Comment on At what point when learning a new language do someone become bilingual?
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
As someone who never quite reached this level myself, I feel like it’s when you start being able to think in the second language inside your head.
I only got to the point where I had flashes of this happen for specific topics that didn’t translate well. For everything else I kept thinking in English, even if I then needed to convert it back mentally after.
Idk, I’m bilingual and I only ever think in English. It doesn’t really seem to make a difference though, saying things out loud vs in my head.
I’m learning a third language now and can just barely communicate with others (worked with a taxi driver!). That said, I wouldn’t consider myself truly trilingual yet. I could think in that language but it doesn’t really feel like it changes anything - I still only know the same words in my head
Kayday@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My thoughts aren’t in a language, so this always confused me as a benchmark.