Comments | linguaphiles: Dreaming in foreign languages?

zireael07 in linguaphiles

Dreaming in foreign languages?

Nov 06, 2011 11:29

Some time ago, I googled, trying to find stuff about dreaming in foreign languages. The point was, that I started dreaming in Spanish very soon after I started learning it - and I have heard people start dreaming/thinking in a different language when they are at a near-native level ( Read more... )

life, language acquisition, linguaphile-ness, learning languages, personal

Comments 27

barush November 6 2011, 10:56:11 UTC

I dream in English a lot, although I'm nowhere near fluent. I tend to remember my dreams pretty well, so sometimes I realize my dream self used some English word I know only passively and would never use in RL. As for grammar, I've never had a feeling it was incorrect in one of my dreams. Then again, it is my subconscious, so I guess I wouldn't really know anyways, since it all makes sense to me = )

72stroopwafels November 6 2011, 10:57:31 UTC

I find this subject quite fascinating! From my experience, dreaming in a particular language isn't a sign of fluency. I dreamt in Spanish soon after I'd started learning it, but I never achieved a high level of fluency in the language. I've also dreamt in Welsh, which I don't speak at all, bar a few isolated words and phrases, so I was in the weird position of not understanding my own dreams. However, I'm fluent in German, and had been learning it for 7 years before I finally started dreaming in German. The thing that caused the change was the fact that I'd moved to Germany and was using the language as my main language, more than my native language (English). After that, all my dreams were in German for the time I was living there. But then I moved to Amsterdam. For a few weeks, my dreams were still in German, and then they switched to a mixture of English and Dutch. And a mixture of English and Dutch was what I was using in my everyday life!

kukalaka November 6 2011, 11:06:19 UTC

I'm German, but have been living in the Netherlads for more than 4 years. Most of the time I can't remember my dreams, but if I remember it's been in Dutch.
But sometimes I dream about people from my past (family and friends) and then it's in German..

aim_of_destiny November 6 2011, 11:27:04 UTC

I dream either in German (native language) or in English (near-native fluency). It mostly depends on what language I've been reading/speaking/writing/listening to most before bed. I started occasionally dreaming in English when I first picked up the Harry Potter books (in English, obviously). I wasn't very fluent, but I could read the books without huge problems.

Looking at all that, I think it might be about immersion in the language, rather than fluency. If it's on your mind a lot, you might dream in it. (Also, I don't think the brain actively distinguishes between natlangs and conlangs... ;))

wondercheekin November 6 2011, 11:54:23 UTC

I've had such random experiences with dreaming in other languages and having other languages be spoken in my dreams. I've had dreams entirely in quite a few of my languages, even though I'm only fluent in English and Finnish. However, what I really think is interesting is that I regularly have a character in my dream who speaks a language I've NEVER learned! But somehow in my dream I still understand them perfectly well. I have no basis in the real world to be understanding those languages, like Portuguese and Japanese, but in my dreams I understand ( ... )