Dreaming in Foreign Languages

General discussion about learning languages
YtownPolyglot
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby YtownPolyglot » Fri Jun 24, 2016 5:51 pm

From time to time, I have words and phrases in several languages in my dreams, even languages I don't think I speak very well. I had one dream in which I heard someone say something to me in Italian, and the Italian words didn't sound right. I looked them up in a dictionary the next morning. The dream was right and I was wrong.

It's also not unusual for me to dream about people I speak one language to in waking life but the people speak a different language in the dream.
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby Ani » Sat Jun 25, 2016 12:06 am

I tend to dream in a foreign language nearly as soon as I start studying it, when I perhaps know a few scripts by heart but not enough to think the dream is actually fully in that language. I have had dreams in Italian, Latin, Gaelic and French but I haven't had a dream in French in a while. I think the last one involved being offered some French food.. Crusty bread/cheese/eggs. I don't think it was a croque madame, but I'd pretty much kill for one so it might have been. Sleep-me is well trained to eat any food offered (because I can't eat it in real life), but I think I turned it down and I was so sad when I woke up. That's the only reason I remember it.
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby smallwhite » Tue Aug 02, 2016 5:27 am

I spoke in French and Spanish in a dream this morning: I wanted to ring my father, but a receptionist answered the phone. I said to her, "Est-ce que vous pouvez me passer mon père ou son ami qui está ... aquí ?"

= "Can you pass me my father or his friend who is ... here?"

It was what I wanted to say, but I started the sentence with French, seamlessly switched to Spanish without realising it, and forgetting how to say "here" in French, came up with the Spanish version also without realising it. :?
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby IronMike » Thu Aug 04, 2016 6:18 am

smallwhite wrote:I spoke in French and Spanish in a dream this morning: I wanted to ring my father, but a receptionist answered the phone. I said to her, "Est-ce que vous pouvez me passer mon père ou son ami qui está ... aquí ?"

= "Can you pass me my father or his friend who is ... here?"

It was what I wanted to say, but I started the sentence with French, seamlessly switched to Spanish without realising it, and forgetting how to say "here" in French, came up with the Spanish version also without realising it. :?

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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby smallwhite » Sun Sep 11, 2016 12:13 pm

I've had a lot of language-related dreams recently. I must be studying too hard. Or reading this forum too much. Or just sleeping too much. This morning in my dream...

I was led into the office of a university during lunch time. Several Chinese staff were seated around a large table, eating together and studying English together. Some were reading aloud from their textbooks. Others were doing scriptorium. They were working together, supporting each other, and seem very enthousiastic about the language. Their textbook looked like a children's book, with only 2 or 3 lines of text per double page, and then illustrations. Everything was elementary, and I thought to myself, this is going to take you forever.

Then they asked one of the learners to sing the song in their textbook. And so he did - in Italian. Another guy sang with him, while the others hummed along. It's all part of their English work.

Then, the first guy walked away from the table, and I stopped him, "Tu... italiano?" (You... Italian?) He replied, "No, soy español." (No, I'm Spanish).
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby Cavesa » Sun Sep 11, 2016 3:03 pm

My dreams are usually very realistic and full of various motives, usually quite tiring actually. When a foreign language is present, it is usually a situation in which I totally mess up and speak horribly or not at all. In one of the recent dreams, I felt really bad because I had for some unknown reason talked in English with the French president (neither Hollande nor Sarcozy, no idea who it was and no idea why on earth he was talking to me and what about). :-D
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby NoManches » Wed Sep 14, 2016 2:37 am

I had a dream last night in Spanish. Not sure why but I just remembered it...

I was saying "ella estaba platicando....." And that's all I can remember :)
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby smallwhite » Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:45 am

I went to bed last night with Spanish radio in my earphones, and dreamt of Spanish as usual:

I was in Spain with my family. I heard Spanish everywhere. My father had taken Spanish lessons and spoke to me in Spanish. People were celebrating some national festival in the park. They looked Indian, but they spoke Spanish. I met the king of Spain, who, naturally, also spoke Spanish. Inmersión total!
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby LanguageSponge » Mon Dec 26, 2016 12:07 am

As with my waking conversations, in dreams I often do not remember what language I spoke in until I go through some key words in my head. For instance around this time of year I sometimes dream about a trip to Munich I made with my then girlfriend, her parents and siblings about a decade ago. But I won't remember what language the dream was in until I remember one of us talking about a Schneeballschlacht (snowball fight) and running around the park chucking snow at each other. This memory won't trigger if I think of the English words, they always have to be the German ones because those were the ones uttered in the dream. Most of my dreams in foreign languages are in German and revolve around the people I grew up with. It's quite easy for me to dream in German; in fact just writing this out now almost guarantees a German dream tonight.
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smallwhite
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Re: Dreaming in Foreign Languages

Postby smallwhite » Thu May 04, 2017 4:46 am

This morning in my dream:

I was on a plane about to land in Barcelona. I was heading for Madrid for business, so arriving in Barcelona airport, I proceeded to buy a train ticket. I hadn't spoken Spanish for a while, so I rehearsed as I walked down the stairs...

"... carta di credito..."
(which is Italian)

At the ticket office, I asked the Asian lady for a ticket...

"Quiero un carta... un biglietto... billete..."
(carta which is Spanish but doesn't mean ticket)
(biglietto which means ticket but is Italian)
(billete which is finally correct)

and the ticket lady switched to Cantonese.
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Dialang or it didn't happen.


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