Back when I was quite young, and first became aware of different languages, I was sure that everyone thought in English,then translated it into a different language of choice before speaking. Likewise, upon hearing another language, they had to translate it into English in their head in order for it to make sense.
Now, sixty-some years later.... I'm still sure that I was right.

Some can listen to Morse Code, and understand like a language.

Me, i learned how to understand Gus.

Whatever language you dream in, that's your language.

Profanity it is then.

All babies cry in English.

Years ago, my brother who was born and raised in TX, went somewhere in Mexico for a spell. He had taken Spanish in HS. He told me that when he started dreaming in Spanish, he knew he was fluent.

When I went back to school to get a master's degree, I was spending 8-12 hours a day studying Calculus and I started to dream about solving differential equations incessantly. Not sure if that meant I was 'fluent' in high-level calculus, but I can tell you it was horrific.

When I have dreams on my college efforts, things are always going poorly. Like I forgot the class until my finals schedule was handed out.

Took three years of German in HS. Used to dream in that language every once in a while that. 😬

I had that dream over and over for years and years after college.

I had that happen with Supreme Court cases in a Constitutional Law class. I couldn't tell if I was asleep or awake.

Good to learn of this - same dumb thing has happened here. Although never got a bad grade or withdrew from a college course during the span of three degrees, I experienced that dream a bunch of times. It's late in the semester and I just realized I have - somehow - missed most or all of the classes/tests in some course. Sentiment horrible!

Hah! [bleep] aye!

I lived a version of this.

Freshman year, 1983, UC Santa Barbara, and I was deep into booze and hallucinogens. I stopped going to German class about 2 weeks before the final. I thought I knew German better than the instructor and I was getting wasted every night.

The finals schedule was published in the school paper, and I showed up to the location and time that was published, bluebook in hand.

I go in when the room opens and the proctors hand out the test booklet. They're in Russian.

I asked the proctor why the test is in Russian and he said "this is the Russian final. The German final was rescheduled to yesterday. It was announced in the last class."

I got an incomplete in a language I was fluent in.

(I ended up retaking the final and got an A, but that was the only grade above a C I got that year)

I'd rather not dream at all.

I still dream in a language other than English.

DLI graduate.

The best way to learn a language is to not translate in your head. Don't do the conversion. IMO.

I know people with real talent for languages and it's how they taught me to really get fluent quickly.

I dated a Mexican woman who’s grandfather was born in California to a family who spoke English. They moved to Mexico when he was five and he learned to speak Spanish.

Way later in life, after moving to Canada, he became ill and went to hospital. While there he became delirious, and began babbling in Spanish. None of the doctors or nurses could understand him.

Married an air force brat who spent much of her life up to high school in Germany. Whole family is fluent , I learned enough German to understand what's happening and get my point across.

I am amazed how often I hear German being spoken in the USA

Give me two weeks, a lady that gets me going and doesn't speak any of the languages I speak, and I'll be conversational two weeks later.

Learning a language quickly is NOT hard. It takes two things: a strong motivation, and full immersion. Immersion meaning you ONLY speak, read and listen to the new language, without switching back to your native tongue to check with family, read email, call your girlfriend, whatever. If you do a complete switch, you'll speak the language in a matter of weeks.

I'm decent at languages (English, Dutch, French, German), but Spanish vexes me because I never went "all in". I use it every week with my customers, but because I only have used it a few phrases at a time, I've never gotten any better than what I absolutely need to complete a transaction.

Banging Elke Somer? I had those same dreams in High School....

I took 6 levels of German in High School, I would think in German....

Now I only understand TV War Movie German.... Hande Hoch.... Schweinhund! Eine Beer Bitte!

I would sometimes dream in Spanish and wake up frustrated when I got to words I didn't know. I did that a lot when taking Spanish in HS and college.

Had a patient at Madigan at Ft Lewis that had a head injury and had his cranium swell, so they had to take out part of his skull to relieve pressure. HIs had was wrapped, looking like he had a football wrapped to the side of his head. Then they restrained him I had him for 3 months, and then was transferred to another unit for 90days, then back to the Surgical Ward. Sgt Mulner was still there. He had healed up some but still had his head wrapped. He was very combative to about everyone. I went in to his room and told him I was back, and I would be taking care of him again... He calmed right down.



When giving him care, I would tell him what I was going to and why. Most other folks thought he was brain dead. He wasn't. He started mumbling while I was gone, and some people were describing it as he was talking in tongues. His wife visited and I asked her if he spoke another language. She told me that he spoke Hungarian and German. He was born in Hungary, and his family had gotten out when he was young to Vienna. He joined the US Army in Germany, and served there for 3 years and they let him immigrate to the USA back in the 50s.

I went in his room and asked him in English if he spoke German, and got no response. I then asked him in German if he spoke German, and he responded in German. I then if he spoke English, German also, and he answered yes. Then I told him to speak English, back in German... then asked him in English if he spoke English... He answered yes in English... I then asked him in English, how does his head feel.... His response, In English " if hurts like a MF B itch!"

I learned he would speak in his native Hurngarian, which no one spoke there. But I would tell him to speak German, in German, which he would immediately do, then told him in German to speak English.... and then he would speak in English. We had to repeat that process every time he had been asleep. It was just the way his injured brain would process it.

When he finally healed a year later, I would talk to him. He learned to identify people who were spent to take care of him, by their smell, the way they walked, the noise they made when they did so. He also told me every day people man handled him, so he would resist. So they restrained him. I was the only one who had talked to him and told him what we were going to do. That is why he never gave me a problem. Learned a lot taking care of him as a patient.

I thought it was interesting to learn that he reverted back to his native language and then could convert to German and then English. But he had to be told to speak German, in German first, then told to speak English in German.

"When I have dreams on my college efforts, things are always going poorly. Like I forgot the class until my finals schedule was handed out."

I remember reading an article where dreams of that nature are very common among people who went to college. I still have a dream like that occasionally and it's been over 50 years since I received my degree.

I can swear in a couple of languages. Does that count?

I know nothing but bad English.

My initial exposure to German was reading Sgt. Rock and similar comic books. I was pretty sure you could get by just fine in Germany with just "Achtung!", "Schnell!", and "Amerikanischer Schwinehund!". Then you needed some variation of "Aiiyeeeee!" when somebody tossed a grenade in your foxhole. Those Krauts were pretty big on exclamation points.

I guess a naive English speaking HS grad has about a 30000 word vocabulary.
Get by traveling with a foreign language is about 1500 words.
5000 words to be kinda social. and 10000 words or so to be fluent.
Depends on the language though, tense, gender for objects, addressing formal, and non-formal, makes for a heavy accent as a foreigner.

I am most fluent in 'Igpay Atinlay'.

The typical high school conversation involves no more than 400 words.

There - I fixed it for you

Can you imagine a gorgeous coed nibbling on your neck while she romantically whispers equations into your ear?

my german teacher told me that when you start thinking in german, you got it.


i never started thinking it german.

much obliged.....

If you're talking about an English speaker trying to speak a foreign language, it won't work. You might get away with that reading a different language, but you can't keep up while conversing with native speakers. They are going directly from an idea in their head to words coming out of their mouth, and you have to be able to listen directly from a word you hear to an idea in your head or you will soon be hopelessly behind.

Been there, done that, quickly realized it wouldn't work.

You do have to start thinking in the other language, it's excellent practice. At a certain point you will start dreaming in the other language. I still dream in a foreign language sometimes, but it's been a while and I'm a little rusty, so I have to get a dictionary in the morning to figure out what was going on.