Thinking in a foreign language improves decision-making(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Thinking in a foreign language improves decision-making
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/sep/17/how-learning-thinking-in-a-foreign-language-improves-decision-making
78 comments
There is a site to explain the differences "Help! Is This Arabic?" https://isthisarabic.com/ HN discussions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34949146 (635 points | 6 months ago | 299 comments) and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29544990 (80 points | December 2021 | 20 comments)
This isn't exactly the same, but someone needs to make a similar site for English text for products being exported from Asian countries. It is totally baffling to me just how bad the Engrish is on some of these products I get on Amazon: product specs, manuals, and etc vary from "slightly off" to "almost unreadable." It's actually something I have been curious about for a long time: why is it like this?
The people who make these products have to spend millions and millions of dollars setting up factories, hiring people, putting things into production, etc. But somehow they don't have a budget for a bilingual college student intern to translate a bunch of copy to English better than "using this product will bring a great joy." Why? I would be super interested in some journalist figuring out why this happens.
Of course, there's always the viewpoint of "why would they need to translate better? It's just money that they don't need to spend, and this works for their business." So I will make a super strong claim: ChatGPT can now do nearly perfect mass translations of this stuff for free, in theory simultaneously increasing translation quality and reducing costs. Despite this, for whatever reason, I predict that the average translation quality on Amazon won't improve within the next few years.
Anyone want to take the other side of that bet?
The people who make these products have to spend millions and millions of dollars setting up factories, hiring people, putting things into production, etc. But somehow they don't have a budget for a bilingual college student intern to translate a bunch of copy to English better than "using this product will bring a great joy." Why? I would be super interested in some journalist figuring out why this happens.
Of course, there's always the viewpoint of "why would they need to translate better? It's just money that they don't need to spend, and this works for their business." So I will make a super strong claim: ChatGPT can now do nearly perfect mass translations of this stuff for free, in theory simultaneously increasing translation quality and reducing costs. Despite this, for whatever reason, I predict that the average translation quality on Amazon won't improve within the next few years.
Anyone want to take the other side of that bet?
I have been that bilingual intern tasked to translate multiple marketing material into English.
Let’s pretend for a moment that writing marketing copy is something everyone can just magically do. Your problem is now you have to explain to your superiors that direct word for word translation doesn’t work, that some phrases don’t exist in English, or that made up Engrish words can’t just be slot into English sentences [0]
[0]: Enjoy the girl! https://www.campaignjapan.com/article/%E5%A4%89%E3%81%AA%E8%...
Let’s pretend for a moment that writing marketing copy is something everyone can just magically do. Your problem is now you have to explain to your superiors that direct word for word translation doesn’t work, that some phrases don’t exist in English, or that made up Engrish words can’t just be slot into English sentences [0]
[0]: Enjoy the girl! https://www.campaignjapan.com/article/%E5%A4%89%E3%81%AA%E8%...
> explain to your superiors that direct word for word translation doesn’t work
I see. That's gotta be hard in a setting where a superior is always right and knows it all by default, even if they don't. I can imagine all the hard work you'd have to go through to manipulate the superior to think it was them who knew about the problem and came up with a solution. Definitely not worth it for just about anyone, let alone an intern.
I see. That's gotta be hard in a setting where a superior is always right and knows it all by default, even if they don't. I can imagine all the hard work you'd have to go through to manipulate the superior to think it was them who knew about the problem and came up with a solution. Definitely not worth it for just about anyone, let alone an intern.
This has been bugging me for years. The cost of a translator is basically insignificant, it's just one salary, it's a drop in the ocean of a corporate budget.
Hell, when I was a game dev, in a studio of less than 50 people we had a sudden and huge demand to port our game to China. It was a Czech studio making a game in English that was being translated to Mandarin. It cost us one single person, his entire job was translating text files we sent him and managing our China social media presence.
It absolutely boggles the mind that these Chinese companies can't or won't hire a single English-speaking copyeditor
Hell, when I was a game dev, in a studio of less than 50 people we had a sudden and huge demand to port our game to China. It was a Czech studio making a game in English that was being translated to Mandarin. It cost us one single person, his entire job was translating text files we sent him and managing our China social media presence.
It absolutely boggles the mind that these Chinese companies can't or won't hire a single English-speaking copyeditor
Here in Spain too. A while back in Barcelona it was "Year of the Book" with events all year, in many kinds of places, celebrating books and reading. The even created a free book, to cover all the things they were doing. But the English in the book was HORRIBLE. And it still is on many government websites, tourist things, trains and buses etc. Such a bad LOOK.
