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Re:Why your brain just can't remember that word (btw bilingu... by nicara on Tuesday June 09, 2009 @01:00AM (#648556)
What I find similarly odd about bilingualism is that often I can't seem to translate one of the languages I speak into another. I don't have any problems expressing my thoughts in whatever form in either language, but converting already thought stuff from one language to the other is extremely hard. Maybe this stems from the way I learn languages (I've never been able to relate to the classroom-way of teaching; learned everything from talking to friends / reading prose in the foreign language - I don't think about which language to speak in, it just comes naturally, maybe best seen by the fact that I can dream in 3 languages, depending on what language I've spoken most on that particular day), so it might be hard to reproduce so you guys probably can't see what I'm saying, can you. :/
Re:Why your brain just can't remember that word (btw bilingu... by riahi on Tuesday June 09, 2009 @01:26AM (#648580)
I learned three languages when I was younger (Persian first, then English and Spanish at the same time) and can swap into them instantaneously. However, the languages I learned later (Portuguese and now some smatterings of Chinese) require me to stop, think, and listen for about 10-15 minutes before the language takes over in my mind, and I may converse more fluidly. This contrast alone is quite interesting for me.