Allegra
In what language does the knowledge, information and thoughts stored in mind I was born and raised in Shanghai, and am still living there now. Before I was sent to the kindergarten at 3, I’m quite sure that my parents only spoke Shanghai dialect with each other and to me at home. After that, until the time I finished high school, I used to use Mandarin in school but Shanghai dialect out of it. During the college period, I lived in the campus and communicated with professors and schoolmates in Mandarin almost all the time. But later in my workplace, which is kind of a local one, although most of the time we use Mandarin (like 80% of the time), sometimes we have to use Shanghai dialect even in a business meeting, talking about very professional topics. At those times I find myself hardly can express some abstract and formal and professional words in Shanghai dialect, which is not so surprising because those were taught in Mandarin back the school days. But then I find that when I am thinking freely, my thoughts are in Mandarin rather than Shanghai dialect….. Say once I traveled abroad, in all English environment, I don’t quite remember in what language I was thinking at that time, but I coped with it alright, I understood what people were saying, and I didn’t need to think for a long time before I could respond, Surprisingly, when I came back from the trip and I thought back, all the guide books I’ve read, all the words I’ve listened to and said all suddenly turned into Mandarin. So…everything turns into Mandarin….maybe I should use Shanghai dialect more often and type with its input method if there is any. And I wonder, if using a second language frequently enough, can one think in this language? In that case, would a person forget how to think in bad condition? (This question is out of this…one day I met with two of my English-speaking friends, I was so hungry that I found I could hardly understand what they were talking….but after having a pizza, I joined them alright….)
Jul 12, 2014 3:48 PM
Corrections · 1
Hello..It's nice to meet you..How's it going? I am Rajesh and I am from India.
July 12, 2014
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