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.

Comments

Re:Ever hear of "sociology"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. This is just a restatement of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Welcome to the early twentieth century.

"Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt...

[schmidt349]

... weiß nichts von seiner eigenen."

That's a saying in German attributed to Goethe, which means, "he who can't speak another language knows nothing about his own."

And another proverb, either Czech or Tamil in origin (or even from the mouth of Charlemagne): "Mit jeder neu erlernten Sprache erwirbst du eine neue Seele" -- "every time you learn a new language, you get another soul."

Re:"Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt...

[myid]

Regarding your Goethe quote: I'm an American native-English speaker. Studying German taught me how to use the word "whose", as in "the man whose car was hit". I didn't know how to say that properly in English until I learned how to say it in German. (My textbook had examples in English and in German.)

I think computer scientists already knew this...

[WarJolt]

The language shapes how you think about a problem.

Re:Seriously?

[ShanghaiBill]

Different languages with their different constructions appear to alter and guide certain aspects of thought.

That is not a new idea. I first heard "learn a language, gain a new soul" decades ago. I know four languages (English, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese) with varying degrees of fluency, and it is very clear that different languages don't just have different ways of expressing things, but different world views. When people first learn a second language, they are often surprised that there are certain concepts that just can't be translated, because they don't exist in the other language's world view. Mandarin doesn't even have words for "yes" and "no". Japanese does have a "yes" and "no", but they really don't mean the same thing as the English words. Bill Clinton famously questioned what the meaning of "is" is. But that word really does have many nuances that don't exist in many other languages, and vice versa. Some Native American languages have two versions of "is" depending on whether you know what "is" by first hand knowledge, or whether you heard it from someone else. The lack of such a distinction in English is one of the many things that makes our language famously capable of vagueness and ambiguity. Perfect for politicians, and journalists.

Only if you trnaslate in your head

[aepervius]

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.

luxembourg: 3 languages and more

[Gunstick]

In Luxembourg, from the first years in school on, we learn french and german.
And additionally learn the local Luxembourgish.
Later, english is added.

So everybody is trilingual, but often from parents there are 1 or 2 other languages added.
And learning 5 languages as a kid is in fact no problem at all.

Re:Vice Versa

[houghi]

I believe learning a language is more about attitude and need. When I see English speakers in Belgium, they have huge problems learning Dutch or French, because everybody speaks better English they they do Dutch (or French).

While when I was in Buenes Aires several years ago, as nobody spoke any English, I was forced to learn Spanish very quickly. In 4 weeks I was able to speak enough Spanish to order food and being able to explain where I lived and other vary basic conversations.

I have seen this with others as well.

And then there are the English speakers who do not WANT to learn any other language.