There is a stepladder in our garage. The documentation pasted to it has text in English and Spanish, right down to the date: May 20xx/Puede 20xx.
Love that.
I'm going to use this example for years.
I'm going to use this example for years.
This is hilarious. Thanks for sharing.
The language divide is real. While in theory you could hire a person to translate the text from Chinese/Japanese/etc. to English, the fact is that they don't really have a good way to check the quality of the translation, and this is the problem. Obviously, they already paid somebody to do the translation otherwise it wouldn't be in English in the first place (not really that many actually use Google translate). But how would a budget restricted Chinese manufacturer firm check the quality of a translation without getting into an infinite regress problem? I mean, anyone can claim to be a bilingual college student, but finding one that's actually fluent in English in China is hard. And they usually have better job opportunities than translating a meaningless user manual for chump change. (It's a supply and demand problem.)
I've actually considered whether this is a business opportunity, but concluded that there's really no way a business can demonstrate value over whoever is currently doing the crappy translation.
Actually, forget cheap Asian consumer products.
I've seen actual academics (eg. Sinologists from the "West") totally misunderstand classical Chinese texts (I forgot the details, sorry). On a related note, a lot of the English "Confucious quotes" floating on the Internet are quite funny, and it's often a fun exercise to determine where the quote came from, or whether it was completely made up. I mean, just imagine you're making a product and wanted to localize it for the China market, you might even be tempted to demonstrate your knowledge of the target demographics by asking the team to add a Confucius quote you saw (which is fake). Now at this point you better hope you got a really good translator who actually knows the Analects by heart and could find a suitable quote to substitute.
I've actually considered whether this is a business opportunity, but concluded that there's really no way a business can demonstrate value over whoever is currently doing the crappy translation.
Actually, forget cheap Asian consumer products.
I've seen actual academics (eg. Sinologists from the "West") totally misunderstand classical Chinese texts (I forgot the details, sorry). On a related note, a lot of the English "Confucious quotes" floating on the Internet are quite funny, and it's often a fun exercise to determine where the quote came from, or whether it was completely made up. I mean, just imagine you're making a product and wanted to localize it for the China market, you might even be tempted to demonstrate your knowledge of the target demographics by asking the team to add a Confucius quote you saw (which is fake). Now at this point you better hope you got a really good translator who actually knows the Analects by heart and could find a suitable quote to substitute.
> Obviously, they already paid somebody to do the translation
"daughter, i have fed you and paid for your education all these years, translate this!"
"yes, dad"
my point being, might not be budget constraints so much as, look, dad's arms are too short to reach the change in his pockets
"daughter, i have fed you and paid for your education all these years, translate this!"
"yes, dad"
my point being, might not be budget constraints so much as, look, dad's arms are too short to reach the change in his pockets
I think you vastly overestimate how much it costs to get to product in China for most of the stuff you see on Amazon. They don't build factories, they rent factory time, and these companies often only consist of a maximum of 10 people. English-language skills aren't that wide-spread in China, so it is probably one person knowing a little bit and claiming they can translate everything.
Some time ago I encountered an imported vending machine here in Israel. It had a touch screen with a prompt in Hebrew to interact with it that:
1. Had reverse letter ordering (ltr instead of rtl)
2. Had reverse word ordering (ltr instead of rtl)
3. Had no spaces between words
4. Broke words across line boundaries
5. Made sense semantically (sort of), but didn't make sense in context
kildlouwi
eviecerote
Spoiler: it's one of these
Obfuscated intentionally
Dog park and the more Receive your product Stolen from the following To receive I would like Tire on the other hand Dagger I am not parent Duck to the same role
Obfuscated intentionally
Dog park and the more Receive your product Stolen from the following To receive I would like Tire on the other hand Dagger I am not parent Duck to the same role
The image was probably made in photoshop. It's 2023 and some programs still can't render decent RTL unicode.
but GIMP can, score one for open source!
The Grauniad struggles with English all the time, what did you expect lol
It’s so fucking disappointing to keep seeing this happen.
It shows a lack of care, empathy, and diversity from every organization that makes this mistake.
It completely nullifies every point they were making.
I remember Google made this same fuck up on a segment in IO when they were talking about how many languages they’re supporting.
It’s disgraceful and just outright disrespectful.
