Whenever we hear a word from our native language for the first time, as soon as we discover its definition, not only does that definition stick in our mind, but whenever we hear the word uttered again, we instantly associate it with its intended meaning. Why, then, when we learn a foreign language, do we have much more difficulty in associating a foreign word with its definition whenever we hear it uttered by someone other than ourselves, even if the definition is stuck in our mind?

Furthermore, I have noticed that, for me at least, this difficulty varies depending on the foreign language under consideration. For obvious reasons, it is a lot less difficult to associate the word with its definition when the language is closer to your own. I can make the association with more ease in German than in French, for example. Well, I say “obvious reasons”, and it is obvious that making the association is harder in foreign languages, yet although it is obvious that this is the way things are, I don’t believe it is so obvious why this is the way things are.

I can understand the difficulty with understanding sentences, since sentence structures can vary greatly from what a person is used to in his own language. I figured that one possible explanation is very similar to the difficulty with sentence structures, namely, that unlike with foreign languages, we know the general forms of words in our native language and how to distinguish them from one another when he hear them uttered within a sentence. However, the difficulty here is with distinguishing words from one another, which is preliminary to, but not the same as, associating a word with its definition. Trying to distinguish words certainly may contribute to troubles making associations, but I doubt it explains the problem or contributes to the difficulty to any great degree.

So we are right back where we started. Say you are an Englishman learning French. You learn the definition of a French word in English, that is to say, the word’s definition is given in English, just like with any English words you learn. Yet when you hear the French word said, you don’t instantly associate it with its definition, like you do with English words, but have to think for a split-second beforehand or even struggle, depending on the foreign language. Does anyone have any clue why this is?

Err...cos you learned it the wrong way.

I mean, you learn your native language directly by seeing, listening and doing, but when you learn foreign language you relied on a string of translated text in your native language, so I think what happens in your brain is :

french words--->english ---> sense

while english can be directly translated into "sense" in your brain. No way to be sure...

Unless you can unlearn french, then relearn it directly like a french baby would via real world interaction rather than reading a book....Just my thought....

Make sense to you ??

french words--->english ---> sense

while english can be directly translated into "sense" in your brain. No way to be sure...

I already went over why I thought this explanation doesn't work.

You learn the definition of a French word in English, that is to say, the word’s definition is given in English, just like with any English words you learn. Yet when you hear the French word said, you don’t instantly associate it with its definition, like you do with English words, but have to think for a split-second beforehand or even struggle, depending on the foreign language.

I can't see any difference between an adult learning that "Dunkelheit" means "darkness" and an adult learning "blackness" or "dimness" means "darkness", and yet we struggle with the one but not the other. Personally, I'm leaning toward a psychological explanation: when we look up the definition of a new English word, we feel relaxed and confident, but when we try to learn a new language's vocabulary, we expect it to be difficult and expect ourselves to have difficulty remembering the definitions, that is to say, we set ourselves up to fail. Of course, I have nothing to back this up and wouldn't be surprised if it is completely wrong.

I don't exactly have a PhD in linguistics, but I suppose the explanation would be something like this...

When we hear a word we've never heard before and learn the definition in our native language, the definition is associated with heaps of memories and connections, and is thus retained quite well. If you're learning a word in another language, many of these memories and connections simply do not exist in your head in any language besides your native language. When learning vocabulary, it's essential to associate the words with your experiences and environment. This is much easier when the word happens to belong to your native language because you have so many associations with the subject the word pertains to or its synonyms.

Simple spelling and pronunciation play a role as well. When a word has a pronunciation and spelling that is quite simply foreign to you, it's a lot harder to make associations. I'll pull out a random word here, "Sozioökonomische" (socioeconomics). That word just doesn't look "normal" to an English speaker. It doesn't fall into any patterns of English vocabulary (well, similar structure), so once again, associations are hard to make unless you already have a large German vocabulary.

ed: I've basically rephrased what the Methemetician wrote, so I suppose the fact that you "already went over why this definition doesn't work" applies to me as well... but really, this is the best reason I could come up with. There's no simple answer to questions like these.

There's no simple answer to questions like these.

in fact there is. but you can´t answer this with linguistuics only. artificial intelligence has had some good approaches to explain languages. but if I explained it this way we had to make sure people who take place in the following discussion had some basic knowledge.

first aspect is, probability. let´s explain this with simple math of mathematical problems. there´s a much higher chance that you hear "2 times 2 is 4" than "435.992 + 31.3131". and there are many more aspects in life that this will get connected to. dishes, cars, couples on holiday, attacking jets etc etc.
but if you then learn a new word for this, different connections will occur. and not only that, there will be kind of a bottleneck.

second aspect is, what we call a habit, is a robust and stable system in our brain. whatever we learn, whatever we memorize, is because a perception got connected with emotions, positive or negative. to change this system we either have to have very strong emotions, or reasonable emotions with a higher occurrence. but even then, our sense for smelling is creating the strongest and long lasting memories, which you can´t change by words you hear. when you smell tasty apples you will always think in your mind "hmmmmm, appleeeeeeeees!".

oh and "Sozioökonomische" would probably be translated as "socioeconomical" ..

I'll go over your other point later when I have more time, but will address this first....

I can't see any difference between an adult learning that "Dunkelheit" means "darkness" and an adult learning "blackness" or "dimness" means "darkness", and yet we struggle with the one but not the other.

Which appear to me as "sense". An easier example would be the word :

"fuck you".

