What language do you think and dream in?

Not sure of the figures (ha, pun! -- to come), but a Chinese friend once observed that no matter how fluent one might be in a foreign language, one always reverts to one's original language when needing to involve numbers aloud (e.g., doing mental sums).  


My mobile was given to me by a Chinese friend who was upgrading (and wanted me to be on call to help her with interpreting in emergencies), so my first acquaintance with the phone number was in Chinese.  Since then, whenever people ask me for my phone number, I'll say it in Chinese first (and convert it into English if the listener can't understand Chinese).  It's like a tune in my head.


I often ask people what language they dream in.  I think it's a sign of one's mastery of a foreign language if one starts thinking and dreaming in that language.  What happens when one's a polyglot, I wonder?  Multi-lingual thoughts and dreams?  I know that Singaporeans do that in their everyday life, mixing English, Chinese and Malay in the same sentence.  An ex-student, Philip, who's been relocated to Singapore, says he can barely understand what the locals say because of this element, for one thing.  Ordering a coffee is such a linguistic minefield that he ends up just taking whatever they give him, poor man (but it makes me chuckle, imagining his total bafflement just trying to get a coffee).

Language acquisition and language loss (Estonia, Sweden, Germany, UK)

Friend Lars’s aunt was born in Estonia, brought up in Sweden, then moved to Germany before finally settling in England.  

So, her language acquisition was in the order of: (1) Estonian; (2) Swedish; (3) German; (4) English.  

In her later years, as Alzheimer’s started to get a grip on her, she began to lose her English, so my friend had to converse with her in German.  

The next language to go was her German, which made my friend resort to using Swedish.  

In the end, my friend had to go and learn Estonian when her Swedish started to disappear as well.  

So the “last in, first out” principle applies not just to employment and redundancy, but to language loss as well.


Update 251111:  The penny's just dropped.  People say Alzheimer sufferers can remember things that happened way back but not what they did a few minutes ago.  This language loss case is the same pattern.


Update 041211:  I spoke my S.E.Chinese dialect of Teochew/Chaozhou/潮州 until the age of six when I then went to school and started acquiring higher level language usage (e.g., abstract concept vocabulary and expressions of ideas and thoughts) in English and Mandarin, so my level of dialect is something like that of a ten-year-old.  Should Alzheimer's hit me, will I end up with just my dialect (as that was the first language I acquired), and therefore communicating like a ten-year-old??  Eek.

A for Apple, B for ... (Japan)

I was in Tokyo the summer of 1993.  My practice — wherever I go and whenever possible — is to watch the local TV programmes, as it gives one a good indication of the local culture, say, their taste or sense of humour (e.g., through their entertainment programmes).

One such day-time entertainment programme was a general knowledge quiz with young (aged 20s) celebrities for participants.  There were three teams — each a pair of male/female combination.  The quiz master had four envelopes, marked A, B, C and D.

The quiz master approached the first pair, who chose envelope A.  It was opened, and the question inside was put to the pair, who gave their answer.

The quiz master approached the second pair, who chose envelope C.  It was opened, and the question inside was put to the pair, who gave their answer.

The quiz master then approached the third pair, with two envelopes left for them to choose from.  The male celebrity, speaking in Japanese, chose B, with B uttered in English.  Then he decided to embellish (or show off his English) by putting up two fingers in a Winston Churchill gesture and saying in English: “B for Bictory!”

(Tokyo, 1993)

American chivalry (USA)

A Singapore (Chinese) colleague at Conoco Singapore (Conoco Western Pacific to give it its proper name), Jimmy, was sent to our American office for a short training course.

On his first day lunching out with his American colleagues, he was happily tucking into his food when suddenly all his male colleagues stood up.  Jimmy looked up mid-fork to see a woman approaching their table.  It was the American code of behaviour for men which was (and still is) alien to Singapore men.  Jimmy was embarrassed about his (self-perceived) lack of manners, and determined to be more vigilant.

So vigilant was he thereafter that every time he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a woman approaching, he’d immediately stop eating and stand up, but his colleagues would carry on eating.  

It would turn out to be only a complete stranger passing by his table.  

Poor man never had a moment’s peaceful dining during the rest of his time there.  

Something to be said, then, for the supposed lack of chivalry among Singapore men?

