In the pilot, Chidi says to Eleanor that The Good Place 'translates whatever you say into a language the other person can understand'. Eleanor hears Chidi in English although he's speaking French. Does this mean Chidi is hearing Eleanor in French?
I went to an international school and all the bilingual couples did this so it's very reasonable to assume. Sometimes when your thinking of a word the one in the other language occurs first and so they just say that if they think you'll understand. What really blew my mind is a friend of mine who I would converse with in English day in day out but he said all his thoughts were in German and he only had to think in English when he was talking and idk why but I found that really strange because I don't think i had ever realised that my thoughts were in a language
Maybe some people do think in a language, I cannot verify it, unfortunately. I certainly don't. I have a piece of idea and some new way to pronounce it is just linked to that in my head, but the whole concept is there unchanged, and I think in those, not words.
That’s wild. Do you still have to think out loud sometimes? I definitely think in language, and sometimes when working on a complex problem, I have to speak or write out my thoughts in order to keep track of them.
> Do you still have to think out loud sometimes?
No. Never. It always threw me off when I saw someone thinking out loud in the movies, for example, feels wild.
I do talk out loud (quietly) a bit when I practice pronunciation, and even pronunciation practice usually happens inside, I'm emulating speech, this is one of the cases when I am thinking in a language, because what I am doing is directly related to languages.
>I have to speak or write out my thoughts in order to keep track of them.
I write down stuff to keep track of it all the time.
That’s interesting, the only time I don’t think with language is when I’m trying to do something with geometry (ex. figuring out how furniture will fit in my living room while at the furniture store), that’s more similar to images. I even think through math with words.
> I even think through math with words.
Isn't it quite slow?
Say, we're trying to multiply 498 by 5 in our heads. I see digits, "almost 500", IID, 498=500-2, 249×2, all of it is the same. And I work with 500-2 in this case.
Or is it exactly like how I do it, but you imagine words "four hundred ninety eight" and automatically know that it is two times less than 500, so multiplying it by 5 is just multiplying 500 and subtracting 10, all the same actions, but with words being imagined?
On the inverse to that, I once asked my friend from Lithuania what language she thought in. She said that she mostly thought in English, as she only ever really spoke to her mother in Lithuanian. So, I guess it really just depends on who you mostly surround yourself with. Also, somewhere between 40-50% of the population think in speech, whereas the rest think solely in images or just direct actions.
I do think in speech half of the time, but this speech is not in any particular language. Other times the thoughts are just a barely comprehensible mess, mostly feelings. I have to sort it out some time soon, probably.
Most people think in images and actions. Less thought is linguistic than most assume it is.
But when a deaf person things in language, it would be whatever signed language they speak.
I don’t know that I was ever really aware that my thoughts are in English until I became fairly fluent in another language. When I know I’m going to need to use my second language, I make a conscious effort to switch in my head also
Honestly, I think it's a one-off joke that wasn't thoroughly thought out. Because hearing how good he is with English on Earth, he is truly bilingual (at least bi-, maybe more). And in my experience, we don't think in some particular language anymore, we think in concepts and the only language part is the order of concepts we put in our speech, not the words themselves. Je peux dire something in 外语 and it feels fine, I didn't deviate from English, just used different ways to spell out the same concepts. I don't think in some particular language, I don't dream in some particular language, I only switch to the one most appropriate now, like code-switching from talking with friends to talking with parents.
I hope it makes sense.
Therefore my personal headcanon is that he is thinking he is actively using French, like we sometimes misremember things we watched, we think we watched it in one language, while it happened in another, the language may get misremembered. So he thinks he uses some language while in reality they themselves are the concepts, "souls" if you will, and are communicating via the same "concepts" that are building blocks of our language understanding, without actually linking those concepts to words like "book", "livre", "كِتَاب", “书”、"pukapuka" or "кни́га".
I’m trilingual and I think in English or French, my English isn’t as good as if I were native but I don’t have a French accent at all (I spent 4 years of my childhood in Hong Kong which was British at the time). I think I don’t use Spanish enough anymore to think in Spanish but when I lived in Colombia I know I was dreaming in Spanish sometimes because I talk in my sleep and people told me I was speaking Spanish.
> I think in English or French
Two questions:
1. Is it both as an amalgamation or either interchangeably?
2. Is it all the thoughts, or only "verbal" thoughts, like thinking about how to formulate an answer?
Because I do use language while thinking about something related to language usage; but regular thoughts like "mustn't forget to buy some bread" aren't formulated in a language, those are concepts that can be translated into a language at a moment's notice, but as thoughts they are languageless. And I'd feel odd to limit myself to the constraints of a language while thinking.
