I grew up bilingual German/English pretty much from birth. (my mother is Austrian, my father British) There is an (awful) home video of me in which I speak both

I grew up bilingual German/English pretty much from birth. (my mother is Austrian, my father British) There is an (awful) home video of me in which I speak both languages fluently, roughly age 2. Comparing the way you think to other people's thought processes is not so easy, putting differences down to some particular influence is impossible, especially as there's no before & after to compare. That said, I don't generally think in terms of words unless I'm actively trying to express a thought. I don't know whether this is why I'm very quick to pick up new concepts in maths and computing, of if those observations are unrelated. Interestingly, I did have a noticeable Germanic accent when speaking English as I lived in Austria for the first 18 years of my life. I then went to study and work in England, and within less than 3 years my accent had disappeared sufficiently for strangers to be unable to distinguish me from natives. Kids learn English at school in most of Europe from about age 9 - I knew some German students at university and their accent stuck, even after 4 years. That head start of a few years obviously makes a hell of a difference. Learning French (at age 14) and Spanish (at age 16) was still hard for me. Not in terms of grammar however, which is what most people struggle with most. YMMV.