Non-native people, what language do you think in? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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To people who were born speaking a language then moved to somewhere with a different language. Do you find your inner monologue speaking the new language or do you think natively and translate for speech?

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Born in China but immigrated to Canada as a kid. Most of my thoughts are in English since that's the language I'm most comfortable with, but I always count in Mandarin. I learned to count in China and have always just instinctively done it in the language I learned it in. I can count in English, but I definitely find that there's more mental overhead. Also English numbers have more syllables which even when thinking them in my mind slows me down.

this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025

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