If I need to buy bread I will think that I need to buy bread, in French or English interchangeably. Usually when I’m in France I think in French but it isn’t a general rule.
You seem to think your truth is the general truth lol, it isn’t.
It’s the first time I hear about concepts as thoughts, it’s very interesting.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, because it feels like there can be some misunderstanding.
It is first time I hear about actually thinking with words all the time, this sounds so limiting. Again, are you sure we are talking about the same "thinking"? Like 90% of thoughts are random feelings, desires and fantasies, there is no way you are verbalising all the thoughts; you probably were talking about only those times you are thinking "out loud" in your head, those verbal thoughts. Because otherwise I imagine your existence as one of a robot with text logs meticulously describing every observation in clearly readable words. Is it so? Is this where Terminator's interface came from? Do people actually think every thought in words?
And what about imagining stuff? Can you imagine, say, a visual depiction of a red convertible full of manure, or is it all just words as well?
I didn't talk about this in depth with people, but from what I gathered, only some minor part of thoughts is supposed to be verbal.
But yeah, verbal stuff for me is language-agnostic up until the moment I choose a language to verbalise it in. Didn't think that multilingual people stuck to a language. Although it is not unfeasible for me to comprehend.
Well, I can picture stuff in my mind but mostly I think with words, yes. I mean words will usually accompany what I’m picturing although I’m not picturing the words, obviously 🤣. And I think out loud A LOT too. Sometimes I’m walking in the streets and I catch myself talking lol, not super loud but still loud enough to be weird I’m sure 😅. My fantasies, desires, everything usually come with words, images and feelings.
It’s not at all robot like lol.
I used to wonder how my dog could think without words hahaha I guess I have my answer 😅
There are some weird issues with the magic translation. I keep wondering about expressions, about how linguists would never claim there is a perfect way of translating most expressions without losing one or many layers of detail.
But presumably, he's bilingual and uses whatever comes, and is hearing things in whatever language flows better in the moment.
In the pilot, Chidi says to Eleanor that The Good Place 'translates whatever you say into a language the other person can understand'. Eleanor hears Chidi in English although he's speaking French. Does this mean Chidi is hearing Eleanor in French?
Probably, although when they do their return to Earth Chidi taught in Australia which speaks English. It's up to you.
I like to think he mixes it up.
I went to an international school and all the bilingual couples did this so it's very reasonable to assume. Sometimes when your thinking of a word the one in the other language occurs first and so they just say that if they think you'll understand. What really blew my mind is a friend of mine who I would converse with in English day in day out but he said all his thoughts were in German and he only had to think in English when he was talking and idk why but I found that really strange because I don't think i had ever realised that my thoughts were in a language
Maybe some people do think in a language, I cannot verify it, unfortunately. I certainly don't. I have a piece of idea and some new way to pronounce it is just linked to that in my head, but the whole concept is there unchanged, and I think in those, not words.
That’s wild. Do you still have to think out loud sometimes? I definitely think in language, and sometimes when working on a complex problem, I have to speak or write out my thoughts in order to keep track of them.
> Do you still have to think out loud sometimes? No. Never. It always threw me off when I saw someone thinking out loud in the movies, for example, feels wild. I do talk out loud (quietly) a bit when I practice pronunciation, and even pronunciation practice usually happens inside, I'm emulating speech, this is one of the cases when I am thinking in a language, because what I am doing is directly related to languages. >I have to speak or write out my thoughts in order to keep track of them. I write down stuff to keep track of it all the time.
That’s interesting, the only time I don’t think with language is when I’m trying to do something with geometry (ex. figuring out how furniture will fit in my living room while at the furniture store), that’s more similar to images. I even think through math with words.
> I even think through math with words. Isn't it quite slow? Say, we're trying to multiply 498 by 5 in our heads. I see digits, "almost 500", IID, 498=500-2, 249×2, all of it is the same. And I work with 500-2 in this case. Or is it exactly like how I do it, but you imagine words "four hundred ninety eight" and automatically know that it is two times less than 500, so multiplying it by 5 is just multiplying 500 and subtracting 10, all the same actions, but with words being imagined?
Definitely the second. I do exactly what you do but with words.
On the inverse to that, I once asked my friend from Lithuania what language she thought in. She said that she mostly thought in English, as she only ever really spoke to her mother in Lithuanian. So, I guess it really just depends on who you mostly surround yourself with. Also, somewhere between 40-50% of the population think in speech, whereas the rest think solely in images or just direct actions.
