question: for those of you who know a second language: does your brain turn it into your native tongue first or do you instinctively just understand it
Replies
Learned as an adult and switching from translating to just thinking in the new language was a big jump in not being bad at it
jul 9, 2025, 6:54 pm • 0 0 • view
Usually the first. Sometimes key phrases do the second if I’m especially used to them.
jul 9, 2025, 6:53 pm • 0 0 • view
very curious to hear. i'm not very competent yet so my brain definitely turns it into English first (slowly)
jul 9, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Just understand it. New words or variations in dialect are understood in context.
jul 9, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Instinctively understand it. A brain fast enough to do two translations while formulating an answer in conversation speed would be awesome.
jul 9, 2025, 6:59 pm • 0 0 • view
When learning a second (or third or fourth or...) language, there's a point at which a mental circuit "clicks", and you stop translating to your primary language and start thinking in your target language.
jul 9, 2025, 10:10 pm • 2 0 • view
I instinctively understand it. A lot of times I actually don't know the literal translation of a word, but I just know what it means. That would make me pretty bad at professionally translating I guess.
jul 9, 2025, 6:53 pm • 1 0 • view
my brain instinctively understands it! i actually sometimes struggle to translate it to my native tongue when i need to bc i feel like it's almost impossible not to lose some meaning in translation
jul 10, 2025, 1:30 pm • 0 0 • view
was a French immersion kid, and used to dream in French. Currently, because I rarely have occasion to speak, I have to search to find the right words/ grammar when talking, but my reading and aural comprehension are instinctive.
jul 9, 2025, 6:51 pm • 3 0 • view
Remember waking up in the beginning when you didn't know a word? 😁
jul 10, 2025, 5:03 am • 0 0 • view
for Hindi I instinctively understand it because I never technically "learned" it, I just spoke it; for other languages I know (or read), I convert to English. When I'm in India long enough, at some point I start translating English INTO Hindi in my head, which is super weird (and then this stops).
jul 9, 2025, 6:47 pm • 2 0 • view
English - instinctively understand. German - occasional flashes of that, and it feels great when it happens. The others - have to translate first
jul 10, 2025, 3:54 pm • 0 0 • view
It's instantaneous, but that comes with fluency.
jul 9, 2025, 6:46 pm • 1 0 • view
Im by no means fluent, but SOME Spanish words are automatic, only the ones im very familiar with though
jul 10, 2025, 2:47 am • 0 0 • view
I used to have passable (get around a city w/o much trouble) Japanese and it was honestly a mixture. Maybe more of a function of not really getting to a higher level but typical interactions and small talk was just instinctive.
jul 9, 2025, 7:01 pm • 1 0 • view
Translation is sometimes necessary at lower fluency levels or when explaining concepts to language learners, but it's the death of fluent conversation. Even fairly close languages have too many differences in the construction and connotations of sentences to make it work.
jul 9, 2025, 7:04 pm • 3 0 • view
No. I just know it. When I hear a Polish word it comes back to me in Polish. I'm looking out my window, and I see a squirrel. Or else it is a wiewiórka. It's all the same to me. I do think mostly in English. I live in America where English is the dominant language. Thinking in English is convenient
jul 9, 2025, 9:56 pm • 0 0 • view
Instinctively understand it (in the very early stages you may still be translating into English, but in my experience that passes very quickly)
jul 9, 2025, 6:45 pm • 13 0 • view
Which is, incidentally, probably why translation is a specialist skill. You can have a very good knowledge of the subject language and without being able to render it in entirely suitable English
jul 9, 2025, 6:46 pm • 12 0 • view
My partner speaks three languages and the 'other 2' are processed without reference to (her native) English - it's intuitive. Her voice and manner are different in each language. Even though I have nowhere near her linguistic abilities I sometimes get to a FR-EN idiomatic translation faster...
jul 9, 2025, 6:50 pm • 2 0 • view
... because I'm thinking in and via English.
jul 9, 2025, 6:51 pm • 0 0 • view
It also explains why I can understand a particular German word very well and find myself completely unable to remember what you'd call in in English....
