Arthur,

I don't quite understand this: why did the colleague strike out the word "proned" and use "advocated" instead? Is  the word "advocate" derived from a French word?

best wishes,

Xilin Hu

I think thinking is beyond language. 

Arthur's point (2 years ago, but still very much topical) was that after living a long time in a foreign country and years of speaking/hearing/thinking the local language, translators (and others) sometimes end up falling both feet first into the trap of "false cognates/faux amis" without even realizing it; his example of writing "proned" instead of "advocated" was emblematic of this problem: in French, the verb "prôner" means "to advocate", while the English word "prone" has an entirely different meaning. Hope it clears it up for you?

dominique

dominique,

Thank you, I got it now.  I did a google search, it is also called False friends (or faux amis). I didn't know this could happen between diiferent language family. I had believed this only happens in languages which belongs to the same family, such as English and German, which both belong to  Germanic language family. 

Xilin

It’s quite likely to happen in a less closely related language, too, though of course the likelihood increases the closer the languages are to each other.

I’ve had it happen to me quite often between Chinese and Gaelic, incidentally. Tá sé and 他是 always get mixed up when I happen to switch between the two.

I agree with the notion of "abstract concepts". I am fairly sure that I do not think in language at all in the sense that I do not form complete and grammatical sentences in my head for my own benefit and then think back over what I have just thought and correct any errors that I might have made. I have no recollection of ever having detected a grammatical or syntax error in a sentence that I have just thought.

My feeling is that I have to make a conscious effort to think in a language and which language it is will depend on what I happen to be doing, listening to or talking about at that instant. I am worried however by the idea that when checking my translations silently, I can recognize errors when I read them so there must be some mechanism in the brain that detects errors in sentences that are only thought of and not spoken out loud.

The process of "thinking" is probably not the same as the process of "reading" and the two are to a large extent independent of each other. I have even caught myself "thinking" while I am reading (eyes at least moving down the page).

I can no longer be sure what the language is of something that I have just heard. We have quite a wide selection of bilingual TV channels available on our cable and it sometimes occurs to me during a pause in the dialog that I have no idea whether I have the German sound channel or the English sound channel selected. It is not until they start speaking again that I know for sure. That is not good but there does not seem to be a mental flag that indicates what the current thought or listening language is. There must be a way to correct that "defect" but I have been unable to find suitable exercises.

However, I am sure that there is a mental flag that shows my brain continuously what language I am currently speaking in because I have never caught myself speaking the wrong language or switching languages in the middle of a conversation unintentionally.

One odd effect that I have confirmed on several occasions is that I cannot switch my speech directly from French to Spanish or from Spanish to French (I am very intermediate in both those languages and would not normally even try to think in either of them) but I have to say something in English or German first, anything, just a few words, and then I can make the switch. It surprises the people I am talking to and it makes me feel very uncomfortable. There must be a way to correct that weakness too. Luckily I do not need to do it very often these days!

Derek

English and French also have a lot of words with common Latin and Greek origins, or words borrowed from each other. Here's a (partial) list of faux-amis between French and English, if you're interested: http://villemin.gerard.free.fr/Langue/FauxAmis.htm, http://www.anglaisfacile.com/pages/images/fauxamis.php,  or http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/fauxamis.htm

df

This latter mental flag seems, alas, to be sorely lacking in my brain: I frequently find myself accidentally speaking the wrong language in the middle of a conversation, or suddenly not realising which langauge I’m speaking at all. This happens especially when switching between less frequently used combinations of languages, like Chinese and English. Having lived in China together with Scandinavian people, and having lived in Denmark with a Chinese boyfriend, I am very used to switching back and forth between Danish and Chinese—but I very rarely have to switch between English and Chinese.

Result: during a visit to Boston last year, when a friend and I were having dinner in a Chinese restaurant, my friend asked me what the staff were talking about in Chinese. I listened for a moment (just enough to pick up the general gist) and loosely translated back to him. After a few seconds, when he continued to have a look of utter confusion and blankness on his face, something struck me as odd in my mind. I had, without noticing, gone on auto-pilot and translated into Danish (which of course made no more sense to him than the Chinese).

Dominique,

Thank you very much.  It is very informative for me, but for the first and the second links, I guess  ANGLAIS, FRANCAIS mean Engliish and French respectively, but I don't know what ET NON and QUI DIT EN EngLAIS mean.  Could you tell me?

In the third link, what impress me most first is about the word 'engagement'.  Sometimes, it is used for the meaning of ‘commitment’ in English context. 

And,  it is very interesting (and I feel very curious) that  Gaelic is related with Chinese in the word Tá sé and 他是  (and other words maybe?) for the fact it is so far away between China and Scotland or Ireland. 

Xilin 

Hi Xilin

et non = and not:

qui se dit en anglais = which in English is:

df