It shows a lack of care, empathy, and diversity from every organization that makes this mistake.
It completely nullifies every point they were making.
I remember Google made this same fuck up on a segment in IO when they were talking about how many languages they’re supporting.
It’s disgraceful and just outright disrespectful.
Eh, I disagree. It's no different from the way all sorts of Asian clothing brands just put random English words in places or how many of their songs just have English bits which have glaring errors or outright don't make sense. They don't actually know English but they think it's cool and thus do that (or similarly in the West with Japanese/Chinese characters).
Yet for most English speakers, it is at worst amusing and mostly is just appreciated as indicating interest.
Yet for most English speakers, it is at worst amusing and mostly is just appreciated as indicating interest.
This is the definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater
Sheesh. The person who did it could not read Arabic. When does it stop being disrespectful and start becoming plain human error; if they make a mistake writing Thai? Hieroglyphs?
i don't think it's the single event but the constant disregard for middle eastern cultures to the point where nobody even checks that a written text is correct.
imagine if everywhere you went you saw english test like "helo, how you are?" and all sorts of weird grammatical issues, spaces wrongly inserted. if this was your entire life in the west you'd feel pretty alienated too, especially when people were doing so as an act of 'inclusion'
imagine if everywhere you went you saw english test like "helo, how you are?" and all sorts of weird grammatical issues, spaces wrongly inserted. if this was your entire life in the west you'd feel pretty alienated too, especially when people were doing so as an act of 'inclusion'
I don't see errors like that because English is the lingua franca of business in the Western World, while Arabic is not. For your example to make sense you'd have to imagine an Arabic language paper doing the same for a publication based in, oh I don't know, Cairo or something. But, the thing is, I don't expect reciprocal cultural fluency of the West in the Middle East, nor should I. Moreover, I don't resent them for it. Someone made a mistake at The Guardian - a foolish one that shouldn't have made it past an editor - but it's not "constant disregard for middle eastern cultures" that this happened.
For what it's worth, I can read Arabic script (but don't speak the language) and I caught the error.
For what it's worth, I can read Arabic script (but don't speak the language) and I caught the error.
I’m not blaming the individual who made it. I am blaming the entire process that led to this getting published.
Sufficiently large corporations don't make human errors, they make quality control process errors.
[deleted]
Meanwhile, as I started to learn my 5th language (French), I just came across this article[1], where it claims studying a new language can "interfere" with other languages you know. To selectively quote:
"[...] we can conclude that learning words from a new language does come at the cost of at least retrieval ease for words in previously learnt foreign languages.’ In one of the experiments, learning the Spanish versions of words also seemed to make participants slightly less accurate when recalling those words in English. [...]"
Although I can confirm the small effect from my own experience, it doesn't faze me. For me, the upsides far outweigh a slight delay in retrieval ease.
[1] https://psyche.co/ideas/will-studying-a-new-language-interfe...
"[...] we can conclude that learning words from a new language does come at the cost of at least retrieval ease for words in previously learnt foreign languages.’ In one of the experiments, learning the Spanish versions of words also seemed to make participants slightly less accurate when recalling those words in English. [...]"
Although I can confirm the small effect from my own experience, it doesn't faze me. For me, the upsides far outweigh a slight delay in retrieval ease.
[1] https://psyche.co/ideas/will-studying-a-new-language-interfe...
Can't say I've had that problem (5 languages). My problem has been that what I call "language confidence" erodes quickly when you don't use them for a long time. For example, I use English and Spanish on a daily basis. No issues there. However, I haven't used French for probably 30 years and German for 20. I can listen to both and understand most of it, yet launching into speaking anything other than short phrases feels really uncomfortable.
Tangent: I learned some Japanese years ago. The language made sense to my brain. No writing, just conversation. The same thing did not happen when I attempted to learn Chinese. The way I put it is that my brain simply could not synchronize with the speech pattern and sentence structures. To be fair, I don't think I made a solid effort.
Tangent: I learned some Japanese years ago. The language made sense to my brain. No writing, just conversation. The same thing did not happen when I attempted to learn Chinese. The way I put it is that my brain simply could not synchronize with the speech pattern and sentence structures. To be fair, I don't think I made a solid effort.
I dont believe it neither (on my 4th/5th, french too). There is often new mental model required, ie with French you need to catch first parts of words since ends are not pronounced, and other quirks. German has these uber long words. Grammar is always a bit different. Ordering in sentences. And so on.
