4 ms·
I'm not bilingual, so this is an outsider looking in, but piggybacking off the sibling comment I wonder if you feel you're worse at language because you'll ofte
by fpgaminer 7y ago
I'm not bilingual, so this is an outsider looking in, but piggybacking off the sibling comment I wonder if you feel you're worse at language because you'll often have thoughts during a conversation that your brain can express easily in one language but not the one currently being spoken? So you often feel like you're having trouble expressing yourself in any given language?
One could argue that such events occur for everyone, but for a monolingual it would speak to the failings of the one language they speak, not of their inability to express thoughts. Or maybe such events occur more often for those who are bilingual because the brain can come up with a greater diversity of thoughts, owing to its mastery of two "modes" of thought.
- sosborn 7y agoAs a bilingual (and a writer/storyteller by trade), I've always seen the second language as opening my brain to other phrases and analogies that don't exist in the other language. Some people aren't able to parse the extra options, but many are.