First one ought to have a command of one’s own language.

A person should learn his own language completely.

The language experts and psychologists say:

- "A person can solely think in his/her own language, can dream in his/her  own language and can be happy in his/her own language.”

Well, there must  still be some envious monolingual psychologists and linguists around...

Francis Bacon regarded linguistics as a respectable way of wasting time. Did you know that there is not a single definition of language upon which all authorities agree.

Since language probably includes everything ever conceived or uttered by humans, it is virtually impossible to accurately characterize it. All  thoughts, intentions, desires and  feelings are conveyed by it. It is impossible for one to master all of the aforementioned in a lifetime.  Therefore, there is no such thing like being able to learn one´s language completely.

Language both sets the limits of human thought and serves a means for its expansion. Even the most prominent poets, writers or linguists  can only claim to have reached the bleeding edge of it.  Because thanks to their collective efforts, the scope of language is continually  expanding.

My teacher says :

- " You   cannot   think   in   a   foreign   language...You   can   solely   think   in   your   native   language... You   can   think,   but  in   your    own   language    only... You   cannot   think,   love   and   dream   in   a   foreign   language,  

but   in   your   own   language   only..."

"If you say to somebody, for example,  "I love you",  this is not a sincere, fair and honest, but  affected expression/emotion"

do you take what others say for granted?

 change the teacher and start thinking for yourself,it is the sign of maturity

scientific facts  only...it is a scientific fact...

Sorry, Yilgun, but I disagree. It is possible to dream or think in a foreign language. And I don´t quite get what your teacher meant by "being able to love in one´s native language only"

There are many things allegedly impossible to be done in y/our second language. For example, they say you´d use your native language for calculations. The correct word here must be "prefer".  Similarly, you could dream in another language. The amount of the foreign language conversation you get involved in during a dream on the other hand will be more or less the same as your daily use of that language.

Regarding your inner thoughts, you could technically use your second or third language here without any problems. Your native language will be silently filling in any missing words or syntactic rules with the help of your imagination.

Love can be felt for anyone regardless of what language he/she speaks. We often see people try to learn their lovers´ native language. The need for communicating with tyour sweetheart provides you with one of the strongest motives to learn a language. If your lover is Dutch, you would learn to say Ik hou van jou or if she is Finnish that would be Mina rakkastan sinua and believe me you will soon be able say it with befitting intonation, enthusiasm and your lover will love your pronunciation.  Love rarely happens in lifetime and when it happens it knows no boundaries, neither lingual nor cultural.

Thank you.

But some language experts and psychologists say it is impossible…

They say  :

- “People cannot  think and dream in a foreign language, but their own language only.”

- “People cannot like / love in a foreign language.”

This is their opinion. A thesis.

It is a psychological  complicated matter…

They said so in a symposium in Ankara…

I cannot find a scientific research or study on this topic.

And thus not necessarily a fact

It is difficult to provide measurable and incontestable means for testing language acquisition, or to establish how close you are to learning your native language completely as language is a living organism undergoing constant change.

Joseph Conrad-Heart of Darkness-author was a Pole who wrote in English.He is recognised writer ,compared to Rudyard Kipling,achiving mastership with using symbolism and lush metaphors.

He loved,wrote and thought in a foreign language..paradox????

That is a curious story. Conrad was a captain who as far as I know, traveled extensively. Some claim he never spoke a word of English until after he was 40-42. Some say, he got exposed to English at a young age. There are also those who claim his wife who was British helped him with at least with the proof reading of his texts.  Who knows, maybe Joseph Conrad was merely a nom de plume for for his wife at a time when women stayed away from writing either for avoiding social reaction or for the fear of not being taken seriously.

Vladimir Nabokov,samuel Beckett,Aleksandar Hermon,Kammala Surraya,Milan Kundera,Atiq Rahimi,Eduardo Manet,Jonathan Littel,Brina Svit,Czesław Miłosz,Mustafa Cellaledin Pasha,and many others...well they all wrote in foreign languages or translated themselves their books to French,Spanish or English.

I bet you hear some of the names for the first time..I strongly recommend you Yilgun to read them

 he got married in 1896,how would you explain Almayer´s folly from 1889 written in English?

I am not a Conrad expert.  Nevertheless, I do not (my apastrophe key is not working) believe in miracles.

There must be an explanation to how Conrad -a Polish citizien- could become one of the most intricate writers in English literature after having learned English at a senior age.

Could it be that Conrad and his wife had spent some years together before marriage? If that is not the case maybe he had an appetite for young British girls who would help him with his texts.  Did he write the texts completely on his own, LIR would probably find quite a few mistakes at the very least

Maybe the Polish members on this forum know something about his background.

I think it is so hard to find a good and experienced translator / interpreter in a foreign language... especially  from English to Turkish and from Turkish to English.Translation is a hard way.It requires high level labour.Must be at least 15 years experience...

