Language and Thought Processing

Being who I am, people often ask me, "What language do you think in, English or Chinese?" My reply has varied depending on my current understanding of language and how I formulate my thoughts. At first, the reply was English because I was much more comfortable with it than with Mandarin, though I had spoken the latter at home even when growing up in the States. There was a period of time during which I refused to speak any Mandarin at all. At the time, I don't think I really liked the fact that I could speak a language that most of my classmates couldn't understand. Strange now that I think about it, since it seems like at the same time kids love to come up with their own secret codes to talk about things. I guess I just wanted to fit in.

At any rate, when I moved to Taiwan people were fascinated by the fact that my English was "so good", and would just sit back and admire how my brother and I would converse in English as if it was natural. Well yeah, it's the closest thing I have to a first language, though since I was in Taiwan for high school, I probably missed out on some crucial composition and literature classes that my friends who were educated completely in the States got. Moving to Taiwan was a huge crash course in Chinese language education - like it or not, I had to pick up reading and writing, and *fast*. I probably learned more in 4 months living there than I did in 4 years of Chinese school after church back in South Bend. This isn't really a criticism of the dedicated parent-teachers that we had, but rather that I just didn't find reading and writing very relevant at all to my life, and never used it outside of class. That's the problem with non-immersive language education, I think . Unless you're very dedicated and take the extra time and effort to utilize all the possible opportunities, chances are you're not getting very good at your foreign language.

I've made some friends here from other study abroad programs, and what strikes me is how immersive their study is. There's this one kid from Sweden who came to Japan after finishing his military service, and has been learning Japanese for maybe 2 years. He's really good. I was at a picnic with various other study abroad students here during Golden Week (major Japanese vacation each year), and I was shocked at how well they spoke Japanese, considering how manyof them had only been learning the language for 2, maybe 3 years. Thinking back though it really shouldn't be that surprising. Here, you're bombarded with the language and culture every day whether you like it or not. Switch on the radio, people are speaking Japanese. Billboards, advertisements, cell phone spam, Google Ads, host families, bus stops...

I've gone way off my original topic. So yeah, what language do I think in?

Well, it depends on what language the person speaking to me is using. In Taiwan, since most people would be speaking to me in Mandarin, I would naturally reply in Mandarin, and while thinking of my reply I would generally be using Mandarin as well. The same goes for English. In the very beginning I think I had to sort of translate things in my head into English, but as my language ability got better this became less and less necessary. The same goes for Japanese - I'm now able to think in Japanese, at least about the topics that I'm relatively familiar with in the context of my language classes, such as a host family scenario, or identity (another topic for another day).

I like to say that I just use my brain and think, without being constrained by the language, but it's undeniable that familiarity with certain topics affects how quickly your brain works. For example, I find it much easier to talk about Political Science in English, because all of my experience with Polsci has been with this language. Certainly, if I knew the equivalent Chinese words then I'd be nearly as capable even speaking in Mandarin about Polsci, but it's not nearly as smooth. The same goes for faith too. My experience with Christianity has largely been shaped by my time in the States, whether it was church growing up in South Bend, or the college fellowship that I'm a part of now. I don't know the names of the Prophets in Chinese, or how the various books are pronounced. It's just that much harder.

All this is to say, I think I've been watching way too much Japanese idol-drama. Why? Because when I'm thinking of how I would confess to my crush, it almost *always* comes out in my head in Japanese first. "[name]のこと、好きになっちゃったみたい。" I don't even know if it's gramatically correct! But since I've heard similar lines so many times in mushy Japanese romantic dramas, this is the language I'm most familiar with when my brain is working on cheesy pickup lines or dramatic moments. Obviously, this isn't very practical. It's like if I had confessed in English back in high school - her English was decent and all that, but it obviously didn't come nearly as naturally as Chinese, and it just would have felt weird.

And of course, if she doesn't understand Japanese then my dramatic line would go to waste anyway. Now that would be really awkward. I think a fair amount of people have watched enough dramas to understand that the sound "suki" means "to like", but say you only understand that much of the sentence, and you're not exactly sure what I just said. "... did he just say he likes me? But I didn't catch the rest of the sentence... um... I dunno if I should ask him what that grammar form means. Why'd he use Japanese? Argh."

Thankfully or not, I think a line like, "あなたが大好き。" is easy enough to understand for my target demographic. Still, food for thought. Watch some cheesy Asian dramas in other languages too, for maximum flexibility.