Languages

GrendelQ said:
Does that mean you don't think of anything you haven't actually seen? :)

Seriously, this article is pretty interesting, when it comes to the relationship of languages and how or what we think.
Click to expand...

Fascinating article.

Berry and PFH: when you think in pictures, then write in English (or any other language - do you know others?), do you feel like you are mentally translating from pictures to written English, or when you write, does English become dominant in your thinking?

I've studied a few languages other than English, and always had that "a-HA!" moment with each of them when suddenly I was speaking fluently in the 2nd language without mentally translating from English. At that point, I began to feel competent in the language.

With writing, it was slower; I tended to think in English and translate to the desired language in writing longer than I did in speaking. Or more accurately - in writing I often had to consciously think of the rules of grammar in the language I was writing, both in terms of word order and case agreement and so on, and to avoid mistakes in things like accent placement, diactrical marks, etc., more so than I did while speaking.

I'm wondering if it's the same for you - that is, do you think in pictures while writing, or think in the language you're writing as you do it?
 
Beach girl said:
Fascinating article.

Berry and PFH: when you think in pictures, then write in English
Click to expand...

There is no "one, then the other". They just happen.

When I am replying to StSapphire I will be thinking in words because words are what we are dealing with. That tends to be what we discuss, words and meanings.

When I tell you I watched my daughter sign Friday night at graduation, when I tell you the noise afterwards was so loud with music and people talking, and if my daughter and I had not been able to sign I would have either stood in a corner or gone home immediately... I might as well have been deaf for all the good my ears did me.

Then I am thinking in pictures and the words just happen on the page.

If I read a story I do not see words, or book, or the house I am in, nor do I hear the doorbell ring. I see pictures that come to life. And if you ask me some days later if I read a book or saw a movie -- I can guess, or I can deduce -- But I cannot honestly tell you from an experiential viewpoint because I cannot tell the difference.

Either words make pictures or they do not. Either pictures make words or they do not.

When I think in pictures I can let them run wild or I can completely control them or I can do a sort of visual free association.

I love my dream time in the mornings.


Beach girl said:
Fascinating article.

Berry and PFH: when you think in pictures, then write in English (or any other language - do you know others?),
Click to expand...

I have known other languages and forgotten them. What I do not use I lose rather quickly. Currently English is the language I am most adept at. I can communicate in Spanish and ASL. I think in the language I am using at the time.


Beach girl said:
Fascinating article.

Berry and PFH: when you think in pictures, then write in English (or any other language - do you know others?), do you feel like you are mentally translating from pictures to written English, or when you write, does English become dominant in your thinking?
Click to expand...


My mind works without my conscious knowledge.


Beach girl said:
Fascinating article.

I've studied a few languages other than English, and always had that "a-HA!" moment with each of them when suddenly I was speaking fluently in the 2nd language without mentally translating from English. At that point, I began to feel competent in the language.
Click to expand...

Never had that "Ah -Ha" moment. When I am using a language I am limited to what I am able to think in that language and limited to the way I am able to convey it.

But, and this is a big but...

I have always been able to fall back on ASL to help me communicate in any language I have ever spoken no matter how proficiently or inproficiently. (Hey, it should be a word) including English.

Oh, yes, I can draw, that helps too.

I am seldom consciously aware of thinking "in" a language.



Beach girl said:
With writing, it was slower; I tended to think in English and translate to the desired language in writing longer than I did in speaking. Or more accurately - in writing I often had to consciously think of the rules of grammar in the language I was writing, both in terms of word order and case agreement and so on, and to avoid mistakes in things like accent placement, diactrical marks, etc., more so than I did while speaking.
Click to expand...

I try never to "learn the rules of grammar" of a language until I can speak it comfortably with friends. Then I learn it.

My mother told me the best way to learn was as the Chinese advised her. First become as a child, then learn as a child, and progress as a child. Adults prevent themselves from learning because they try to learn as an adult, and adults do not learn very well.

An "adult American" first tries to learn how to "speak" or "sign" the language. They want to take control of the language.

A child first listens or views the language. They passively perceive the language. They internalize the language -- Then they attempt to mimic it.

Which is why adults find it "harder to learn" than children.

Adults can learn just as fast as children if they are willing to drop their egos and become as children -- Because adults put obstacles in their own paths and children do not.
 
