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Speaking a Second Language May Change How You See the World
sciencehabit writes: Where did the thief go? You might get a more accurate answer if you ask the question in German. How did she get away? Now you might want to switch to English. Speakers of the two languages put different emphasis on actions and their consequences, influencing the way they think about the world, according to a new study (abstract). The work also finds that bilinguals may get the best of both worldviews, as their thinking can be more flexible.
The language shapes how you think about a problem.
He a french pepper from Montreal. Talking big and stopping is in his DNA. His only role model is someone like PKP who inherited his fortune from Papa and then became a union-busting business terrorist and married into the local "star system". A star-fucker that never achieved anything by himself, basically. A greasier Mitt Romney, if you will.
Maybe he has concussions from driving over the potholes here.
There are two ways to speak a non native language : translate every sentence in your head and run into the problem you indicate, or master it without constantly translating and your way of thinking will be sooner or later the same as a native. Once you start dreaming, thinking, in the other language, chance is that you are actually using very similar or even identical structure as the locals. Language is no hexenkunst.
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Right, but I wouldn't say that every language has its own "world view", I would rather name it character, personality or way of thinking. Many stereotypical attributes of a people are reflected in the language. German is precise, sounds harsh (to non Germans) and is not very open to humorous wordplay. Spanish sounds lighthearted and its easy to make jokes and talk funny using the language, English is full of ambiguity but concise and practical...
I'm positive that language determines how we think and therefore also who we are. More than that, to a certain degree it determines what we can even think about.
This is one of the main points in 1984 and the scariest thing in the book; the autocratic government trying to completely eliminate dissent and control the lives of people by destroying words and manipulating language to limit how people are able to think.