(America, 1974/5)

Steve Jobs's last words

I know this is not a proper blog per se, but I've just read it on www.bangstyle.com and it's given me goose pimples, so I want to put it down somewhere before I forget:

QUOTE

“Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow” said Steven Paul Jobs on his final breaths just hours before his death on October 5th. This information was disclosed as part of the eulogy his sister, Mona Simpson delivered for his October 16 Memorial, and was published by the New York Times.

Simpson reports to the world that Steve died peacefully, surrounded by his family:

“Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

With all of the vast public reactions to the passing of Jobs, it should be of no surprise the amount of attention and questions these final words have posed worldwide. Known to be highly religious in the Buddhist faith, and also with Jobs once describing death as “very likely the single best invention of life”, it is all the more comprehensible how blissful his passing was. But does this mean that his final “oh wow’s” signify an entering into the afterlife?  Or was it perhaps just an enlightenment to the magnitude of death? Or maybe even an enlightenment of how beautiful life was?

UNQUOTE

My response to the person who posted this on his FB wall:

QUOTE Spooky. This is giving me goose pimples! I instantly thought (from this incomplete text of yours) he must've seen something. Then the full text on bangstyle.com says he looked past them [his family] over their shoulders. Definitely something to do with the other side. Spooky. UNQUOTE

The French way of dining (France)

To the Oriental diner in a Western setting, it’s often the fancy cutlery layout formation that throws them: the endless tiers of course-related cutlery hierarchy, which item of cutlery to use when and with which course.  My advice, as an interpreter to visiting Chinese delegations, has always been:  just watch what your hosts or fellow (Western) diners do, and follow suit.  Can’t go wrong.

Right, no problem there then when you’re ensconced in a French farm house.  After all, they have just a simple set-up of: knife on the right, fork on the left.  Simple not just in terms of what [tool] is for what [function], but also in terms of what to expect:  a one-course meal.  

WRONG.  

The courses keep coming and coming and coming.  Even an everyday family meal will easily have four courses, if not more: soup, meat, vegetables, salad, dessert.  Sometimes some meat-based (e.g., home-made pâté) course as well, after the soup and before the main meat course.  Because they are served in succession rather than together, you don’t see what’s coming next.  NOR HOW MANY MORE.  And there’s no hierarchical cutlery layout to give you a visual inkling.  

I still get caught out after visiting over a 16-year period.  

To me, a meat course is practically always the main course, so I’ll have a second helping when they do and when they offer it to me.  Then I discover that it’s only the hors-d’œuvre (starter), by which time I’ll have had a double helping of soup and a double helping of hors-d’œuvre.  And there are still the main meat course, the vegetables, the salad, and the dessert to come!  

And don’t forget, all of this — except for the dessert (unless it’s cheese) — is eaten with the ubiquitous and filling pain (bread).

(France 1996–present)

Falling asleep on the right bus at the wrong time (London)

The person whose lapse of attention to his black bag on his Tube journey inspired the blog entry “At the Lost Property Office” didn’t always travel on the Tube [London underground].  

The reason is the Tube stops running after midnight (12.30am from a Central London station), and the chap responsible for my Kafka-esque exchange at the Lost Property Office often found himself inveigled into late-night drinking and dining forays.  

More specifically: going to the pub late afternoon, staying until closing time (11pm), then going to some late-night drinking place (where eye-watering charges are levied on drinks, even non-alcoholic or small ones, as it’s the “drinking company” that they’re paying for, solicited or otherwise), and after that to Chinatown for some very-late-night chow.  

After such a bender, one had the choice of going home in a taxi (and perhaps rue one’s folly the next morning, on top of one’s hangover, as post-midnight surcharges are applicable on top of everything else).  

Or take the night bus — which was what our “At the Lost Property Office” blog protagonist owner-of-black-bag did.  More than once.

Just like Satoshi in the “Falling asleep on the wrong line at the wrong time” blog entry, Kieran would cave in to the sleep demon on the Plumstead-bound No.53 bus and wake up finding he’d missed his stop.  (Plumstead is on the way to Greenwich in south-east London.)

On one occasion, he woke up to find the bus had stopped moving altogether — it was sitting in the depot, the time was about 5.30am, and the cleaners were hosing it down, getting it ready for the new day’s journeys!  

Just as well it wasn’t a Scotland-bound bus.

(London late-1990s)

Blog At the Lost Property Office:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/10/at-lost-and-found-office.html 

Blog Falling asleep on the wrong line at the wrong time:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/10/falling-asleep-on-wrong-line-at-wrong.html