Dreaming and Language
March 10th, 2009 | View Comments
It’s three o’clock in the morning–at least it is in my time zone–and I’m posting here at Chipanglish after a bad dream.
Actually, since we’re all about language here, that’s not very accurate. To be more precise, there was nothing bad about the dream per se. It’s more that I dreamt in German, and that is considerably disconcerting to me once I wake up.
(Because this is the Internet, let’s get something out of the way here. I am not saying that German is a bad language, that I dislike German, that people who dream in German are bad and/or disconcerting, or some combination thereof. I like German a lot, and wouldn’t have voluntarily studied it–after I’d already fulfilled my foreign language requirement–if I didn’t. Okay?)
As you might have guessed, I don’t dream in German particularly often. For that matter, I don’t use my German particularly often, either. Out of the four languages I claim some degree of competence in, it is the one I feel the least comfortable with. I’ll occasionally write an email in it, or listen to a podcast in it; every once in a while, I’ll read an untranslated article in Der Spiegel. But a completely German conversation, without some code switching into English? I can maybe recall five or six, in as many years since learning the language.
That’s not to say my German is bad, or that I couldn’t manage if I were mysteriously transported to Berlin one day. But it’s the language I personally find most stressful: unlike Spanish, I never got to the point where I could think in German when I’m using it. There’s a lot of mental translating going on, and it feels like I can’t keep up.
Thus, it’s always a little freaky to me when my subconscious does this. Possibly I know more of the language than I give myself credit for. But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to fluent, fully formulated German emerging from my brain.
Especially not at three in the morning.
Elenita posted this on March 10th, 2009 @ 1:37am in German, Language Psychology, Multilingualism | Permalink to "Dreaming and Language"
American-born Taiwanese girl who married a Japanese guy. And who forgot about six years' of Spanish grammar and most of the vocab.
E-mail Yvonne
nerissa
celiviel
yvonnekao
Korean-American girl who blogs under a Spanish pseudonym because being culturally confusing is fun. Native speakers say that she has outstanding Spanish (which is a definite compliment) and outstanding German (which is most assuredly not).
Elenita
American-born, Taiwanese guy who took five semesters worth of German and ended up with a major in Linguistics.
Subscribe
Find’ ich gut!
Danke, Max. Und willkommen zu Chipanglish!
One time I dreamed in German AND Spanish in the same dream, and I didn’t even know German at the time, so I don’t know what I was speaking…but it was cool.
I think I recently dreamed in another language, but there’s so many possibilities that I’ve actually forgotten which one it was. Probably French (which is the language that is for me like your German…)
Sweet dreams,
Kevin
I’ve sometimes had dreams where I conversed fluently in Latin. But I always know at that time that it is Latin. And oddly, I’m usually aware that I don’t actually speak / read Latin in real life, but that fact doesn’t seem particularly relevant.
I sometimes wonder about inflated language ability in dreams. But if I can’t even have that in my dreams, my life is just way too sad.