I acquired a second mother tongue at a young age (English over Mandarin), and I certainly find different courses of thought more comfortable in each language. I also have different cached thoughts stored in each language, which, although usually harmless (I have a small amount of pi and my times tables memorised exclusively in Mandarin, which makes it quite funny to watch me doing arithmetic out loud), has occasionally been the source of quite painful cognitive dissonance (this has got a lot better since LW taught me to decompartmentalise).
I also, unsurprisingly, have different senses of humour and aesthetic judgements in different languages, which makes me able to enjoy speeches, songs, poems etc. in one languages while being barely able to read translations without cringing/laughing/facepalming.
I certainly wouldn’t say I’m more rational in either language though, so that’s another point to support the “only if you have to concentrate” hypothesis. However, it might help me to run decisions in both languages, if not only because it forces me to re-think the idea from a slightly different angle.
I acquired a second mother tongue at a young age (English over Mandarin), and I certainly find different courses of thought more comfortable in each language. I also have different cached thoughts stored in each language, which, although usually harmless (I have a small amount of pi and my times tables memorised exclusively in Mandarin, which makes it quite funny to watch me doing arithmetic out loud), has occasionally been the source of quite painful cognitive dissonance (this has got a lot better since LW taught me to decompartmentalise).
I also, unsurprisingly, have different senses of humour and aesthetic judgements in different languages, which makes me able to enjoy speeches, songs, poems etc. in one languages while being barely able to read translations without cringing/laughing/facepalming.
I certainly wouldn’t say I’m more rational in either language though, so that’s another point to support the “only if you have to concentrate” hypothesis. However, it might help me to run decisions in both languages, if not only because it forces me to re-think the idea from a slightly different angle.