LL-L "Science" 2004.10.15 (12) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 15.OCT.2004 (12) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk
Subject: LL-L "Science" 2004.10.15 (01) [E]

> From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
> Subject: "Science" [E]
>
> How about dreaming in languages? I always find that if I dream
> about someone I know I always speak to them in their own language,
> whether Scots, English, Czech, Welsh, French or BSL.

I don't know about dreaming. I suspect that if I dreamt about
remembered "foreign" occasions I would probably dream in that
language, but as a rule I don't remember dreams the next day.

However, there is an associated phenomenon. While I reckon I'm
very close to bilingual in English/French (with English as first
language), there is one test which shows up that French is the
secondary language.

Get someone to ask you to do some simple arithmetic in another
language which you reckon you know very well. The chances are
you will not be able to do arithmetic in that language.

For instance, if I'm asked

  "Qu'est-ce que vingt-sept plus soixante-quatre?"

then I have to translate it to "twenty-seven plus sixty-four"
whereupon it's immediate: "ninety-one" which I then translate
back to "quatre-vingt-onze". I can't do it in French.

This is despite the fact that if I were going down a street
looking for "vingt-sept rue Hulot" then the "vingt-sept" would
have me visualising "27" without any intermediate translation.

How do other poeple react?

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

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Date: 15-Oct-04                                       Time: 18:51:26
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