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?
Both. Also some concepts may exist in one language and not the other.
Certain topics (mostly household things), I’ll think in Irish.
Or sports… it’s easier for me to think “tá an cailis déanta aige” than “he fouled the player” because my sporting life has generally been through Irish.
I’m American (US) but when I lived in Germany, by the end of two years there I thought in German. I remember it, but there are two anecdotes that underscore it:
- When I returned to the States, I’d occasionally not be able to remember the English word for some things. I lost “trashcan” for a good half hour, once.
- I occasionally talk in my sleep, and for a few years after I returned my wife would sometimes tell me that I was speaking German.
I didn’t spend much time around English speakers when I lived there; I met my wife the year after I returned, and the person I was seeing when I lived in Germany had barely spoken English.
I still live in Brazil but almost all of my social media friends are from the US, so I think both in English and Portuguese. Mostly English, though.
Yes, I can relate to this question. I’m originally from Sabah in northern Borneo, Malaysia, but I was born in Kuala Lumpur (Peninsular Malaysia) and raised in Perak.
The main language I’ve used growing up is Malay, which is Malaysia’s official and most commonly spoken language. It’s the language I speak daily and also the one I primarily think in. My inner monologue is mostly in Malay, though sometimes I switch to English, especially when reading, writing, or studying (I’m an IT student).
Although I’m ethnically Dusun and Rungus (indigenous groups from Sabah), I didn’t grow up speaking those native languages fluently. I’ve learned more English and Malay through school and life, and even earned a B in both. That said, I feel a strong connection to my roots and want to find ways to preserve and relearn my ancestral languages—maybe even through tech solutions.
So, to answer the question directly: I usually think in Malay, sometimes in English, and rarely in my ethnic/native languages—though I wish that were different.
I’m originally from Sabah in northern Borneo, Malaysia
Hey I’ve been there. Hello.
Hello.
I do not live in a English speaking country. And my mother tongue is not english.
I still sometimes think in English. As I use it a lot.
Same here. I also found myself trying to express things in my language using English constructs or colloquialisms that don’t have a direct translation. And my English isn’t even that great, but I have to use it daily for work.
I dont think I have an inner monologue. I think in words only when imagining a conversation, or in this case, writing this comment. Otherwise I think in …images maybe?
That’s wild! I can’t imagine having thoughts without an inner monologue. I often wonder how animals think without language and it seems so limited and alien to me. It’s just unimaginable.
I’m with @anguo, while if I have to express something I will have inner monolog, but day to day it is thought in concepts. I find it especially concept spacey when doing engineering work, it will be 3D virtual world of structures and forces (for lack of a better term) along with thought process of the problems, but there is no language to it
Maybe language is what’s limiting you.
No inner monologue or images here. I just feel it usually. Like the person you’re responding to I’ll sometimes say things in my head like when going over something I’m actually going to say; but it’d be inefficient to do that for everything. I can think much faster without words.
It’s more like ‘hm yeh <unsymbolic thought>…and then <more unsymbolic thought>’
Usually none. I only have an inner monologue when I explicitly want to have one and in that case it works just like talking: I can use any language I want.
My inner monologue is almost pictographic. So, first, if I think “that rabbit is big”, I think “rabbit with arrow to it, highlighting its size”. Then, when I want to do more complex things, it’s translated into a random language, and has said operations done on it.
Contrary to most people, most of my thoughts are in the form of a dialogue. When it’s a monologue, it’s still a monologue delivered to a crowd. So the language basically depends on who I’m thinking to speak to. Sometimes the mechanism is faulty so I snap out and realize I would never speak English to a certain person.
For context, I’m Italian, living in Germany with an American partner.
It actually depends. For example, I don’t know why I sometimes find myself thinking in Chinese. I never translate my inner monologue, and when I think, I try to link concepts when learning, so maybe that’s why I feel like my inner monologue is kinda language-agnostic. I just materialize it to realize that I’m thinking, if that makes any sense. (I speak more than 3 languages, Spanish being my native one and English the one I actually use the most.)
I moved to Belgium from England when I was 6, by the time I left for the states at 11 I was thinking and dreaming in Flemish.
By the time I left America at 16 I’d forgotten pretty much all my Flemish.
More interesting question IMHO — what language do you dream in?
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.
Not moved anywhere, so born and live in Poland, due to job and entertainment I speak and think both in Polish 🇵🇱 and English 🇪🇺. But more and more I catch myself thinking in English.