To a person growing up using english as native language, the word "fuck you", will instantly be translated as insult while a non english speaker, a chinese for example, would interpret it maybe as "intercourse you", first before thinking of the offensive implication.....or whatever translated word for fuck he came across the first time....

while an native english speaker would never think of "fuck you" in the sense of "intercourse/sexual intimacy you" at all. It's all about sense.....

make sense to you ???

Maybe because when learning a new language, you're not often learning words you don't already know. The linguistic connection to a concept is already formed. The concept-to-word connections are strongest in your native tongue, thus it takes a bit of thought to say, "No, not that word for apple, I want manzana."

This is even further exacerbated by the fact that the foreign words you learn are most likely part of the core vocabulary, vocabulary which has connections to concepts you use every day. The concept-to-native word connection is especially strong.

For example, I have no trouble remembering shadenfraud because it is the first word I learned connected to that specific concept, despite it being foreign.

Similarly, I have trouble remembering english words that I don't use often, because the connections just aren't as strong.

As to why its easier to form connections to german and french words, its probably because english uses a dickload of german and french-derived words already, not to mention the obscene number of cognates.

I have no trouble remembering shadenfraud

*schadenfreude

Apparently not :D.

Sorry... just felt like being a dick. Anyway...

I like PirateJoe's explanation.

*schadenfreude

Apparently not :D.

Sorry... just felt like being a dick. Anyway...

I knew something didn't look quite right. But apparently enough people on the internet made the same mistake so as not to correct me when I googled the spelling.

But apparently enough people on the internet made the same mistake so as not to correct me when I googled the spelling.

"2 Nov 2006 ... Although “shadenfraud” has a certain ring to it, it’s “schadenfreude”. "

this is the first entry on google :rolleyes:

OP: I think your initial observation is somewhat incorrect. I often have to look up words to fully understand textbooks and such, and I'd say that it is just as easy or difficult as learning a new word in Russian. To learn a new Russian word, I need to see it in context, understand it's meaning, and then see it repeated before it becomes part of my active memory. It's the same story with new, unusual English words. If a new English word does "instantly" become part of your active memory once you look it up, I think it's probably because you've already been exposed to it quite a bit. Recently, for instance, I took the time to look up "dichotomous". I had already seen and heard it in many different contexts, so the meaning stayed with me effortlessly. Later, I looked up "nosology", and since I hadn't had much exposure, it's meaning is still not quickly accessible in my mind.

---
To Methematician:
Not a bad hypothesis, though your assumption that everyone learns languages such that they have to translate back to their native language is inappropriately broad. Many language learners do have a tendency to translate, but they don't translate everything and the tendency diminishes with time and practice.

"2 Nov 2006 ... Although “shadenfraud” has a certain ring to it, it’s “schadenfreude”. "

this is the first entry on google :rolleyes:

You're so much better than me.

Why, then, when we learn a foreign language, do we have much more difficulty in associating a foreign word with its definition whenever we hear it uttered by someone other than ourselves, even if the definition is stuck in our mind?

I don't think it applies to everybody. Take me for example, I don't really experience the same thing with English.

most retarded question ever.

'A gunshot sound the same in all languages bitch!'-stewie

most retarded question ever.

'A gunshot sound the same in all languages bitch!'-stewie

have you asked a black man yet ??

most retarded question ever.

'A gunshot sound the same in all languages bitch!'-stewie

Onomatopoeia, interestingly enough, can differ considerably from language to language.

So no, a gunshot won't sound the same in all languages.

Onomatopoeia, interestingly enough, can differ considerably from language to language.

So no, a gunshot won't sound the same in all languages.

Interesting. How so? I mean...different languages express sounds in different ways, but does that mean they actually hear it differently based on their language system?

Interesting. How so? I mean...different languages express sounds in different ways, but does that mean they actually hear it differently based on their language system?

I don't know if it's a result of the varying sounds of language, or varying perceptions of the speakers, but...

So interesting! Coincidentally, the other night we were having a discussion about geographical onomatopoeia and gunshots -- my husband demonstrated the Chinese version of "pow," the sound of a gun going off. What he said sounded to me like "kyoong." He just told me they also use "tah" for the same thing.

"what does a dog say?". The best thing about this is that their responses are only occasionally "woof woof". Russian dogs say "guff guff", Japanese dogs say "wua wua",

http://cogsigh.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-does-dog-say.html

Also, applying letters to sounds that aren't actually words seems to be inherently arbitrary.

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/10/some-onomatopoeia.html

http://www.flat33.com/bzzzpeek/html/bzzzpeek.html

this is really funny, maybe I should even post it in the language ressource thread. but some of them seem to be wrong to me ..

I don't know if it's a result of the varying sounds of language, or varying perceptions of the speakers, but...





http://cogsigh.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-does-dog-say.html

Also, applying letters to sounds that aren't actually words seems to be inherently arbitrary.

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/10/some-onomatopoeia.html

Actually I think that this is due to the constraints of what sounds are available to a certain language. I don't really think it's because they hear differently.

For example, in English, the sound of a horse running is "clop". You can pronounce it to a non-English speaking person and he/she will probably recognise it for what it is (assuming they know what a horse sounds like). However they will never say it in their language because there is no word with such a pronunciation in their language. For example, Japanese. They have vowels only and no standalone consonants and therefore, they can't really pronounce that "p" sound at the end of "clop".

You are associating foreign words to native ones not to definitions.
Foreign --> Native:(definition)