What language do you think in?

“Et alors ? Tu penses en quelle langue ?”

This is one of the questions I get asked a lot. “Since you're bilingual, what language do you think in?” (I like to contest the “bilingual” assertion, since I reserve the word bilingual for people born with two languages who don't have an accent, and prefer the word “fluent” for those foreigners like me who have simply become adept in their second language. But the French of my acquaintance are less linguistically picky, and tell me to stop being silly.)

Up until now, my response would've been: “Well, in English, obviously. But I don't translate from English into French when I'm speaking to you.”

Recently I've discovered that this is not true. I wake up from dreams in vivid Frenglish. I catch myself thinking in Frenglish. I rarely think in pure English or in pure French, but a sort of mix of the two.

One caveat: as anyone who has ever read The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker (which I think of as Linguistics 101) would know, we don't actually think in language. We think in what he likes to call Mentalese, which makes perfect sense if you realize that sometimes you have a concept in your head but can't think of the right words to explain it, even in your mother tongue. Being at a loss for words is only sometimes not knowing what to say, and other times it's not knowing how to say it. And I think that a lot of the time, the thoughts in our heads are in pure Mentalese that we don't bother translating into English. Sometimes we do think in English sentences, especially if we're thinking in a check-list fashion, or trying to lay things out very clearly, or rehearsing conversations in our heads. For example, “Okay, laundry, then homework, then shower and sleep.” Or “I don't know how I feel! Billy is being mean to me, but I still want to be his friend, and Jennifer only wants to be my friend if I stop hanging out with Billy, but I don't like Jennifer as much!” Or “Mom, I have some news for you... But let's just keep in mind that report cards are not the only thing in life, and it's not the end of the world, okay?” So my instances in Frenglish are mostly this sort of thing: everyday checklisting in my head or the other types of things that we think in actual English and not in Mentalese.

This morning I realized that the bathroom window was open, so I should close the bathroom door if I didn't want it to bang shut in the wind later and scare me. (Yes, this happens all the time.) And I caught myself thinking “Gotta close the porte, sinon ça va slammer.” Slammer is not a verb in French. French for “slam the door” is “claquer la porte.” So what is interesting about this sentence is threefold:

1. Porte (French for door) came more easily to mind than “door,”
2. I started in semi-English and finished in semi-French (although it happens just as often the other way around)
3. I invented a verb à la française, turning English “slam” into “slammer,” conjugated into near future “va slammer.”

In math class, I'm likely to be thinking in French because I was just listening to the teacher and my classmates in French, but as soon as I start counting I have to switch. “La somme de toutes ces probabilités doit être égale à un, donc un demi... I mean one half, plus one fourth, plus one eighth.. the last option must be one eighth, c'est un huitième.” Which, all in English, goes “The sum of all these probabilities (possibilities) must be one, so one half... I mean one half, plus one fourth, plus one eighth.. the last option must be one eighth, that's one eighth.” By the way, here's a really good explanation for why math in French is hard, although I believe most people have trouble doing math in their second language. My English teacher (who speaks very good English for a French person), says that she can't do math in English, either.

There are also certain words that don't really translate, or are just better in one language than another. For example, I use the word “awkward” in English a lot, as many teenagers do. We use it to describe an uncomfortable situation in which we did not act appropriately. I explained this word to my French friends using the example of asking a lady when the baby is due and having her inform you that she is not actually pregnant. This has never happened to me, but it's the quintessential awkward situation. In French you can say that something is “embarrassant” (embarrassing), but it's really not the same. Especially if you want to say “I'm a really awkward person... I always say the wrong things in social situations, and I never know how to act around other people.” I wouldn't know how to translate that into French. Maybe they just don't have any awkward people.

In French, I really like the word “chiant,” for which Wordreference.com suggests “a pain” or “a bloody pain”. It manages to express at the same time something being boring, annoying, and unpleasant, in a slightly vulgar way. “C'est chiant” sort of takes the place of “that sucks,” but is slightly stronger and less immature-sounding. I have a feeling in the US I'll still be inserting “Mais nooon, c'est trop chiant ça !” into my sentences.

Sometimes there are just words that are more specific in one language than another. French, for example, has one word “culpabiliser” for “to make someone feel guilty.” They have a word “pisteur” for the ski patrol, which signifies both their capacity as slope maintenance and as first aid workers. In English we have awkward and creepy and all sorts of other words that don't translate. So in whatever language I'm thinking in, I'll often use words specific to the other language mixed into my sentences.

Sometimes I invent words that are either very rare or don't exist at all. I do this a lot on Skype with my mom. The other day I said something was “exigent,” which made her laugh because that is a real English word that means challenging, difficult, or picky, but is not a word you hear every day. In French it's “exigeant” and is much more common. I also invented “emission,” which is English for something being discharged or emitted, e.g. an electron emission, when what I meant to say was “episode” (of a TV show), which is “émission” in French.

