Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[ClarissaMach]

Do you believe that the languages a person speaks shapes the way his/her conceptualize the world?

Once I was listening to a BBC documentary on BBC radio whose theme was the acquisition of a second language and the way languages influence our minds. The documentary described a research done with Japanese and British students, who were to describe a given figure. Whereas the British focused the colors when describing the figure, the Japanese focused the shapes. Although it did not prove anything, it gave a �hint� that different languages/cultures might influence our points of view even when it concerns very basic aspects such as the appearance of a draw.

Another aspect of this question is the fact that students who speak a second language have lots of cognitive benefits and demonstrate a competency above the average when it comes to reading, writing and � oddly! -- mathematics. Good for us, isn�t it? (I finally felt normal about my passion for maths despite being a journalist!).
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Stormy Weather.

[redset]

You know, different cultures describe colour differently in the way they name them. Apparently in Mandarin and Japanese blue and green are considered to be different shades of the same colour, but in English they're given separate names because they're considered separate colours. In English this is light blue and this is dark blue because they're both shades of the same colour, but in Russian they're given completely different names - so Russian people see them as different colours, just like I see blue and green as being separate. So the way I perceive colours is heavily influenced by the language I speak - pretty interesting, huh?

I wonder if the Japanese students focused more on the shapes because of the kanji writing system - there are so many characters to remember that you have to concentrate on the form of each one, the number of strokes and the order they're written in, things like that.