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RE: Which language do you think in?

in Ask the Hivelast year

I never put any thought into this topic until recently when I moved to the Netherlands and started working as a hotel receptionist as opposed to doing nothing. I had 6 flags under my name, one for each language I speak. A guest asked me "which language do you count in?" I was like wtf? What does that determine? He told me it determines your personal native language. The primary language your brain processes things with is the language you count in. Interesting take, no? I grew up with 6 major languages surrounding me. Without knowing it, I was native in 4 languages as a kid coz I was too dumb to pick up the other 2. In school I took french but don't remember a single thing. Then moved to Ukraine and learned another language. And now in the Netherlands learning one more just to get my Dutch medical license. In retrospect, all those languages helped me become more open and maybe even friendly. What always worked for me was listening, I pick up languages quickly through that. Reading and watching, not so much. But the languages in my head change according to situations. I think in different languages depending on the topic - which as I am writing makes me feel like I might be a little cuckoo in the head x'D