Beach girl said:
Fascinating article.

Berry and PFH: when you think in pictures, then write in English (or any other language - do you know others?), do you feel like you are mentally translating from pictures to written English, or when you write, does English become dominant in your thinking?

I've studied a few languages other than English, and always had that "a-HA!" moment with each of them when suddenly I was speaking fluently in the 2nd language without mentally translating from English. At that point, I began to feel competent in the language.

With writing, it was slower; I tended to think in English and translate to the desired language in writing longer than I did in speaking. Or more accurately - in writing I often had to consciously think of the rules of grammar in the language I was writing, both in terms of word order and case agreement and so on, and to avoid mistakes in things like accent placement, diactrical marks, etc., more so than I did while speaking.

I'm wondering if it's the same for you - that is, do you think in pictures while writing, or think in the language you're writing as you do it?
Click to expand...

Dunno about PFH but when I translate my pictures into English, most of the time I don't feel like I'm mentally translating my pictures. However, it's somewhat more difficult to translate all the details into prose. Most of the time I don't need to unless I'm doing creative writing and i want to build a certain atmosphere. It's easier to do this in ASL than in prose.
 
also pictures for the most part....for along time I thought it was what everybody did....

also have thought in English and ASL
 
dogmom said:
also pictures for the most part....for along time I thought it was what everybody did....

also have thought in English and ASL
Click to expand...

Mmmh, true, I hadn't thought of it as pictures as much as concepts, but maybe it's the same thing. I sometimes finding myself struggling to find the right words to express a concept I hold very clearly in my mind.
 
Berry said:
There is no "one, then the other". They just happen.

When I am replying to StSapphire I will be thinking in words because words are what we are dealing with. That tends to be what we discuss, words and meanings.

When I tell you I watched my daughter sign Friday night at graduation, when I tell you the noise afterwards was so loud with music and people talking, and if my daughter and I had not been able to sign I would have either stood in a corner or gone home immediately... I might as well have been deaf for all the good my ears did me.

Then I am thinking in pictures and the words just happen on the page.

If I read a story I do not see words, or book, or the house I am in, nor do I hear the doorbell ring. I see pictures that come to life. And if you ask me some days later if I read a book or saw a movie -- I can guess, or I can deduce -- But I cannot honestly tell you from an experiential viewpoint because I cannot tell the difference.

Either words make pictures or they do not. Either pictures make words or they do not.

When I think in pictures I can let them run wild or I can completely control them or I can do a sort of visual free association.

I love my dream time in the mornings.




I have known other languages and forgotten them. What I do not use I lose rather quickly. Currently English is the language I am most adept at. I can communicate in Spanish and ASL. I think in the language I am using at the time.





My mind works without my conscious knowledge.




Never had that "Ah -Ha" moment. When I am using a language I am limited to what I am able to think in that language and limited to the way I am able to convey it.

But, and this is a big but...

I have always been able to fall back on ASL to help me communicate in any language I have ever spoken no matter how proficiently or inproficiently. (Hey, it should be a word) including English.

Oh, yes, I can draw, that helps too.

I am seldom consciously aware of thinking "in" a language.





I try never to "learn the rules of grammar" of a language until I can speak it comfortably with friends. Then I learn it.

My mother told me the best way to learn was as the Chinese advised her. First become as a child, then learn as a child, and progress as a child. Adults prevent themselves from learning because they try to learn as an adult, and adults do not learn very well.

An "adult American" first tries to learn how to "speak" or "sign" the language. They want to take control of the language.

A child first listens or views the language. They passively perceive the language. They internalize the language -- Then they attempt to mimic it.

Which is why adults find it "harder to learn" than children.

Adults can learn just as fast as children if they are willing to drop their egos and become as children -- Because adults put obstacles in their own paths and children do not.
Click to expand...

I understand exactly what you are saying. When I am conversing in ASL, I can literally feel the cognitive shift my brain makes. I receive the language without ever equating a sign to a word. The contextual meaning is there as a pictorial sequence. And that sequence includes the shift in syntax.