jul 9, 2025, 6:47 pm • 7 0 • view
I do this with “fancy” furniture all the damn time
jul 9, 2025, 6:48 pm • 2 0 • view
Im in the same boat! Some things just dont have/need translations
jul 9, 2025, 6:48 pm • 1 0 • view
I used to be like this with Spanish after doing a 3-week immersion course, no longer alas
jul 9, 2025, 6:51 pm • 7 0 • view
not sure i really count since i'm not very good but some from aisle 1 and some from aisle 2
jul 9, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Weird mix of the two, but instinctively understanding is much easier with spoken word. Sometimes I can understand even without knowing the language at all (body language and tone of voice go FAR). I often think some languages/dialects are more cognitively "ergonomic" (but not my native English lol)
jul 9, 2025, 6:54 pm • 0 0 • view
the way i was taught was less "the word for door is porte" and more "the word for that thing where you enter a room is porte" like relating the words to the concepts rather than the english equivalent. so for the basic stuff yeah i just understand it and don't translate in my head
jul 9, 2025, 6:46 pm • 0 0 • view
If it's a language I don't know too well it's more the first but if I know it well it's the second
jul 9, 2025, 6:47 pm • 5 0 • view
I don't use my second language often, so for the first few hours, it's column A and then it's column B (albeit more so for speaking / writing than listening / hearing). I can feel my brain make the transition as it happens.
jul 10, 2025, 2:08 am • 0 0 • view
Both. If it’s really comfortable, I can think in it, but if I’m wonky on usage or pronunciation, I have to think in English and translate in real time. It’s very inefficient and it makes me feel slow.
jul 9, 2025, 9:53 pm • 1 0 • view
As a 70% fluent German speaker, both. As a full blown 100% fluent in both, I'm curious too.
jul 9, 2025, 6:44 pm • 1 0 • view
Depends on familiarity with vocabulary. I'm trending back towards the latter now that I've found the "short comedy songs" French section of Insta reels
jul 9, 2025, 7:00 pm • 0 0 • view
it transitions from the first to the second as you get more comfy w the language
jul 9, 2025, 6:43 pm • 7 0 • view
This is my answer too
jul 9, 2025, 7:07 pm • 1 0 • view
The latter, idk how anybody does the former when there are so many constructions that exist in one language but don't in the other
jul 9, 2025, 10:09 pm • 0 0 • view
Native tongue first.
jul 9, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Instinctively understand, but less so with age as I grow out of practice.
jul 9, 2025, 6:46 pm • 0 0 • view
You have to think in the other language
jul 9, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
for me it's receptive vs. expressive — I can usually listen to French without thinking too hard, but when I speak sometimes I need to mentally run it through the translator in my brain
jul 9, 2025, 6:59 pm • 0 0 • view
When I was good in Spanish (rusty now) I could think in it, and that helped me speak it better
jul 9, 2025, 6:53 pm • 3 0 • view
My first language was Mandarin Chinese, but I came to the US when I was four. I can’t construct a proper sentence worth a damn, but if you speak to me in basic Mandarin I understand it automatically. It’s like an instinctive understanding that bypasses my brain.
jul 9, 2025, 8:23 pm • 4 0 • view
I have more than one native tongue, and based on my experience fluency in any language means instinctive understanding ...
jul 9, 2025, 6:55 pm • 0 0 • view
I’m in the in-between stage where I still often form my initial thoughts in my native Inglese! But getting to where I can be on auto-pilot for simple communication.
jul 9, 2025, 6:50 pm • 0 0 • view
I think the difference between these two stages is what defines being conversant in a language? I don't think you can carry on a conversation about anything that's not completely routinized if you have to think in your primary language and then translate
jul 9, 2025, 6:54 pm • 0 0 • view
(my second language is pretty bad) it depends on how complex the sentence is most stuff i need to translate carefully, simple things i just do intuitively
jul 9, 2025, 6:46 pm • 5 0 • view
I grew up speaking Tamil, and while I'm pretty bad at it, I don't internally translate most of it (some of the complicated words or sentences, sure, but most of the simple stuff I say or speak just goes straight to meaning with no English).
jul 9, 2025, 6:49 pm • 6 0 • view
Once I started understanding Japanese well it was a flow state like English. But if it's something I'm struggling to understand or produce then I do find myself going back to thinking in English. Way less so in real time conversation than when writing or something.
