How come when I learn a new english word, I could here it and immediately understand what it means. But when I hear a word in a different language that I’m learning, like Japanese, I have to translate the word in my head instead of just understanding the meaning. Even with spanish, which I’ve grown up speaking, I have trouble keeping up with things since I translate a bit in my head. Also how do i stop head translating?
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this is interesting, i’m a native english speaker who learned spanish as an adult and i’ve never done this.
in short, however, it’s probably just because you’re not as used to speaking those languages as you are to english. when you recognize the sound of the ‘foreign’ word but not the meaning, your brain will connect whatever information it has–which is often the same word in your ‘native’ language.
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