I totally agree! I think learning a foreign language is so much easier if you know your own language very well and are able to command your own language!

I don´t agree with that at all! When I was taking German my teacher told me that when I started thinking in German, then I had grasped it. I thought this would never happen but then one day I was cooking in the kitchen and I began thinking the ingredients in German! After that the language became easier and easier! I don´t know about dreaming...don´t know what language I´m speaking in my dreams

Native language and foreign language

A person can solely think, love and dream in your own  native language.

Newborns even cry in their native language.

First one ought to have a command of one’s own language.

A person should learn his/her own language completely.

You   cannot   think,   love   and   dream   in   a   foreign 

language.

You never learn a foreign language completely in your life. It is impossible.

 Actually this is not true.  Living in the "multi cultural UK" I know of many people who moved to the UK from non-English speaking countries who now consider English to be their first language and think and dream in English.  I wonder where you got that idea from?

Because they dont know their own native languages.

They have begun to learn a native language as a new citizen.

I think most of them were knowing street language only. 

 Your comment seems rather derogatory - some of the immigrants I am talking about are lawyers, doctors etc. NOT poor kids with "street language"!!!

When I learned German, I didn´t learn "street language" (there are a million dialects in Germany) ... I learned the proper Grammar in school! It did, however, help alot that I was an English major in College and do know my own language very well.

Last week I met a Turkish girl at ODTÜ in Ankara who was born and raised in the Netherlands and moved back to Turkey when she was 17. When she started speaking in Dutch to me, I realized I preferred to answer in Turkish and did so. Impossible? I may not dream flawless, but I definitely dream in fluent Turkish!

Apperantly Angelina Jolie has never dropped in your dreams I can easily speak english in my dreams. what your teacher says is absolutely wrong.

Actually, when I first started dreaming in Turkish, I didn´t speak much Turkish yet because I was too shy. However, the Turkish I spoke in my dreams was much more fluent than in real life since there were no inhibitions holding me back from speaking freely what I knew in the back of my mind.

Why do you believe one cannot dream in any language but its native one?

There´s enough practical proof that it´s simply not true that you can only dream or think in your native language. I´m a native Dutchy but I also dream and think in English. It´s sometimes hard to make the switch. When I spend a long time talking in English, I´m still thinking in English when I start a Dutch conversation and it all comes out weird

we can think in other languages if we was studying it when we are childern in my country we was learning English in age of 3 like our native language .

so we can think and dream in English like our native language

I didn´t take German until I was in High School, then in college I took German as a second language for my English Degree and even with that small amount of German,  I feel like I think in German just as well as I speak it...I don´t see the problem.

Well, that is one school of thought. There is the language that has no boundries....all thoughts are complete, later they are given words.

Language is not only words, it is body language, facial expression, tone of voice. Words can actually confuse matters or clarify them. Too often they are used to cloud the issues. We have seen how lawyers can use words?

I really don´t think all dreams actually use words....

To be bound by only one language is sad indeed.  Learning new languages expands our being. When we have the words to express our thoughts and feelings with more precision it helps actualize things.

Very well put!!

I don´t feel like I ever had a "native" language!  We spoke 2 languages in my house and when I started going to school, I used a totally different language!   I guess that means I have silent dreams (like old silent movies) and that I am incapable of thinking!    

Quote:Elisabeth

I don´t feel like I ever had a "native" language!  We spoke 2 languages in my house and when I started going to school, I used a totally different language!   I guess that means I have silent dreams (like old silent movies) and that I am incapable of thinking!   

Wow...that´s so awesome to have grown up with 2 languages and then in school learn a 3rd one! You are so lucky! I love languages and so wish I had more time to learn. But to grow up learning them from childhood...that´s just too cool!! Actually, you probably carry on quite a conversation in your dreams...in several different languages!! So smile , this is WAY COOL!!

couldn´t agree more with this...!!!

How many languages are there in the world?

How many languages are spoken in the world?

The Language Families of the world:

The Indo-European Family,  The Uralic-Yukaghir Family,  The Altaic Family,  The Sino-Tibetan Family,  The Amerind Family (North America),  The Amerind Family (South America) , The Indo-Pacific and Australian Families,  The Na-Dene Family, The Eskimo-Aleut Family,  The Indo-Pacific and Australian Families ,etc

According to the world media, these languages are the most important languages in the world today:
1- CHINESE –MANDARIN CHINESE
2- ENGLISH
3- SPANISH

All languages are the richness of the World.

I have a feeling of deja vu

 all the language are important if you have agood language pakage you can work and travel in

every were not english ,spanish and chines are the important  all the languages

I don´t understand what you mean in the second part of your sentence.  ´you can work and travel everywhere if you have a good language package´ - ok - but do you mean ´English, Spanish and Chinese are not important´ or ´English is not important and Spanish and Chinese are´?