jul 9, 2025, 7:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Bilingual in the sense of having 2 native languages, so no translation required between them. I never got never got good enough in French or Czech to avoid translating on the fly for anything beyond simple statements or things heard constantly ("Ukončete, prosím, výstup a nástup, dveře se zavírají."
jul 9, 2025, 6:53 pm • 0 0 • view
I instinctively understand English (tbf I was taught it from around 7 years old on); any other language I've tried to learn (unsuccessfully) is translated into Spanish (curiously I can more or less understand written Italian by its similarity to Spanish but it's also translated in my head).
jul 9, 2025, 7:49 pm • 0 0 • view
with the vocabulary and grammar i'm less familiar with, my brain translates it first, but after a couple years actually living in france, there's a lot that i do instinctively understand, and frankly a handful of things that my brain doesn't *want* to translate
jul 9, 2025, 6:44 pm • 13 0 • view
actually, i had a funny moment in high school - DEFINITELY wasn't fluent - where i was reading the French translation of a warning on a wrapper of some kind. it said something like "don't let children eat this" or some shit, and every time i got to the word "mangent" i read it in french
jul 9, 2025, 6:46 pm • 5 0 • view
Depends on if I’m speaking or listening. Speaking I don’t translate until I get to a word I don’t know. I generally “think” in pictures, so my brain just says the “pictures” in Spanish unless I don’t know that word. Then it’s trying to find a word. Listening I usually translate back to English.
aug 10, 2025, 9:39 pm • 0 0 • view
Instinctively just understand it
jul 9, 2025, 6:43 pm • 1 0 • view
If I'm halfway fluent and immersed in it, like scrolling through Bluesky, reading a newspaper, or even spending a holiday in a country with this language, I think in it. I see that when my brain stops and switches, because I can express that only in my own tongue.
jul 10, 2025, 4:58 am • 0 0 • view
You can see that on the train with kids speaking a different language at home. They often switch mid-sentence to the other language and a few sentences later back. Now that I'm an old fart, I'm often lacking vocabulary in both languages. 😟
jul 10, 2025, 4:58 am • 0 0 • view
I don't understand the question ngl
jul 9, 2025, 6:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Depends on a number of factors
jul 9, 2025, 6:57 pm • 0 0 • view
If I hear a fragment on a train, I usually don't have to translate it
jul 9, 2025, 6:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Most of my language learning has been fairly isolated, though, so I end up resorting to translation more often than not
jul 9, 2025, 6:59 pm • 0 0 • view
I think I just understand it or I don't, unless I'm actively making an effort to translate.
jul 10, 2025, 5:24 am • 0 0 • view
conversational spanish I instinctively understand it, but a specific topic I'm not familiar with involves a bit more interpretation
jul 9, 2025, 7:03 pm • 0 0 • view
I've lost a lot of my spanish but it was/is a mix - stuff that's more familiar/basic/simple goes straight into my brain as meaning; the more grammatically or conceptually complex it is, the more likely my brain is to break it down into english
jul 9, 2025, 6:58 pm • 2 0 • view
when I was using it a lot, certain things came to me in spanish first pretty often, mostly the kinds of physical needs & basic questions they teach when you're first learning - tengo hambre, damela, dónde está
jul 9, 2025, 6:58 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm not fluent in a 2nd language but do know some of a number of languages. I've found myself actually making a totally new language of all the different languages I know. Pretty annoying because then I have to pay attention to make sure I'm using the words for only 1 language rather than 4. 🤣
jul 9, 2025, 6:48 pm • 2 0 • view
As someone who’s stuck in one language but who lives with someone who is fluent in English and Spanish, I think “turning it into your native language” in your mind is the barrier you have to overcome in order to achieve fluency. When it becomes instinctual, that’s when you really know it.
jul 9, 2025, 6:47 pm • 0 0 • view
I understand my second language (French) intuitively and would have to actively work to translate it into English but also have this bizarre thing where I instinctively respond to languages I learned later (Spanish and Arabic) in French, especially if I’m tired
jul 9, 2025, 10:10 pm • 0 0 • view