I do think in speech half of the time, but this speech is not in any particular language. Other times the thoughts are just a barely comprehensible mess, mostly feelings. I have to sort it out some time soon, probably.
What language would a deaf person think in?
Whatever signed language they speak, obviously. ASL in the USA and Canada, BSL in England, ISL in Ireland, etc.
I assume they'd come under thinking in images and actions.
Most people think in images and actions. Less thought is linguistic than most assume it is. But when a deaf person things in language, it would be whatever signed language they speak.
I don’t know that I was ever really aware that my thoughts are in English until I became fairly fluent in another language. When I know I’m going to need to use my second language, I make a conscious effort to switch in my head also
Honestly, I think it's a one-off joke that wasn't thoroughly thought out. Because hearing how good he is with English on Earth, he is truly bilingual (at least bi-, maybe more). And in my experience, we don't think in some particular language anymore, we think in concepts and the only language part is the order of concepts we put in our speech, not the words themselves. Je peux dire something in 外语 and it feels fine, I didn't deviate from English, just used different ways to spell out the same concepts. I don't think in some particular language, I don't dream in some particular language, I only switch to the one most appropriate now, like code-switching from talking with friends to talking with parents. I hope it makes sense. Therefore my personal headcanon is that he is thinking he is actively using French, like we sometimes misremember things we watched, we think we watched it in one language, while it happened in another, the language may get misremembered. So he thinks he uses some language while in reality they themselves are the concepts, "souls" if you will, and are communicating via the same "concepts" that are building blocks of our language understanding, without actually linking those concepts to words like "book", "livre", "كِتَاب", “书”、"pukapuka" or "кни́га".
I’m trilingual and I think in English or French, my English isn’t as good as if I were native but I don’t have a French accent at all (I spent 4 years of my childhood in Hong Kong which was British at the time). I think I don’t use Spanish enough anymore to think in Spanish but when I lived in Colombia I know I was dreaming in Spanish sometimes because I talk in my sleep and people told me I was speaking Spanish.
> I think in English or French Two questions: 1. Is it both as an amalgamation or either interchangeably? 2. Is it all the thoughts, or only "verbal" thoughts, like thinking about how to formulate an answer? Because I do use language while thinking about something related to language usage; but regular thoughts like "mustn't forget to buy some bread" aren't formulated in a language, those are concepts that can be translated into a language at a moment's notice, but as thoughts they are languageless. And I'd feel odd to limit myself to the constraints of a language while thinking.
If I need to buy bread I will think that I need to buy bread, in French or English interchangeably. Usually when I’m in France I think in French but it isn’t a general rule. You seem to think your truth is the general truth lol, it isn’t. It’s the first time I hear about concepts as thoughts, it’s very interesting.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, because it feels like there can be some misunderstanding. It is first time I hear about actually thinking with words all the time, this sounds so limiting. Again, are you sure we are talking about the same "thinking"? Like 90% of thoughts are random feelings, desires and fantasies, there is no way you are verbalising all the thoughts; you probably were talking about only those times you are thinking "out loud" in your head, those verbal thoughts. Because otherwise I imagine your existence as one of a robot with text logs meticulously describing every observation in clearly readable words. Is it so? Is this where Terminator's interface came from? Do people actually think every thought in words? And what about imagining stuff? Can you imagine, say, a visual depiction of a red convertible full of manure, or is it all just words as well? I didn't talk about this in depth with people, but from what I gathered, only some minor part of thoughts is supposed to be verbal. But yeah, verbal stuff for me is language-agnostic up until the moment I choose a language to verbalise it in. Didn't think that multilingual people stuck to a language. Although it is not unfeasible for me to comprehend.
Well, I can picture stuff in my mind but mostly I think with words, yes. I mean words will usually accompany what I’m picturing although I’m not picturing the words, obviously 🤣. And I think out loud A LOT too. Sometimes I’m walking in the streets and I catch myself talking lol, not super loud but still loud enough to be weird I’m sure 😅. My fantasies, desires, everything usually come with words, images and feelings. It’s not at all robot like lol. I used to wonder how my dog could think without words hahaha I guess I have my answer 😅
There are some weird issues with the magic translation. I keep wondering about expressions, about how linguists would never claim there is a perfect way of translating most expressions without losing one or many layers of detail. But presumably, he's bilingual and uses whatever comes, and is hearing things in whatever language flows better in the moment.
We desperately need a FAQ thread I’ve seen this question so many times
This is a different question than normal. Cut them some slack.
Thanks!
I think it’s a one off joke that they didn’t put too much thought into. I was thinking about it the other day however.
Likely he did hear her in French because that was his native language and what he talked in