Overall it increases neuroplasticity, best starting as kids when brain is more adaptive. Big gains, regardless if there are some miniscule disadvantages overall.
Overall it increases neuroplasticity, best starting as kids when brain is more adaptive. Big gains, regardless if there are some miniscule disadvantages overall.
I definitely have this problem sometimes. I know what I want to say but the only word that pops into my head is in the wrong language.
In traveller communities it is quite common to just say them in a different language - then you have a beautiful language mix where people stilm mostly understand each other. It just gets akward, when you interact with ordinary people again ..
I think this aspect of it is common, but overall the "negative" effects are very minor and shouldn't stop anyone from trying to learn a language.
I have experienced this too, and I hope it’s just temporary. Part of it may be that I only have a rudimentary grasp of both languages, but I had learnt a bit of Spanish, and now learning French I find I’m mixing up especially words like tres and muy and things like that when I go back and try to speak Spanish, as well as nouns, numbers etc.. Verbs probably not so much since the conjugation is so different.
It’s tricky because some words are exactly the same (just different pronunciation), some are similar (like from the same root). So I hope this is just teething difficulty.
It’s tricky because some words are exactly the same (just different pronunciation), some are similar (like from the same root). So I hope this is just teething difficulty.
I experienced this too but the other way, French -> Spanish, and I think it may be particular to these languages as there's so much confusing overlap (for non-natives). I've since dropped French entirely and haven't had any issues with mixed recall with Spanish recently. I imagine learning both can be done if you were to get to a solid foundation with one before attempting the other.
Definitely a thing for me. When translating between two non-primary languages, I'll often either start talking the wrong one to the wrong party, or just completely blank out on basic words. I assume it's what an 8051 feels like when switching register banks!
I also recall teachers doing our spoken assessments reminding us the moment before the tape started recording that "remember, French, not German" because both tests took place in the same week and pupils would often launch into the wrong language.
I also recall teachers doing our spoken assessments reminding us the moment before the tape started recording that "remember, French, not German" because both tests took place in the same week and pupils would often launch into the wrong language.
My native language is French but I learned English at a young age so my English is better. I haven't spoken French regularly for the past 10 years and so, nowadays, it takes me some effort to recall certain French words.
10 years ago, my level of French and English were almost on par to the extent that I didn't even realize what language I was speaking with my parents or siblings (who could also speak both) and would often mix words from different languages based on which one came to mind first.
I took a French class in school (as an easy way to boost my grades) and sometimes the teacher would ask me a question in English and I would accidentally respond back in English instead of French (not realizing it); this amused some of my peers as the questions were usually very basic and therefore awkward to answer in English as anyone could have done so.
I would just respond in whatever language the other person spoke and it took effort for me to consciously answer in a different language than what the other person used.
10 years ago, my level of French and English were almost on par to the extent that I didn't even realize what language I was speaking with my parents or siblings (who could also speak both) and would often mix words from different languages based on which one came to mind first.
I took a French class in school (as an easy way to boost my grades) and sometimes the teacher would ask me a question in English and I would accidentally respond back in English instead of French (not realizing it); this amused some of my peers as the questions were usually very basic and therefore awkward to answer in English as anyone could have done so.
I would just respond in whatever language the other person spoke and it took effort for me to consciously answer in a different language than what the other person used.
I wish people who write and study this would differentiate between close languages (eg Italian and Spanish) vs totally different ones (Spanish vs Russian). I am guessing these are cognitively two very different undertakings, in kind, not just difficulty.
Yeah, you probably want to go the farthest distance from where you are currently. A speaker of an analytic language (say, Mandarin) would probably have their mind stretched maximally if they went for something agglutinative(say, Turkish) and vice versa. Geographic and cultural distance makes this even more of a mind expander.
I'm reminded of anecdotes from Murakami, who tactically wrote pieces of his work in English, and then translated back to Japanese, and preferred the style of the result. He also mentioned later learning of Hungarian writer Agota Kristof, who learned and wrote in French, and had a direct style with short sentences. This is only to point out that in addition to the objective, empirical conclusions described in this guardian article, there are also sometimes aesthetic and subjective benefits.
https://lithub.com/haruki-murakami-the-moment-i-became-a-nov...
https://lithub.com/haruki-murakami-the-moment-i-became-a-nov...
Agota Kristof wrote one of the most intense, alienating, haunting works I've ever read (the notebook trilogy). but all the time i was reading a thought was nagging that her name is a play around agatha kristie
The article comes of as a bit... Fluffy. But it's psychology after all, so maybe that would be expected.
