Hellobee Boards

I'm Korean but was born and raised in Canada so my first language is English...And that's the language I think in.

But I totally know what you mean. I heard that whatever language you count in is your true first language.

I would assume whatever someones first language is? I only speak English, so there's my answer But I've wondered this too!

@rahlyrah: I've wondered that, too!

I speak Korean and English but I definitely think in English. I grew up only speaking Korean but once I started elementary school, everything switched to English, even though I was still speaking only Korean at home.

My son is exposed to both languages at home. He gets 100% korean at daycare and 50% korean/ 50% English at home. But we just found out recently that he thinks in English! He started muttering some stuff under his breath and we noticed it was all in English. We also know that he thinks in English because whenever we say words in Korean like "Go shee" (which means pee in korean), he'll say "No! No peepee no peepee!". He translates korean to english but not the other way around.

@rahlyrah: @katiew92081: I think this depends when they lost their hearing, if they went to speech therapy as a child , what language they use(d) at home, and what residual hearing they have..etc etc.. From my experience - I would say depending on the person anywhere from full ASL a mix of ASL and English or fully in English. Some say they just "think" visually...

@MrsTiz: to answer your question I think in English and sometimes ASL .. It depends what I am thinking about

@Reese: Very interesting! Thanks!

I am trying to learn ASL and it is difficult for me not to sign in complete sentences (English sentence structure). It made me think that for a hearing impaired person, it must be equally as difficult to grasp standard English sentence structure.

I have lots of bi and trilingual co-workers and they've told me they think in the language they're speaking in (ie - English at work, Spanish/Chinese/Hebrew with family, etc) but they often dream in their first language. I always catch one co-worker counting under her breath in Spanish, haha.

english. which is why it's hard for me to keep up with Korean with lil' CB -- i have to quickly translate in my head!

i asked my dad this (he came to the states when he was 14), and he said it's a mix: he thinks in english, counts and does math in korean, but dreams in both languages. so interesting!

This probably isn't quite the same thing, but I have two aunts who grew up in NZ and moved to the US when they got married. They have serious american accents now, but they say when they dream or get angry they revert back to their kiwi accents.

I studied linguistics at college so I love this kind of stuff!

It depends what I'm thinking about... anything related to numbers I think in Chinese. Everything else is in English.

This is a fascinating thread. I wish I spoke another language fluently!