Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#31

Post by zimpenfish » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 10:41 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #28

jddj wrote: post #27

There are subtle differences everywhere which could have real framing effects or make no difference at all except to the expression itself. In English one spends time, for example, much like one spends money. I love that as a metaphor but in Spanish you don't spend time, you pass time. Does that reflect some transactional nature of English compared to Spanish, or nothing significant at all? Probably the latter, but I…

Interesting. British English uses both 'spend' and 'pass'. In particular hobbies (leisure activities) are known as passtimes. "How do you pass your time?" is not a common expression though but the concept is available, and used sometimes. People also say things like "what do you do with your [spare] time?".

> In particular hobbies (leisure activities) are known as passtimes.

Minor nit - it's "pastime" (although it does come from "passe tyme" and "passe-temps")

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#32

Post by kgwgk » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 10:55 AM UTC

ummm32 wrote: post #18

whatshisface wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard that in far-off America where they speak a language called English, time is seen not as a straight line but as a round circle, because of phrases like "I've got your six" which refer to a circular clock. Truly, the words used in random phrases are the clearest window into the alien mind.

I can confirm that from point of a spanish spoken viewer here in LATAM. We have had our share of time - decades - of a military fully controlled society, so now living in democracy many expressions or even words/verbs had subtlety changed their usual mean (as it appear in the dictionary), to something else. I.E. the verb "to order", in spanish it is used more frequently to express the action to put things in their in…

Ordino already had both meanings (arrange and command) in latin and I think it remains true in romance and germanic languages alike. I'm not sure that's really "an extra meaning" in Latin America.

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#33

Post by theemathas » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 11:08 AM UTC

Interesting case: in Thai (which is my mother tongue), both the words "วันหน้า" (literally "front day") and "วันหลัง" (literally "back day" or "behind day") both mean "(in a) later (day)". (Yes, it's kinda illogical, like "flammable" vs "inflammable".)

Personally, I think of the past being on the left, and the future being on the right. (Thai is written from left to right, like English.)

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#34

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 11:40 AM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #31

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. British English uses both 'spend' and 'pass'. In particular hobbies (leisure activities) are known as passtimes. "How do you pass your time?" is not a common expression though but the concept is available, and used sometimes. People also say things like "what do you do with your [spare] time?".

> In particular hobbies (leisure activities) are known as passtimes. Minor nit - it's "pastime" (although it does come from "passe tyme" and "passe-temps")

I was poorly trying to highlight the etymology, probably: "pass-times" (pastimes).

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#35

Post by nickserv » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 11:49 AM UTC

I would say the same effect applies to programming languages too.

Learning languages with different "grammar" allows one to think about the same problem in different parallel ways. For example by being exposed to a functional language one is able to approach a particular task from a different angle even if doing OOP.

The same way people were able to reason using distance or volume when estimating time in the article.

The difficult part I suppose is figuring out which paradigm is most appropriate for the given situation.

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#36

Post by goto11 » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 12:15 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #19

goto11 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In English the term "before" literally means "in front of". So if you say "the time before today" you are (according to the same logic) actually referring to the past being in front of the present. I'm also a bit skeptical of the conclusions drawn from these turns of phases. It seems a single language can have multiple inconsistent spatial metaphors in play at the same time. So I think it is a bit overblown to say a…

Conclusions are overblown(I guess it wouldn’t get wide appeal otherwise ?), but there is a kernel of truth in that the language at least introduces you to some visions of time you might not have. From there, not every speaker uses every aspect of any language, people pick and choose the metaphors that makes sense for them, or create and share new ones wholepiece. It reminds me of how tv broadcast handles late night t…

Oh I absolutely agree that words and metaphors can shape the way we think about things. I'm just skeptical towards theories that couple this to languages as a whole.

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#37

Post by zoomablemind » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 12:44 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #6

wodenokoto wrote: post #3

> For example, in Swedish, the word for future is framtid which literally means “front time”. It's the same in Danish, but if you have a meeting at 1pm and you want to change it to 2pm (moving it further in to the future, or further "front time", forward in time) you are moving the meeting back. Introductions to linguistics are littered with poorly translated examples and misunderstood grammar points from languages t…

I have heard that in far-off America where they speak a language called English, time is seen not as a straight line but as a round circle, because of phrases like "I've got your six" which refer to a circular clock. Truly, the words used in random phrases are the clearest window into the alien mind.

> phrases like "I've got your six" which refer to a circular clock

This particular phrase is borrowed from military jargon, as a reference to one's back/behind.

For example, in aviation, round clock references are used for shorthand to describe angular directions, with center-you, 9-left,12-ahead,3-right, and 6-behind.

Clarity and brevity make this analogy an excellent communication device.

Military pilots learn to watch their-"six".

At the same time, hearing pilots talk about Romeo Papa makes a side observer wonder how this could be related to Shakespear...if at all.

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#38

Post by ganzuul » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

notus wrote: post #4

What is meant by "rewiring the brain"? It always seemed like a squishy term that doesn't really mean anything.

Guessing it means you build a parser, a topic in itself, provided that you are actually fluent and not translating on the fly.

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#39

Post by zoomablemind » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

On the topic of time-reference - An interesting cultural aspect when refering to 'tomorrow', a Western speaker means rather shortly, quite possibly next day.

Yet an Arabic speaker, when saying 'bukra', in fact may imply some indefinite point in future, quite possible not at all.

Just as being on-time or late may practically mean different allowances in different cultures.

Sure, there're other more precise expressions, perhaps being bilingual would expand one's perception of time-referencing.

Re: Being multilingual alters your experience of time (2018)

#40

Post by odyssey7 » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #6

wodenokoto wrote: post #3

> For example, in Swedish, the word for future is framtid which literally means “front time”. It's the same in Danish, but if you have a meeting at 1pm and you want to change it to 2pm (moving it further in to the future, or further "front time", forward in time) you are moving the meeting back. Introductions to linguistics are littered with poorly translated examples and misunderstood grammar points from languages t…

I have heard that in far-off America where they speak a language called English, time is seen not as a straight line but as a round circle, because of phrases like "I've got your six" which refer to a circular clock. Truly, the words used in random phrases are the clearest window into the alien mind.

I get that this is a joke, but reflecting on it, it’s not wrong that we perceive days as a cycle.