I think some people see it as a kind of “koreaboo” affectation - I don’t think anyone can imagine how many times per day you bow when living in Korea or Japan (I’d put it at upwards of 50 times per day as a teacher)
This is a thing I have had to explain so many times in my recurring role as someone who introduces people to Zen practice. Bowing is part of the practice and part of a formal service and Westerners tend to interpret this as worshipping a statue. I explained that the practice originated in a part of the world where you commonly bow to the postman, your neighbors, the dog catcher, then I go on the explain the benefits of bowing as it pertains to Zen practice.
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Do you run a monastery or something? That’s sounds like a really enjoyable practice.
Ah, nothing quite so formal! I once ran a little meditation group at a college for a few year, and have done so informally at various places and situations I have stumbled into. Now I take my turn with the group I practice with about once a month. It’s great practice to help other practice 
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I have been thinking predominantly in english since 7th grade. Mostly to do with the internet though. Most things just sound awfully stuck up if you translate them to german. To me it is a language for snobbishness or the occasional hitler joke.
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Even though I am a Thai people, I think predominantly in English (seriously).
I can think in Thai, of course. Thinking in Japanese? Sometimes.
You really feel like you’ve hit the language jackpot when you have a dream in another language.
Only happened to me once
Which language is best?
If I could think in my native language more, I might be more sociable.
I think in English all the time, despite it not being my native language. I use English so much, it comes naturally to me now. Since I began learning Japanese, I’m trying to force myself to try to think Japanese whenever I can, like if I see something I know the word for it, I try to think of the Japanese word in my head. Hopefully, when I learn how to form complete sentences, I can start doing more of my thinking in full Japanese.
Oooh, thanks for sharing that, Elgillie!
Very interesting.
I wonder if a certain friend of mine (also Korean, and wants to be an English teacher over there - she just moved back) feels similarly. I may have to ask her.
Hmm…
Food for thought.
Personally, I just like how angry German sounds, so I like to use it for swearing. XD That’s not really the same, that’s not at all as deep as this conversation was going/is trying to go… but… that’s just my thought. I haven’t really thought in any particular language other than my native English for more than a very short phrase or a word at a time, really… so… Hmm… But then again, none of my studies are very far yet… (Even though I did study German for nearly all of University…)
It’s interesting that English has become your language of thought. Does it feel like it dominated your mind over your native tongue? I imagine it was just a gradual thing that happened over time as you were surrounded by more English.
I’ve never even been to Japan, but living in a big multicultural city as I do, I’ve found myself doing the nod-bow a lot when greeting anyone who looks Japanese at work (and sometimes Korean or Chinese) as well as a number of elderly patrons… but everyone else, I don’t do it. Or sometimes in my building/elevator too - same thing. I get a bit of a nod-bow back sometimes (especially with the other people in my high-rise, I think.) I never did that before moving here 7 years ago… I’m not even sure when I started doing it or how I picked it up. I’ve been watching anime for over 15 years and dramas from Japan and Korea for nearly as long… but… I really have no idea how this got ingrained into my brain when I’ve lived in Canada my whole life. XD
I’ve been thinking a lot about how Japanese has influenced me, and in a lot of ways I feel like “Ah, Japanese really expresses my feelings, expresses me better then English does.”
When I speak/think in Japanese I feel like a much more bright and cheerful person. Not to say that I’m not in English, but I feel lighter? More cheerful? Where English feels more technical, sarcastic and a little bit colder. When something good happens to me, I feel like I can express it best in Japanese. When something crappy happens I feel like I can express it better in English. (チックショ just doesn’t have that same level of power as the “F” word.)
I really noticed this when one of my Japanese friends wanted me talk to her in English, it was really jarring and I felt kind of awkward because I couldn’t talk to her in the same manner as we normally do in Japanese. In Japanese I always spoke to her very cutesy, with very big expressions and emotions. If I speak that way in English… it feels very unnatural, fake, and weird. lol.
Holy crap, thinking about it more, my friendships in Japanese vs. English are really quite different from each other. (* - * ) With my Japanese friends, we always over compliment each other and go out of our way for each other. In English It feels kind of awkward to compliment each other, but we joke more and put ourselves down. lol I dunno it’s interesting.
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Super interesting!
For me, I have some medicine/cognitive/memory issues and sometimes I’ll know the Japanese word or phrase for something I want to express but can’t remember the English. Before studying Japanese, that was more likely to be just “blank” in my head, so at least now if that happens and is Japanese rather than blank, I can try to figure out the English from the Japanese. Especially if I try using it in a Japanese sentence in my head or imagining a show where the word/phrase was used.
That reminds me. There have been some anime where I didn’t know what a word meant in English (and one in particular that was really long, it seemed like whoever translated the latter end of the anime kept increasing the number of difficult or less-frequent vocabulary) but I knew the Japanese. So if who I’m watching it with doesn’t know the English word either, I can be like “well the Japanese version means X / something like X”.
So both the forgetting words thing and not knowing written English thing involve back-translating, or something. It just feels different when you translate one way or another, and when it comes naturally versus thinking really hard / specifically sitting down to translate something.
Honestly, I don’t think in any languages at all. When I found out that people actually have dialogues in their head, I was a little surprised. I always just think in abstract concepts. It might be part of the reason why I’m not really that good at expressing myself. Sometimes I can’t find the words needed for certain things. It’s a little sad because I’ve heard that thinking in your target language is great way to improve your comprehension.
Sometimes
If you don’t in sounds, do you think in pictures? Or in objects? These might actually help memorizing a lot.
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I don’t really know how to describe how I think. That’s why I called my way of thinking “abstract”. Sort of like I can imagine a whole world inside my head. Sometimes words pop up too, but it’s almost always just random quotes from TV, video games or songs, not really much productive thought.