I guess she tries to say there not only English, Spanish and Chinese are important but all languages. But i really think nifrtity needs a spelling revolution in all languages she knew or maybe a new keyboard.

 I have been known to dream in French and I am a long way from fluent!

 And of course there is the language of love which appears to have been missed from above and possibly one of the most important, especially if you speak only the one language and it happens to be very different from the language the person on the othe side of the bed speaks

A poem from B.R.E.:

“You need to know at least three languages

One your mother tongue

As sweet as mother´s milk

As free as mother´s milk

The other ones unfamiliar like a rooster in a hen house.”

One who knows three languages is an intellectual, well-educated, cultured and respected.

According to a Turkish proverb:

“One language is one person,”

“Two languages are two persons,”

“Three languages are three persons.”

But the language experts and psychologists say:

- "A person can solely think in their own language, can dream in their own language and can be happy in their own language,” 

- “A person cannot think in  a foreign language,”

- “A person cannot love in a foreign language,”

- “A person cannot become happy in a foreign language,”

- “A person cannot dream in a foreign language.”

- “Because a native language is just like an organism, like your ears, your eyes,  your  tongue.  your heart.”

 - “ But a person of course can speak, read, write, educate, study, learn, teach, define, tell, explain, analyze, understand, translate, work and make success in a foreign language.”

Agreeable.

Previous posters seem to disagree with the experts though, don´t they?!  

Can you tell us who B.R.E. is please? - Well, me I should say, maybe everyone else knows who he/she is.

 I do

Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu-The title of a poem is Üc Dil but the part Yigun provided is out of context and does not fit to prove his theories

You need to know at least three languages
At least in three languages
You need to swear like a sailor
You need to know at least three languages
In at least three languages you need to dream and think
At least three languages
 The whole poem is here at TLC in the Turkish poetry section

http://www.turkishclass.com/poem_192

I disagree with BRE´s  thesis on that point.

 Happy to hear you disagree.Nevertheless,it is not a thesis-it is a poem and BRE is not a scholar but a poet,two diferrent things.

What about autistic kids and their language?All Applied linguistic?How can you speak in foreign lg without thinking???I have the feeling I am wasting my time disagreeing with you.

Anyway all you stick to is contradictory in terms of using the language,symantics,syntax,etc...sounds all ECHOLALIA to me.I would really appreciate your providing the names of  recognised linguists or psychologists to support your post intellectualy and again-don´t treat it personally,I am not picking on you I am trying to show you that you try to abolish most of linguistic theories!

I want to hear finally something that comes from your mouth not mouth of others,and creative not repetitive one

thank you!

Yes : BRE is a Turkish poet and it is his poem.

And it is his opinion.

I am not a linquist. And I do not know three languages.

Anyway, I can analyze this point with my

researcher friends.

But you are right because of you are a teacher and you know three languages.

In my opinion a person can solely think, dream and love in her/his own language as a biological organism.

I agree on this thesis:

“You need to know at least three languages

One your mother tongue

As sweet as mother´s milk

As free as mother´s milk”

Sağol - a rather more informative answer than ´B.R.E. is BRE´  

 Got confused now as all is echolalia for me,repetitive tones that prove your lack of knowledge but at least confirm your stubborness or better to say your obstinate way to make others think all you say is right.Thank you for providing your opinion and let me disagree with it.I wish you more experience on your lfe path,even with expressing your love in a foreign lg,then perhaps you will change your views  or at least admit there are other options.But please..more sensitivity to poetry..don´t kill it with reasonable attitude..with it it will stop being poetry but a prose..perhaps engineeric one..

 Are these the same friends who were going to be judging the "TC Person of the Year"?

We analyzed this point with my researcher  friends.

Conclusion:

“ Bir insan, bir yabancı dili, eğer kendi ana dili gibi öğrenebilmişse, o zaman o yabancı dilde de düşünebilir.

Fakat, böyle bir insan bulmak çok zordur.

Bu, okyanusun dibinde inci aramaya benzer. “

Not: Bu sonucu, bir çevirmen arkadaş, İngilizceye çevirirse çok memnun oluruz.

Buyrun!  Benim çalışmam.

It is a very nice translation  -  Çok güzel bir tercüme

We thank LİR very much  -  LİR´ e  çok teşekkür ederiz

 bu durumda ben bir inciyim ama hala senle aynı fikirde değilim,benim kardeşim

 yes that is what ineed to say butthe fast make  my spelling not accurated

I am just curios about whether I could make love in a second language. Has any lady/gentlgirl share such curiosity as well? 

The language experts and psychologists say:

- "A person can solely think in their own language, can dream in their own language,”

- “A person cannot think in  a foreign language,”

-“There is no perfect translator and interpreter”.

What do you think?