Anecdotally, when I say I am thinking in English or Spanish, I’m not usually thinking in words, more in a cultural context and in concepts that are not symbolically articulated. Some of those concepts only exist (to me) in one cultural context or another and not in both. Basically wherever I learned something is where it “lives” in my mind. I can know “of” it in another context, but to think about it directly, in the first person, I need to “enter” the context in which it was acquired.
That’s why I can’t even -think- about math in Spanish, it just doesn’t work for me. I never learned mathematical concepts inside of that thought context.
And when I think of some people inside of English context, I can’t remember what it feels like to talk to them.
When I am tired I sometimes slip between contexts without knowing and cannot easily discern what language I am speaking or listening to.
I find it absolutely fascinating. It seems like there might be some insight to be had studying the phenomenon in people that experience it.
