LL-L "Language proficiency" 2004.10.16 (01) [E]

Sat Oct 16 17:22:56 UTC 2004

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From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Science" 2004.10.15 (12) [E]

Dear Ted & All on this string,

Subject: LL-L "Science"

Slightly off the subject, but only slightly:

> > 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 had the good fortune to stop along at a Veteran & Francophone kibbutz, in
my formative stage of learning Hebrew.
Now Israelis of a certain generation have nothing good to say of the
English, & of course Francophones, among many others, have a certain
aggravated hostility to the English language. For this reason my experience
was unlike that of so many long-term visitors to Israel, since the people
there rather more eagerly practice their English on you than teach you their
Hebrew. I, on the contrary, experienced saturation learning. It was a case
of either learn Hebrew or learn French, & Hebrew is easier.
I found I was dreaming in Hebrew before I understood it. I dropped off one
evening after wrestling with Moses Maimonaides' 'Guide to the Perplexed', &
dreamed I was attending a lecture by the learned doctor. It was all in
Hebrew, of course, & I only picked up snatches. I knew it was him, 'the
Rambam', because he was green, like his banknote (the 1 000 shekel one).
On a later occasion I was helping someone in the workshop, holding the
universal end of a prop-shaft under a tractor. The mechanic needed something
else, & wandered off muttering, leaving me flat on my back underneath,
holding the thing. Soon after, a guy came along & asked a question, which I
didn't understand, & couldn't answer. Then he kicked me, gently, & asked
again. This annoyed me, & I answered angrily, saying something I didn't
understand. This satisfied him, & he wandered off. But I remembered what I
said, wrote it in the grease on the floor, found a wooden block to stand in
for me, & went to look it up in the dictionary. It made sense. Back under
the tractor, I found the work finished & the block gone. The mechanic saw my
'message' & responded, finding the other guy.
On the strength of this, when they agreed to let me attend 'ulpan' (Hebrew
Language lessons), I was put in the advanced class. That may have been a
mistake, but I got by, eventually.
On the strength of this & a few other experiences, it seems to me we digest
our experiences & learning at different levels in our consciousness, which
are not necessarily in good communication with each other.

Yrs,
Mark

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Science" 2004.10.15 (12) [E]

Ted Harding wrote:
> 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.

Well, I remember distinctly that, when I was an exchange student in St.
Andrews, Scotland, at the age of 14, after a week or so I started dreaming
in English. I had been fluent in English for years by then, but this is the
first time I actually dreamed in it, and it made a lasting impression, as
you can see. These days, the language of my dreams depends mostly on context
and the people that are in it. If I speak English to them in real life, then
it's very likely they also speak English in my dreams.

I used to do arithmetics in German most of the time, but this is no longer
the rule; I often catch myself counting in English now (after an 8-year stay
in the USA), sometimes simply because it's less confusing (since in German,
like in Dutch, the last two digits get inverted, saying "vierundzwanzig"
instead of "zwanzig-vier"). Again, it all depends on context. I love to do
difficult logic and math puzzles, and they simply don't exist in German. So
when I do those, in either English or Dutch, I often (but not always)
calculate in the language the puzzles are written in. But those are the two
foreign languages which I speak with native fluency; my French is not quite
as good, so I don't think I would calculate in French if the problems were
in French.

Slightly more complicated math, however, I always do in German, the way I
learned it in school.

Best regards,
Gabriele Kahn

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From: Tom Maguire <jmaguire at pie.xtec.es>
Subject: LL-L "Science" 2004.10.15 (12) [E]

From: Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk

>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.
>
Hello Ted,

I was pondering on Sandy's dream langauges and couldn't think of a clear
answer, either.

However, your point about calculations fits in well with my experience.
I have a French colleague who also does sums out loud in her first
language. I will try out the calculation theory on some of the real
bilingual colleagues and see how they do mental arithmetic.

Regards,

Tom

--
Carpe Diem.
-Visit Nlp in Education  http://www.xtec.es/~jmaguire
-Join Nlp-Education  mailto:nlp-education-subscribe at yahoogroups.com

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From: Jay Bell <daimudan at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Science" 2004.10.15 (12) [E]

I can understand dreaming in other languages.  Oddly, while studying
Korean and Spanish for a number of years, I would do it often...to the
degree that my conversations during dreams would be much more in-depth
then what I was able to do while awake in the other languages.

Anyone else have this happen at all?  Very strange it was..

Slainte,

Jay

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language proficiency

Hi, Jay, and welcome to Lowlands-L and its active forum!  Good to have you.

I have had similar experiences.  My language proficiency tends to be a lot
better
in my dreams than in reality.  :-(   While dreaming I can have really
high-level discussions in a good number of languages I can barely string a
proper sentence in when I'm awake ...   (No doubt some people would argue
I'm in a perpetual state of dreaming.)

Hi also to Ted Harding, one of our "oldest" members, for making one of his
rare appearances!  He's always patiently waiting in the wings and is always
there for me with advice and support when needed.  Thanks, Ted!

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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