Foreign

Karabobarra

I recently picked up a book from the library that I have had on hold for a long time... I was excited to start reading it that night...
I even set up the pillows in my bed for easy reading position, lit a candle, got some iced water and my pumpkin seeds on the night stand all ready to go....opened the book to start reading .... and it was in spanish!!!

I don't know spanish ...well I know some spanish, but Dos Grande Margarita's was not in the book!! oh well, lol.

Today I am wondering for people who grew up speaking one language and learned english as their second language .... is it easier to read in english or your first language??
I know the sentence structure is different in english than other languages and wonder if it would effect the way the images pop up in your head??

(Example) In english we say The big Mountain (for me becaus the adjective is before the noun when I imagine the mountain it's already big) if I was to read The Mountain big ..I would first imagine a normal size mountain then a bigger mountain when I read the word big.

(Dork I know but I'm curious)

The title was supposed to be Foreign Tongues.... I obviously have difficulty with more than just reading spanish....:noway:

YaGigi

When you learn other languages it's better not to translate word by word but kind of live in it. Sooner or later you stop focusing on grammar and just feel the language.

That's what I do when I learn languages. I speak French, Russian, little bit of Arabic. English is my 3rd language.

Slacker16

Today I am wondering for people who grew up speaking one language and learned english as their second language .... is it easier to read in english or your first language??

First language, but it's easy to pick up.

Actually, the hardest thing is day to day stuff. I read a lot, most of it in english, so I'm very used to it and it doesn't bother me that much. However, interacting with other people in english really is kinda hard because I learned to socialize in romanian.

maria1113

My first language is Finnish and second English (third Swedish...). I kind of switch my brain to different language when I read or speak it. Like right now I'm not translating this from Finnish, but it comes straight in English from my brain. I hope that helps explain a bit

I actually prefer to read the books in their original language, since something always changes and gets lost in translation. To me it doesn't make big difference anymore if I'm reading in English or Finnish.