everyone laughs and you're still translating. By the time you can answer, the conversation has switched topic.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

when i was at school, we had to learn one language at least. this was usually french or german. i did french and was pretty much fluent. also did two years of russian which was interesting with two 32 letter alphabets.

but since leaving school in 2000, ive forgotton most french, but have a habit of saying stvastveatya (hello in russian) by accident.

XRS

I did Spanish A level back in the early 1970s, and although I was nowhere near fluent I did think in Spanish. Boy, did that cause me problems with my other A levels (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ).

Mostly forgotten a long time ago, but I occasionally find myself trying to translate things into Spanish