But I wonder. From the article:
>The foreign language effect does not depend on the particular features of the language that someone speaks; instead, it is concerned with the general experience of moving from a first to a second language.
It feels so weird to me. It feels so weird that according to this, (own example) a Swedish person that learned Norwegian would have similar effect as someone that learned say, Japanese. The latter just so happens to be me. (native in both)
But Norwegian(bokmål) and Swedish(rikssvenska) is so similar that I can hardly believe any "learning a second language" effect occur. If it does, I think claiming that a deep-Texan learning British cockney/posh accent, or Scottish accent, also have the effect mentioned.
Certain languages are just so similar that there's just major overlap. While with others, there's just expressions that is impossible to convey. But here somehow national border based categorization of languages seems to be enough to show the effect?
I can't help but question if this is just one of the psychology bogus like the "decision fatigue" that had ample evidence until it was almost completely disproven.
But I wonder. From the article:
>The foreign language effect does not depend on the particular features of the language that someone speaks; instead, it is concerned with the general experience of moving from a first to a second language.
It feels so weird to me. It feels so weird that according to this, (own example) a Swedish person that learned Norwegian would have similar effect as someone that learned say, Japanese. The latter just so happens to be me. (native in both)
But Norwegian(bokmål) and Swedish(rikssvenska) is so similar that I can hardly believe any "learning a second language" effect occur. If it does, I think claiming that a deep-Texan learning British cockney/posh accent, or Scottish accent, also have the effect mentioned.
Certain languages are just so similar that there's just major overlap. While with others, there's just expressions that is impossible to convey. But here somehow national border based categorization of languages seems to be enough to show the effect?
I can't help but question if this is just one of the psychology bogus like the "decision fatigue" that had ample evidence until it was almost completely disproven.
> It feels so weird that according to this, a Swedish person that learned Norwegian would have similar effect as someone that learned say, Japanese.
Is that from the study itself or is it an own example? For what it's worth I'd not consider the pair of Norwegian and Swedish as languages foreign to another. They are basically dialects. The same goes for the pair of German and Austrian imo.
Is that from the study itself or is it an own example? For what it's worth I'd not consider the pair of Norwegian and Swedish as languages foreign to another. They are basically dialects. The same goes for the pair of German and Austrian imo.
An own example. The quoted part is from the article.
And yes I would consider the same. But if the quoted part is to be believed, the implications are that the same effect occur between Austrian and German, as would Afrikaans to Mongolian
And yes I would consider the same. But if the quoted part is to be believed, the implications are that the same effect occur between Austrian and German, as would Afrikaans to Mongolian
This makes me think of my experiences in Europe.
In my native language (English), I can twist and weasel with the language to keep from committing to... anything. It has -- too many degrees of freedom available to me.
With German, though [where I'm intermediate], I don't have that flexibility. My conversations are really straightforward and what comes out is simple enough that I can express it. I'd say that this does come at the cost of understanding and expressing nuance and condition, but maybe that's actually helpful.
In my native language (English), I can twist and weasel with the language to keep from committing to... anything. It has -- too many degrees of freedom available to me.
With German, though [where I'm intermediate], I don't have that flexibility. My conversations are really straightforward and what comes out is simple enough that I can express it. I'd say that this does come at the cost of understanding and expressing nuance and condition, but maybe that's actually helpful.
If you're willing to accept math as a language in the same sense as the article uses, then this effect applies to the sciences, where people regularly translate problems into the non-native language of math to gain clarity.
I am native level fluent in 2 languages – Slovenian and English – and this feels true to my experience. There’s a lot of stuff I can critically think about in English because the words don’t carry much/any emotional weight. They’re just abstract concepts, very easy to be coldly objective.
Meanwhile talking about work stuff in Slovenian is near impossible because most of my career has been in English. It’s like the concepts just don’t exist in the Slovenian part of my brain.
This gets really trippy when the same word in each language feels like it carries different connotations and baggage. The translation is same but the meaning is different because the correct where you’d use each word is different.
Meanwhile talking about work stuff in Slovenian is near impossible because most of my career has been in English. It’s like the concepts just don’t exist in the Slovenian part of my brain.
This gets really trippy when the same word in each language feels like it carries different connotations and baggage. The translation is same but the meaning is different because the correct where you’d use each word is different.
