Why does it feel like people's brains stop working When you ask what a word means and they know you speak a second language and they think the only way they can explain it to you is with a translation.
I know the title is kind of confusing, but what I mean is this:
I speak three languages at a virtually native level. I can pass for a monolingual speaker in each one. Of course, I don't know every word. The other day I heard the word "huerta" and had no idea what it meant. So I asked, and the person who used the word just froze. Then he said, in his native language, "Uhhh, I don't know how to say it in English... I think in English it's 'farm.'"
Another person said, "No, it's not farm."
They were so fixated on giving me an English translation that, because they didn't know one, they were completely stumped and ended up checking Google Translate. They couldn't simply tell me in their native language, "It's like a small garden where vegetables are grown."
Anyway, I went down this rabbit hole with the help of a monolingual friend. Seven months later, she asked those same people what the word meant in that language. They were able to answer immediately and without hesitation: "It's like a small garden where vegetables are grown."
Then we got people to believe she was fluent in English, and I had her ask native speakers of her language what different words meant. She would ask them about various words, and about half the time they would freeze up just like they did with me. We specifically tested words that are difficult to translate directly, such as "friolento," "tutear," and "estrenar."
The other half of the time, they simply explained the word without hesitation.
This seems to happen in every language, at least in my experience with the languages I learn.
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