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vicrider

Question for bilinguals

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I have been binge watching "The Americans" on Amazon with wife out of town and nasty weather in town. For those who haven't gotten hooked it's a series drama on two neighbors next door who happen to be Russian spies and an FBI agent and his family move in across the street and become friends. The things is the Russian spies ONLY talk English with their two growing kids and have established them in community with a Travel Agency, allowing them excuses to travel a lot for business. It is a very believable story and every time you begin to like the Commie spies they do something hateable.

 

Anyway, my question is, if you are truly bilingual of a quality to fool anyone in a different language than your own, do you still think in the native tongue? When I had to take a foreign language in school I took German for some reason and even when we got to being able to converse a little in the language I still thought in English and switched the words to German, often resulting in those ridiculous sentence compositions you see in Japanese manuals for your TV of toaster.

 

So, any fisherman versed in fluent languages that can add something to these thoughts?

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I am of the opinion that true bilingualism, in a strict sense, does not exist. But that is a different discussion...

 

To answer your question, in a nutshell, let me put it this way: if you do not think in the target language you are not fluent enough to fool anyone.

 

So you think in the native language when speaking the native language and you think in the target language when speaking the target language. Or you will sound like those manuals in either language.

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I do NOT speak multiple languages. BUT ... as an instructor and technician on motorcycles and marine outboard engines, I often have to work on both standard measurement engines and metric engines.

When I am working on standard engines, I think in my "native" measurements. But I found out, very early in my career, that I cannot work on a metric engine if I still think in standard. SO I learned to think in metric when working on metric engines.

 

I agree with Bimini that you MUST think in the language to be fluent in that language.

 

Having spent 3 years on Embassy Duty, I know many people who are fluent in more than 2 languages. Some who were fluent in 5 or 6. So, I can't agree with the assessment that, "... true bilingualism, in a strict sense, does not exist."

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You raise several issues that would apply differently to those being trained to 'pass' as Americans and those innocently trying to get by in our language..

 

It is somewhat easier for a foreigner to learn to pass as an American because the US mass media has spread the use of a 'standard accent'. That 'accent' does not ring all that foreign to our ears even though we may still be surrounded by a distinctive regional accent. The KGB trains its sleeper agents in lengthy 24/7 saturation courses that focus on that standard use pattern and the cultural patterns that go with it. They also start their kids English language training earlier in schools so new sleeper agents in training have a significant head start. The drilling in training is aimed at reducing the need for translation before speaking and that effort pays off in enabling a normal flow of conversation w/o hiccups.

 

A normal person who learns American Eglish out of necessity living here may eventually reach that level of proficiency but will usually retain some of their original accent and difficulties in handling nuances that the sleeper has mostly mastered before assignment here. There are however always words/concepts that do not translate smoothly and even the best trained sleepers still must run into obstacles in fully expressing their views.

 

The question of being "truly bilingual" and forgetting your native tongue in the extreme would of course mean you have become mono lingual. Long term disuse of your native tongue probably would make you "think" in your new language much of the time but rarely to the point of losing it altogether. Then there is the point when you begin to dream in your new language ....

 

There are also of course folk who readily master many new languages at the native speaker level. God only knows what translation activities -- if any --take place in their heads.

 

wunbe

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My stance on bilingualism comes from the fact that you can never be as good in two, let alone three, four different languages.

 

It is not about the number, really, but about the level of proficiency across the languages.

 

One language is always dominant, but people can be “really good” in two, three, four languages. “Really good” generally means highly functional in a particular subset of the target language.

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My daughter is bi-lingual french/english and my daughter-in-law is tri-lingual french/english/italian. According to them they don't translate in their heads. They just switch to the language being spoken. We use very little of our brain. I guess they use a little more.

 

Les

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Bimini,

I have to disagree. My daughter speaks perfect english and people that converse with her in french think that she is from Montreal.

 

Les

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Bimini, She was raised in an english environment where nothing but english was spoken at home or in the area that we live in, but attended a french immersion school. In Canada there is a big advantage work wise if you are bi-lingual thus the french school.

Les

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Her dominant language is probably English then.

 

Similar to my wife. When we go to Madrid, people who don’t know her sometimes think that she is from some other part of Spain, but never think that she is American. Every now and then there is a small little something that gives it away. I notice, because I know what to listen for, but most don’t.

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Her first language is english. As for something giving her away in french I'll never know because I don't speak a word of the language.

Les

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Wow, this is turning out as a great thread, applies to fishing too, as many of us dream, plot and plan trips to exotic locales. Thanks Nick for a thinking person thread.

 

I would love to chase the monster trout in Kamchatka on topweater patterns. Just worried the proverbial... they...wont let me back in the country... Carry On...

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Wow, this is turning out as a great thread, applies to fishing too, as many of us dream, plot and plan trips to exotic locales. Thanks Nick for a thinking person thread.

 

I would love to chase the monster trout in Kamchatka on topweater patterns. Just worried the proverbial... they...wont let me back in the country... Carry On...

This is the off topic forum isn't it?

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Bimini,

I have to disagree. My daughter speaks perfect english and people that converse with her in french think that she is from Montreal.

 

Les

Montreal is not in France. I believe Bims point applys to speaking French and fooling French people not other Americans or Canadians. I spoke a little German in Germany but I thought English and translated in my head before opening my mouth. To every German I sounded like an American fighting the German language. I was with a guy who spoke German in house while growing up in America since he had German speaking parents. He could think in both languages and every German thought he was actually German. I've got to agree with Bims. I also believe being fluent means you can read, write and speak the other language. Most people can only speak another language meaning they are thinking English.

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Years ago I had a class that did discuss the KGB immersion tactics they use for sleeper agents right down to towns built to mimic our small towns and habits. I guess I'm okay with the concept expressed by Rocco and Lesg about committing your mind to the language you are using, otherwise there would be have to be at least a small lapse in response time to think a sentence in one language and translate that sentence while you are talking to someone. I also can relate to Mike's comparison with SAE and Metric. When the state of MN decided to waste a HUGE amount of money over slightly more than a year when they decided that all measurements in the state were going to go to the Metric system. For the first few months everything had to be a mental conversion but slowly metric became the language of measurement with our road design squads and maintenance people. After multiple conversion problems and the fact that contractors equipment was set for 12' and we were only going to pay them for 11'7" of pavement or a 3.6 meter lane the state, in another huge waste of money, decided to go back to English measurements.

 

To give a slightly different slant on language conversion how about the people who translate speeches on UN floors in almost perfect real time. There is a case of a language rolling into the ears in one countries tongue and rolling out the mouth almost simultaneously in another's.

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