Yes this is the most disorienting thing about using a non native language. You're aware that you aren't able to convey intended connotation or comprehend it. So even if you are perfectly capable of all the right denotation, you're still missing an entire layer of communication.
It's even more difficult when a language is spoken in different cultures. Eg, British, American and Australians probably have different connotations associated with the same words. Distinguishing between using a synonym out of custom vs intentionally for a different connotation is very difficult. It's not like there's a connotation dictionary you can refer to.
It's even more difficult when a language is spoken in different cultures. Eg, British, American and Australians probably have different connotations associated with the same words. Distinguishing between using a synonym out of custom vs intentionally for a different connotation is very difficult. It's not like there's a connotation dictionary you can refer to.
As a Finnish person who almost fluked Swedish class I wish I would've taken it more seriously. Knowing a language or three at that seems like a big up in life.
I'd also posit that thinking improves decision-making.
I'm not sure about that, the more I think about things the less likely I am to come to a firm decision.
I have gotten to the stage now where I just accept the decision may turn out to be wrong but it won't be the end of the world if it is, I'm not in charge of anything that dangerous.
I have gotten to the stage now where I just accept the decision may turn out to be wrong but it won't be the end of the world if it is, I'm not in charge of anything that dangerous.
More than likely it's because you understand the world works on probability and very little certainty.
Things that are potentially deadly, like flying an aircraft, attempt to remove as much probability as possibly. You make checklists of behaviors before the emergency happens so you think as little as possible.
Or a more inflammatory statement I've been known to say to others "Certainty is for the religious and conmen alike".
Things that are potentially deadly, like flying an aircraft, attempt to remove as much probability as possibly. You make checklists of behaviors before the emergency happens so you think as little as possible.
Or a more inflammatory statement I've been known to say to others "Certainty is for the religious and conmen alike".
All decisions are bets, [the right kind of] thinking just improves the odds.
The trouble is in learning how to distinguish between unhelpful overthinking and the [right kind].
I think it's necessary to balance thought with awareness of emotions and intuition. To listen to the gut, which is also an intelligent signal, but doesn't translate to verbal thought.
Thinking more and thinking harder often creates an illusion of some kind of progress or of triangulating on the best decision. And this can be the case, but can also lead to a kind of decision paralysis and/or overconfidence in a decision (I thought really hard about this, so it must be better) when we don't actually have enough underlying knowledge to justify the decision.
If we could measure such a thing, I'd love to see a plot of decision accuracy vs. time spent reaching the decision. This will highly depend on one's deeply ingrained biases. I'm overly pessimistic, so thinking more helps me temper my pessimism and reframe when needed, but thinking too much eventually leads me back to where I started.
I think it's necessary to balance thought with awareness of emotions and intuition. To listen to the gut, which is also an intelligent signal, but doesn't translate to verbal thought.
Thinking more and thinking harder often creates an illusion of some kind of progress or of triangulating on the best decision. And this can be the case, but can also lead to a kind of decision paralysis and/or overconfidence in a decision (I thought really hard about this, so it must be better) when we don't actually have enough underlying knowledge to justify the decision.
If we could measure such a thing, I'd love to see a plot of decision accuracy vs. time spent reaching the decision. This will highly depend on one's deeply ingrained biases. I'm overly pessimistic, so thinking more helps me temper my pessimism and reframe when needed, but thinking too much eventually leads me back to where I started.
I find that writing my thoughts is my antidote to this problem. Circular paths of thought are quickly squashed and I have something to visually audit when I ask myself if spending more time thinking will likely enable me to make a better decision.
Basically, it seems that thinking in a second language involves or engages more thinking and less "reflexive" responses.
So, if one were to choose to learn/renew a language that encourages better thinking, which ones are best? Anyone have any examples with multiple languages and feeling that one or another helped them think better?
(I'm currently choosing a language to learn/relearn among the EU languages, so interested in suggestions - thx)
So, if one were to choose to learn/renew a language that encourages better thinking, which ones are best? Anyone have any examples with multiple languages and feeling that one or another helped them think better?
(I'm currently choosing a language to learn/relearn among the EU languages, so interested in suggestions - thx)
> if one were to choose to learn/renew a language that encourages better thinking, which ones are best?
Honestly it probably doesn't matter all that much. European languages are all pretty connected, in the scheme of things, and have much more in common with each other than you'd expect at first or second glance.
That said, Spanish seems a safe bet, as per tfa. Coupled with the fact that so many people speak it, you could certainly do worse.