Sometimes I hate speaking French. I hate my accent, which I can hear but am incapable of eliminating. I hate not being able to find my words sometimes. I hate the fact that I'm not allowed to speak like everyone else – you know how when you hear a foreigner swear in English, it's hilarious? Well, same thing goes for me. If I use the same bad words as all my friends, they laugh at me, so I don't, which just distances my language usage even more from theirs. And because I'm full of contradictions, I also hate the fact that I talk just like everyone else: the fact that I learn by imitating others means my language is much less colorful and whimsical and special than it is in English. I love my native language because I play with words and use words in odd ways that sound a little bit funny, and use big words and can make my word choice match my identity of someone a little bit odd and little bit well-educated. I can't do that in French – I imitate the people I hang out with, so I sound just like all the other teenage girls, which is definitely not a part of my identity.

I also think the language you speak changes your personality because of all the cultural differences present as soon as you switch languages. In French they are more politically correct and tell meaner jokes, are more aggressive in their speech, more judgemental of appearances, and much less private. Sometimes I translate the jokes I laugh at into English in my head and realize Oops, that's actually really mean. But it isn't in French. Racist jokes, fat jokes, even Holocaust jokes are much more fair game. Making fun of people is easier. My host sister might come home and yell “Salut la grosse!” which means “hey fatso!” which is not really something we'd say in English, even as a joke. They also tend to announce when they've farted instead of politely ignoring it, they share details about their morning poops, and talk about how much periods suck even if they're surrounded by awkward teenage boys. I am aware that plenty of people are like that in the States too, but I have observed as a general trend that people are more open and more verbally aggressive in French than in English. I had to inform my host sister, who loves Chinese jokes, that most of my Asian friends back in the Bay Area are not fans of white people telling Asian jokes. At all. I remember once getting a really bad reaction when I made a Chinese driver joke.

I have a feeling that as much as I miss speaking English, I'm going to have trouble speaking English too. I enjoy having no accent and having whimsical phrases, but maybe I'll miss the blunt openness of French. I'll stumble over my words sometimes and beat myself up over it. WTF? This is supposed to be my native language... Because maybe, after all this time, the easiest language in which to express all the cultural knowledge that I have now acquired is actually Frenglish. I have a hard time telling my parents about my classes because the concepts are different. How do I explain the “TPE” which is a semester-long research project class? In French, all you have to say is “TPE” and everyone understands, but in English I have to stutter and say “So today in TPE (pronounced Tay-Pay-Euh)... I mean, you remember that research project thing I told you about?” which is not exactly well-said either. Conversely, the other day I had to explain to the family why I was on Skype with my mom for an hour throwing a hissy fit about how bad college websites are. It was to sign up for placement tests, a concept which doesn't exist in France and I couldn't even find the words to describe. A lot of the time I want to share something about my life, but there are no words to describe it because it's a cultural concept completely foreign. I'm a senior and have spent this entire year on my laptop writing college essays, researching colleges, and laboriously applying from overseas, and yet I'm pretty sure they still only have a vague idea of how college works in the US. I've done my best to explain it, but I have a feeling it would work out better if I just plain drew up an ideas map/flowchart thing, which would look better if I knew more about computers and weren't lazy:

Football games and stuff → Colleges have a big social component in the US ↓

College is important! → Pressure to get into good college → strong college identities

Colleges have a big social component in the US ↓

College applications contain a lot of non-academic stuff, like extra-curriculars and essays

And so on. And then, after explaining American football and the concept of extra-curriculars and how our essays are really questions about your personal life philosophies and struggles and triumphs instead of the cold French cover letters, you might finally start to understand the college process in the same way that we do. So clearly the phrase “college applications” itself can't translate into French because it is such a different concept, with so many cultural differences behind it.

Until rather recently, I missed the confidence I had in my native language. But recently I've realized that I over-analyze what I say and what is said to me way less in French, and now that I've gotten over being ashamed of my accent (mostly), that means I'm less shy in French. I really hope I won't come home and be shyer than I was in France. I feel like I've spent a whole year being so acutely uncomfortable with myself and my surroundings that I've become immune to embarrassment by simple overdose, and I profoundly hope I won't lose this immunity with another language change.

This morning I was home alone with the cat. And realized I was talking to him in French, because obviously it would be weird to talk to the French cat in English. And yet I remember at the beginning of the year, I thought it was hilarious that my host mom spoke to the cat in French, because it seemed so obvious to me (not understanding French very well) that the cat didn't understand French. I think this is a universal hilarious moment, thinking it's obvious that animals don't understand foreign languages and then realizing that animals don't understand your own language either. If you speak French, I highly recommend this sketch by my favorite comedian Gad Elmaleh. At the end of the clip he talks about his bizarre experience in the Netherlands hearing people speak Dutch to their dogs. He also makes fun of cats, which is, you know, always funny. And as long as we're talking about Gad, I can't resist sticking in my other two favorites as well, les français where he makes fun of French people and la cigarette where he makes fun of smoking.

Anyway, so I was talking to my cat this morning, and I was telling him “Non, Nuts, dégage ! T'es tout mouillé, c'est degeuelasse !” which means “No, Nuts, go away! You're all wet and gross!” And proceeded to dump him off and go put more wood on the fire, thinking to myself “Le feu va crever, oh shoot I'm getting smoke everywhere.” Vive le franglais.