14 days ago
12
1
Posted On: October 3rd 2026, 02:38 pm
What happens to our decisions when we make them in another language?
Research on the foreign language effect suggests that using a later-learned language can sometimes create a certain psychological distance and influence how we respond to moral dilemmas, risk and framing.
But there is another side to this that I find particularly interesting when we look at multilingual lives: A language that once felt “foreign” does not necessarily stay that way.
We may learn a language in a classroom, but later fall in love in it, work in it, raise children in it, argue in it, think in it and eventually feel in it.
So what happens when a foreign language becomes a lived language?
And can a language that initially creates emotional distance eventually become our emotional language?
I explore these questions, and what the research can – and cannot – tell us about multilinguals, in my LinkedIn article: "The Foreign Language Effect and Multilinguals"
(you can also find a link to my video about this "myth" about the first language being our most emotional language (...) in the article)
#Multilingualism #LanguageAndEmotion #ForeignLanguageEffect #MultilingualLives #LanguageUse
Research on the foreign language effect suggests that using a later-learned language can sometimes create a certain psychological distance and influence how we respond to moral dilemmas, risk and framing.
But there is another side to this that I find particularly interesting when we look at multilingual lives: A language that once felt “foreign” does not necessarily stay that way.
We may learn a language in a classroom, but later fall in love in it, work in it, raise children in it, argue in it, think in it and eventually feel in it.
So what happens when a foreign language becomes a lived language?
And can a language that initially creates emotional distance eventually become our emotional language?
I explore these questions, and what the research can – and cannot – tell us about multilinguals, in my LinkedIn article: "The Foreign Language Effect and Multilinguals"
(you can also find a link to my video about this "myth" about the first language being our most emotional language (...) in the article)
#Multilingualism #LanguageAndEmotion #ForeignLanguageEffect #MultilingualLives #LanguageUse
Comments (1)
14 days agoutesinternationallounge
Thank you, @travismayo.live for prompting me to write this article (I already published this video a few days ago, like I mentioned in your reel about the "foreign languag effect").
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