I'm currently learning it, with the help of some lion's mane, and it does feel like a worthy pursuit.
If I had to guess at a real answer to your interesting question though, I'd have to guess Russian. They've had a ridiculous amount of high-quality thought and literature, relative to their resources and population size.
Honestly it probably doesn't matter all that much. European languages are all pretty connected, in the scheme of things, and have much more in common with each other than you'd expect at first or second glance.
That said, Spanish seems a safe bet, as per tfa. Coupled with the fact that so many people speak it, you could certainly do worse.
I'm currently learning it, with the help of some lion's mane, and it does feel like a worthy pursuit.
If I had to guess at a real answer to your interesting question though, I'd have to guess Russian. They've had a ridiculous amount of high-quality thought and literature, relative to their resources and population size.
Try catalan.
Is somehow nice, sounds nice. Is not easy but does not have as many rules as others, and can be used as bridge between French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Also, Andorra has now made it mandatory to be able to keep tour residency so that's a plus.
> among the EU languages
I suspect learning a language that is actually substantially different has a more profound effect - so assuming your native language is English - maybe Finnish, Basque or Gaelic?
I suspect learning a language that is actually substantially different has a more profound effect - so assuming your native language is English - maybe Finnish, Basque or Gaelic?
German for sure, as a romanic language speaker. I don't know for sure what I would recommend if your mother tongue is English. Maybe German as well!
try
a) something very different
b) something close (but not too much)
note, words/notions themselves, is different beast from constructs, both may give or take abilities
a) something very different
b) something close (but not too much)
note, words/notions themselves, is different beast from constructs, both may give or take abilities
I maintain a number of machines which came with non-english wiring diagrams. Trying to learn a language while diagnosing issues with a machine does not improve either activity.
Not only spoken languages but math and music could also be included though the specific areas of improvement or resilience could very. I have learned several languages early on but find my thinking/imagination to be less word-language but rather shapes, connections, motions, and other not easily mapped to word things.
This seems really wrong given the tremendous number of aircraft accidents and near-accidents that have been caused by speakers of one language not understanding the language spoken by controllers very well. Using a different language adds cognitive load, not the other way around.
You're talking about a completely different phenomenon.
I wonder how much of this has to do with learning the second language when you're older and more mature? You end up without the childhood emotional baggage or subtle misunderstandings that come with learning at a young age.
Funny, as trying different programming languages rewire your brain deeply, so does trying different human languages. Different vocabulary and grammars will shed lights on different patterns in interesting ways.
Thinking in words of any language is entirely too slow for anything except plotting out a sentence. I'll stick to thinking in abstract concepts.
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Exactly. The hysteria about LLMs has betrayed how many people never make the leap and are constrained to thinking in the words and structures already familiar to them.
It is also incredible the extent to which abstract visualization is looked down on by our current academic fashions.
It is also incredible the extent to which abstract visualization is looked down on by our current academic fashions.
My Spanish teacher used to tell me not to try and translate everything in my head but to just think in Spanish. This seemed ridiculous to me at first but, over time, I understood what she meant. Put simply, you can't have a conversation in Spanish if you are mentally translating every word as you go. No Spanish speaker is going to hang around that long.
I never did get to that stage but can appreciate the concept.
I never did get to that stage but can appreciate the concept.
People thinking in other languages also work stuff out abstractly sometimes.
I'd say it's likely that learning new languages can improve your ability to work in abstract concepts. Something about the different forms of grammar, and deep paradigm shift in outlook implicit in the language (aka Sapir-Whorf). For example, the Mayan languages were fantastic for closely describing nature, compared to English, and (probably as a result) their astronomy was incredible.
I'd say it's likely that learning new languages can improve your ability to work in abstract concepts. Something about the different forms of grammar, and deep paradigm shift in outlook implicit in the language (aka Sapir-Whorf). For example, the Mayan languages were fantastic for closely describing nature, compared to English, and (probably as a result) their astronomy was incredible.
Being forced to translate from a language you are proficient in, one you possibly think sublingually in, forces one to move from system 2, to system one.
Esp if the destination language has a much higher precision for the arguments you are making.
Esp if the destination language has a much higher precision for the arguments you are making.
The letter ordering is wrong (ltr instead of rtl). The word ordering is wrong (ltr instead of rtl). Somehow they also managed to get the letters not to connect to each other.
Great job Guardian! 10/10