Through the assigned readings I learned a lot about the inner workings of the brain and how they control our speech. The left hemisphere is responsible for language. There are many different parts of the brain that relate to different speech functions such as speaking, writing, and comprehension. I thought the information on slips of the tongue was very interesting because I have always wondered why that happens. Sometimes if you are speaking very quickly you do not even realize you made a mistake.
I have grown up hearing multiple languages in my household so I think internally I have processed meaning through sense. However, not until I learned multiple languages and really thought about each language did I notice the differences in meanings of certain words. The example the article gave of not having certain words in certain languages is very familiar to me. My parents speak a South Indian language called Telugu and in Telugu there are specific words for mother's father/mother and father's father/mother that we do not have in English. Similarly, I have noticed that some languages have more words for emotions than English, which is interesting because I think it reflects in our culture because if you do not have a word for a certain feeling/emotion you may not realize you are experiencing it. The sense aspect of language also makes it difficult to use translation to learn a language. I think in English so when I try to understand or speak Hindi, I am always translating back from English but often times there aren't corresponding words, which makes learning difficult. I think that's why it is important to try to think in the language you are learning instead of constantly trying to translate to/from your native language.
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