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Old August 27, 2011, 01:07 PM
Don José Don José is offline
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Hi,
I used to dream in English when I had to read a lot of English stuff(?) at work, not to mention the time I spent in Australia, where hardly do you come across any Spanish native speaker.

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Originally Posted by Rusty View Post
A lot of people believe that when you dream in a foreign language you have 'arrived'. I tend to agree.
I would say that you 'are arriving'. I mean that you will keep on making your 'favorites' mistakes in your dreams, as well as in your daily life. In my case, even though being able to dream in English, neither could pass an English exam (upper-intermediate) nor write whitout mistakes. Therefore, I think that you have to go on studying - forever, if you are really a language major.

Last edited by Don José; August 27, 2011 at 01:10 PM.
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  #12  
Old August 27, 2011, 01:18 PM
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chileno chileno is offline
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Originally Posted by caliber1 View Post
That's funny. My wife told me that I woke her up last night taking about verb conjugations in my sleep. I'm obsessed!!!
Not obsessed, but focused.


Just tell your wife beautiful things in Spanish, and she'll love it!

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  #13  
Old August 27, 2011, 01:58 PM
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aleCcowaN aleCcowaN is offline
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It's hard to say. Nobody dreams in other language than Mentalese. Your dreams may contain language-like themes, and certainly while the dreams are being edited some additions are made in an oral language.

Elements of English -an sometimes other languages- are being in my dreams since long ago, mainly as day residues (Tagenreste, restos diurnos). Also the pretty puerile sueños de realización of being speaking English fluently and effortlessly -but the English content of it is really poor, as the standards are lowered to allow the realización-.

But what gets my attention the most is how the difficulties of learning another language slip in our dream. When you are learning another language you are bounded to say what you can instead of what you want. Managing such kind of frustrations is what dreams are for, so many language themes should be in them frequently. Also, one friend of mine said that one has a different voice while speaking other language: the set of limited knowledge, different approach and use of intellectual abilities and the different social historical experience the foreign language has boiled down to, all of it has the power to modify your behaviour and makes that you produce like a slightly different you -sometimes not so slightly-. For instance, to me English is shouting all the time and I hardly can lay out a sentence without tuning up the volume in my mind, so my English personality is more aggressive and defensive than the real one. That is also a good point of learning a language: the exploration of the self, a point those who have a knack to languages often lose.

Another point is swearing in the new language. Everybody I know tend to swear in the new language because it doesn't have much of the affective load of cursing in our native language. I'll consider I've learned English not the day that I dream in quadraphonic sensurround but the day that I can curse in English with all the affection that it implies. Some people told me long time ago that being in a restaurant in Stockholm or Oslo, the waiter, as he eavesdropped them speaking in Spanish and bitching about something, he said "¡Putea! ¡Putea, por favor! ¿¡Cómo se puede vivir sin putear!?". He certainly longed it.
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  #14  
Old August 27, 2011, 02:58 PM
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I think I need to watch inception in Spanish : )
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  #15  
Old August 27, 2011, 06:08 PM
Luna Azul Luna Azul is offline
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I dream in Spanish, in English and sometimes in French even though I've forgotten a lot of it.. Actually, in my dreams I seem to remember French words I thought forgotten.. Go figure..

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  #16  
Old August 27, 2011, 07:30 PM
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See, that's what I was wondering. The amount of Spanish vocabulary I've learned, I know I've forgotten some words. I wonder if I will soon subconsciously think of them.
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  #17  
Old August 28, 2011, 12:35 AM
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@caliber1: I think so. I often realize that the Spanish in my dreams incorporates idioms and vocabulary that I would not normally recall on the spur of the moment. Everything we learn is retrievable, even if only subconsciously.
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  #18  
Old August 28, 2011, 07:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by caliber1 View Post
See, that's what I was wondering. The amount of Spanish vocabulary I've learned, I know I've forgotten some words. I wonder if I will soon subconsciously think of them.
I agree with Rusty: I think so.

It's too long since I was a beginnig student for me to remember whether my dreams included remembering Spanish words while I was taking my high-school class. However, I remember dreams that included Spanish while I was in Central America for 10 weeks as an exchange student during the summer of 1976. And on the return flight, while trying to talk with my fellow exchange students, we discovered that certain "automatic" responses were coming out in Spanish rather than in English: (typical scenario: Jill: "Hey, Jack! [mumble]" Jack: "¿Cómo?"/"¿Qué dices?"
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Old August 28, 2011, 11:09 AM
Luna Azul Luna Azul is offline
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Originally Posted by wrholt View Post
And on the return flight, while trying to talk with my fellow exchange students, we discovered that certain "automatic" responses were coming out in Spanish rather than in English: (typical scenario: Jill: "Hey, Jack! [mumble]" Jack: "¿Cómo?"/"¿Qué dices?"
This is absolutely true. It happens more often than not. It happens to me when I go to Colombia, very frequently I reply in English without noticing. I feel embarrassed because people may think I'm showing off.. It's totally subconscious..

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  #20  
Old August 28, 2011, 12:13 PM
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Originally Posted by Luna Azul View Post
This is absolutely true. It happens more often than not. It happens to me when I go to Colombia, very frequently I reply in English without noticing. I feel embarrassed because people may think I'm showing off.. It's totally subconscious..

The worst is when I'm in a context where some people speak only Engish, some people speak only Spanish, and I'm one of the few who can interpret between the two camps, such as on a couple of trips to El Salvador with my mom to visit her friends. Every now and again I would say something to my mom, she would look at me blankly, and I would realize that I had left my language switch set to Spanish....
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