Once you master a second language, how does your brain interpret the input?

Question

I am fully bilingual but I mostly read in English.

How is my brain capable of reading English and directly provide me with images and feelings instead of trying to translate into French (the language I was born with) beforehand?

Thank you.

In: 18

Answer 1

In your brain cortex there’s an area filled with neurons whose purpose is to understand speech, and send whatever you understood further into the brain.

When you become bilingual, that area has neurons for both languages, meaning you don’t need to translate in your mother language anymore.

The english neurons understand english, the french neurons understand french, and then they both send the understood concept to the same areas of the brain.