I didn't get this when I first started signing. It was after a few years, when I began to relax and just allow myself to receive the message rather than trying so hard to interpret the message into English, that I finally got it.
 
deafskeptic said:
Dunno about PFH but when I translate my pictures into English, most of the time I don't feel like I'm mentally translating my pictures. However, it's somewhat more difficult to translate all the details into prose. Most of the time I don't need to unless I'm doing creative writing and i want to build a certain atmosphere. It's easier to do this in ASL than in prose.
Click to expand...

Because ASL, by it's very nature, addresses those creative areas in the brain. As I have said (I'm sure you've seen it) when trying to explain syntax to someone new to ASL. ASL paints a picture. Think about the first thing you would paint on the canvas if you were saying the same thing in artwork. That will be the way you sign it.
 
Subject first, then?

I got to the point in both Spanish and Portuguese where I could speak freely without mentally translating from English first. Never quite accomplished it in French except at the most basic level. Serbo-Croatian, I could do it receptively, but speaking was harder, mainly because of the case ending systems, and how many opportunities there were to screw up even the most basic sentences.

Definitely a cognitive shift, once I got to that point of feeling that I could just say what I wanted without thinking it through in English first.

Interesting that it took a few years for that to happen for you in ASL.
 
Beach girl said:
Subject first, then?

I got to the point in both Spanish and Portuguese where I could speak freely without mentally translating from English first. Never quite accomplished it in French except at the most basic level. Serbo-Croatian, I could do it receptively, but speaking was harder, mainly because of the case ending systems, and how many opportunities there were to screw up even the most basic sentences.

Definitely a cognitive shift, once I got to that point of feeling that I could just say what I wanted without thinking it through in English first.

Interesting that it took a few years for that to happen for you in ASL.
Click to expand...

In ASL, Time is first if it is important. That is to establish the tense of the conversation.

But to give you a concrete example:

English sentence: The boy climbed the tree.

ASL: Show time by signing *past* Then tree (placed in your visual space), boy (placed in your visual space), climb.

Just as if you were painting a picture; the first thing that you would paint would be the tree. None of the other action can take place without it.
 
jillio said:
Because ASL, by it's very nature, addresses those creative areas in the brain. As I have said (I'm sure you've seen it) when trying to explain syntax to someone new to ASL. ASL paints a picture. Think about the first thing you would paint on the canvas if you were saying the same thing in artwork. That will be the way you sign it.
Click to expand...

Yes. It's even easier for me to do a painting of what I see than signing it in ASL but then I was a fine arts student years ago.
 
Beach girl said:
Subject first, then?

I got to the point in both Spanish and Portuguese where I could speak freely without mentally translating from English first. Never quite accomplished it in French except at the most basic level. Serbo-Croatian, I could do it receptively, but speaking was harder, mainly because of the case ending systems, and how many opportunities there were to screw up even the most basic sentences.

Definitely a cognitive shift, once I got to that point of feeling that I could just say what I wanted without thinking it through in English first.

Interesting that it took a few years for that to happen for you in ASL.
Click to expand...

Because I, like all hearing people learning ASL, tried too hard to take everything back to English. I know some signers that never manage to break that. Keep in mind, when using another spoken language, the shift is not as great, because you are still using a word symbol to convey a concept. In ASL, you no longer have that reliance on a word as a symbol. You have to completely let go of that notion.
 
At work, I think in both languages because I am teaching using the BiBi method. However, at home, I think in English most of the time because of my husband, reading, or watching TV (reading the captions).
 
deafskeptic said:
Yes. It's even easier for me to do a painting of what I see than signing it in ASL but then I was a fine arts student years ago.
Click to expand...

All about letting go of that auditory processing and relying on visual processing. They occur differently in the brain. Trying to equate them creates confusion.
 
shel90 said:
At work, I think in both languages because I am teaching using the BiBi method. However, at home, I think in English most of the time because of my husband, reading, or watching TV (reading the captions).
Click to expand...

That would be understandable.
 
A hearing person got angry because I wouldn't talk while I signed. I tried to explain why I can't sign and talk at the same time. I told her that I have to sign it and then say it in English. I couldn't make her understand. I thought she was very unreasonable.
 
sallylou said:
A hearing person got angry because I wouldn't talk while I signed. I tried to explain why I can't sign and talk at the same time. I told her that I have to sign it and then say it in English. I couldn't make her understand. I thought she was very unreasonable.
Click to expand...

Yea, that's why I hate Sim-Com because it is linguistically confusing for me.
 
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