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How do you folks think in a language? I don't understand it and it really pisses me off... How is it possible at all? What is the process of such verbal thinkin

How do you folks think in a language? I don't understand it and it really pisses me off... How is it possible at all? What is the process of such verbal thinking? How it feels like? Is it like words sounding in your head or something?

gruseom 15y ago
Is it like words sounding in your head or something? I would say it's close to that, except there isn't the feeling of a sound. It's more as if language were a muscle and you were exercising it silently, producing words. Not that all thoughts come in complete sentences or even with words, but some mental processes definitely involve language. I'd be surprised if you didn't have this as well. Hard to say, of course. But you may catch yourself "thinking in words" someday and then realize you do it all the time. Random tangential statement: I predict that Sapir-Whorf will come back into fashion and be thoroughly rehabilitated.
- mike_ivanov 15y ago
  > I'd be surprised if you didn't have this as well. No, I don't. Neither the people I asked. Everyone I asked agrees there are two separate processes: thinking and translating thoughts into words. > "thinking in words" someday and then realize you do it all the time. No, I do not. Moreover, I don't even have to. I clearly remember myself at the age when I didn't talk, yet I was able to think and I still can do it.
awfabian2 15y ago
I believe I think in words even more than average. I don't know if anyone can say how. I don't know how my brain puts together words. It's no effort for me to make a sentence; it's like they come out of a mysterious black box. But it happens all of the time, so it doesn't feel mysterious. If the black box is very central to how your brain works, it seems like the pressure of feeling and thinking, rather than erupting into images or sounds, erupts into words. Say a scary bug lands on you, and you want to swat it away. You have an immediate need to swat, and you don't think. You won't decide whether to use your right hand, or your left; you'll use your hands without thinking about it at all. Even normal actions and movements are like that, if you look; there is some small pressure with a less sudden eruption into thought or movement. So, to reiterate, that's what it seems like to me; if you miss someone, if you think in words, when the pressure builds up into a representation of your mind, it won't be a picture of the person's face, it will be words instead, "I miss Person."
hcarvalhoalves 15y ago
"Is it like words sounding in your head or something?" When you start learning a language, you start doing this kind of aloud mental translation - that is, you think a sentence in your native language, then you read it mentally, then you speak. That's why when you start speaking a foreign language there's an annoying amount of delay and back-and-forth. At some point, once you have acquired enough vocabulary, you stop doing this and start connecting ideas directly to language. It's like you create a "bypass" on your brain once you practice enough.
xtracto 15y ago
I do it for English (my native language is Spanish). For me, the change came when I had a dream in English. I usually do all the work related stuff (programming, maths, statistics, scientific reading, etc) in English. So usually it is quite straight forward to think about what I am reading/programming/etc in this language. For me it is exactly as you say, sometimes I am, say, writing a function, and I think about which parameters to pass, how to name those parameters, the name of the function and the documentation. All this I do in English in my head. And your description "words sounding in your head" is exactly as it seems to me.

gruseom 15y ago

Is it like words sounding in your head or something? I would say it's close to that, except there isn't the feeling of a sound. It's more as if language were a muscle and you were exercising it silently, producing words. Not that all thoughts come in complete sentences or even with words, but some mental processes definitely involve language. I'd be surprised if you didn't have this as well. Hard to say, of course. But you may catch yourself "thinking in words" someday and then realize you do it all the time. Random tangential statement: I predict that Sapir-Whorf will come back into fashion and be thoroughly rehabilitated.

mike_ivanov 15y ago
> I'd be surprised if you didn't have this as well. No, I don't. Neither the people I asked. Everyone I asked agrees there are two separate processes: thinking and translating thoughts into words. > "thinking in words" someday and then realize you do it all the time. No, I do not. Moreover, I don't even have to. I clearly remember myself at the age when I didn't talk, yet I was able to think and I still can do it.

awfabian2 15y ago

I believe I think in words even more than average. I don't know if anyone can say how. I don't know how my brain puts together words. It's no effort for me to make a sentence; it's like they come out of a mysterious black box. But it happens all of the time, so it doesn't feel mysterious. If the black box is very central to how your brain works, it seems like the pressure of feeling and thinking, rather than erupting into images or sounds, erupts into words. Say a scary bug lands on you, and you want to swat it away. You have an immediate need to swat, and you don't think. You won't decide whether to use your right hand, or your left; you'll use your hands without thinking about it at all. Even normal actions and movements are like that, if you look; there is some small pressure with a less sudden eruption into thought or movement. So, to reiterate, that's what it seems like to me; if you miss someone, if you think in words, when the pressure builds up into a representation of your mind, it won't be a picture of the person's face, it will be words instead, "I miss Person."

hcarvalhoalves 15y ago

"Is it like words sounding in your head or something?" When you start learning a language, you start doing this kind of aloud mental translation - that is, you think a sentence in your native language, then you read it mentally, then you speak. That's why when you start speaking a foreign language there's an annoying amount of delay and back-and-forth. At some point, once you have acquired enough vocabulary, you stop doing this and start connecting ideas directly to language. It's like you create a "bypass" on your brain once you practice enough.

xtracto 15y ago

I do it for English (my native language is Spanish). For me, the change came when I had a dream in English. I usually do all the work related stuff (programming, maths, statistics, scientific reading, etc) in English. So usually it is quite straight forward to think about what I am reading/programming/etc in this language. For me it is exactly as you say, sometimes I am, say, writing a function, and I think about which parameters to pass, how to name those parameters, the name of the function and the documentation. All this I do in English in my head. And your description "words sounding in your head" is exactly as it seems to me.