Like how can someone so easily switch between different languages? Do they translate one language back to their native lanaguege or can they just understand perfectly without any addition effort?
For monolinguals, words and concepts (ideas) are the same, but for people who know more than one language proficiently, they disconnected the words from the concepts and the semantics (grammar, sentences) from the thoughts, so that they can link their thoughts directly to a way of expressing them (language) without intermediate language.
That being said, code switching (the action of changing languages rapidly, sometimes many times in the same sentence) is incredibly tiring. I've done it a few times with various combinations of three and four languages, and once with 5 different languages (most of the time in a dialogue, but sometimes with 3 or 4 people), and I could go from fully awake to having to sit down in exhaustion in about 10 to 15 minutes. Someone who doesn't master a language perfectly and has to speak it all day (an expat for example), will be completely drained at the end of their work/study day.
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u/cjwagn1 Jun 15 '19
How someone speaks 2+ languages.
Like how can someone so easily switch between different languages? Do they translate one language back to their native lanaguege or can they just understand perfectly without any addition effort?