Are we different people when we speak another language?

People who speak more than one language may already have felt that they do not express themselves in exactly the same way in all of them.

In Portuguese, someone may feel more reserved, careful or emotional. In English, they may speak in a more direct, relaxed or confident way. Some words come naturally in one language, but feel artificial when translated. Some experiences also seem easier to explain in one language than in another.

Does this mean that we change personality when we speak another language?

Not exactly. We remain the same person. However, each language can activate different memories, emotions, cultural references and ways of relating to others. For this reason, speaking another language can bring forward a slightly different version of the same person.

Language is not only a way of transmitting information

We often think of language as a tool: we have an idea, choose words and communicate it to another person.

In reality, the relationship between language and thought is more complex. The language we use can influence what we pay attention to, how we organise an experience and even how we describe what we feel.

Some concepts have a direct translation, but others lose part of their meaning when they move from one language to another. A word can carry cultural, emotional and personal associations that are not present in its apparent equivalent.

For example, saying “saudade” is not exactly the same as saying “I miss you” or “nostalgie”. These expressions may be close, but they do not necessarily occupy the same place in the emotional experience of the person using them.

Learning another language, then, is not only learning different words for the same things. It is also coming into contact with other ways of interpreting and organising reality.

Each language is connected to a different history

The languages we speak are not all learned at the same moment or in the same circumstances.

A first language is usually linked to childhood, family, school, early relationships and early emotional experiences. A second language may have been learned during adolescence or adulthood, through travel, study, work, films, friendships or migration.

Each language therefore becomes associated with different contexts.

Someone who learned English through travel, international friendships and positive experiences may associate it with greater freedom and spontaneity. By contrast, their first language may be more connected to family expectations, responsibilities and older emotional memories.

The opposite can also happen. For someone living in another country, the second language may be associated with work, bureaucracy or the feeling of not being able to express themselves with full precision. Their first language may then represent greater safety, intimacy and emotional depth.

It is not only the structure of the language that produces these differences. It is also the history lived through it.

We may seem more extroverted in another language

Some people report feeling more confident, sociable or direct when speaking a foreign language.

This does not necessarily mean that they have developed a new personality. It may mean that the second language is associated with contexts in which they learned to behave differently.

Culture also influences what is considered an appropriate way to communicate. Some cultures value more direct and informal communication. Others place greater importance on caution, hierarchy or a careful choice of words.

When we speak another language, we may adapt, even without noticing, to the social norms we associate with it. Tone of voice, gestures, humour and the distance we keep from other people may all shift.

Speaking in a foreign language can also create a sense of freedom. Certain sentences may feel less embarrassing because they are not so closely tied to the rules and expectations we internalised in childhood. It is as if there were some distance between what is said and the most automatic emotional response.

For that reason, someone may feel more spontaneous in English and more contained in Portuguese, or exactly the opposite.

Emotions can have different intensities

A first language often has a particularly strong emotional connection.

It is the language in which many people heard their first words of affection, comfort, criticism, anger or fear. Words were not learned only through definitions, but also through emotionally significant situations.

For this reason, certain expressions can provoke a stronger reaction when they are heard or spoken in the first language. A phrase of affection may feel more intimate. Criticism may hurt more. A memory may become more vivid.

A language learned later can create more emotional distance. This may help some people speak about difficult, embarrassing or painful events.

For example, describing a traumatic experience in a second language may feel less intense than describing it in the first language. This distance can facilitate communication, but it can also work as a form of emotional protection.

This does not mean that what is said is less true. It simply means that the language used can alter the emotional closeness to the experience.

Do we think differently in a foreign language?

Research suggests that using a foreign language can influence some decision-making processes.

When we think in a language we master less fully, reasoning tends to become slower and more deliberate. We may pay more attention to words, analyse sentence structure more carefully and distance ourselves partly from the immediate emotional reaction.

This phenomenon is sometimes called the “foreign language effect”. In some studies, participants showed decisions less influenced by certain biases when problems were presented in a second language.

However, this does not mean that thinking in a foreign language is always more rational or more correct. Lower linguistic proficiency can also make complex information harder to understand, limit available vocabulary and increase mental effort.

The influence of language depends on several factors: fluency, the age at which the language was learned, the context in which it is used and the emotional relationship the person has developed with it.

Language choice in psychological consultation

These differences become especially relevant in psychological consultation.

Psychotherapy depends, to a large extent, on the ability to put inner experiences into words. Through language, people describe emotions, thoughts, memories, relationships and difficulties that may never have been shared before.

Some people prefer to have sessions in their first language because they find greater emotional precision there. They can explain what they feel more clearly and access older memories more easily.

Others prefer to speak in a second language. The emotional distance provided by that language may help them approach subjects that would feel too intense, embarrassing or painful in their first language.

Preferences may also change depending on the topic. Someone may speak in English about work, because it is the language they use professionally, and switch to Portuguese when remembering a family situation. Certain words may only appear in one language because that is where they were learned and lived.

This shift does not need to be seen as an obstacle. On the contrary, it can provide important information about the way a person emotionally organises different parts of their life.

In my clinical practice, I offer psychological consultations in Portuguese and English. Being able to choose the language in which a person feels most comfortable can facilitate communication and allow therapy to better respect their history and identity.

In the future, I intend to also offer consultations in French, extending this possibility to people who express themselves more easily in that language.

More than searching for a perfect translation of every sentence, what matters is creating a space where the person can communicate authentically. At times, this may mean using one language most of the time. At other times, it may involve moving between languages when that movement helps something important to be expressed.

Language should also be considered in psychological assessment

This question is equally important when psychological tests and assessment instruments are used.

A person may speak fluently in a second language and still have more difficulty understanding abstract expressions, emotional vocabulary or complex instructions. Performance on a task may therefore reflect not only cognitive or emotional abilities, but also the relationship with the language in which the assessment is carried out.

Translations of instruments are not completely neutral either. A question that seems simple in one language may acquire another cultural or emotional meaning in another.

For this reason, preferred language, learning history and cultural context should be considered when interpreting results. Assessing someone in a language they do not fully master can lead to imprecise conclusions, especially when results are used to make important decisions.

We do not have several personalities, but several ways of being ourselves

Speaking different languages does not create completely separate personalities. However, each language can give access to different parts of our experience.

One language may bring us closer to childhood and family. Another may be associated with independence, work, travel or an important relationship. One may intensify emotions; another may provide the distance needed to speak about them.

The differences we feel do not mean that one version is false. They all belong to the same person.

Language is not only a way of expressing who we are. It is also one of the contexts through which we build, remember and understand our own history.

Perhaps, for this reason, the most useful question is not “which of these versions is really me?”, but rather: “what does each language allow me to feel, think and say?”

References

Costa, A., Foucart, A., Arnon, I., Aparici, M., & Apesteguia, J. (2014). Piensa twice: On the foreign language effect in decision making. Cognition, 130(2), 236–254.

Dewaele, J.-M. (2010). Emotions in multiple languages. Palgrave Macmillan.

Keysar, B., Hayakawa, S. L., & An, S. G. (2012). The foreign-language effect: Thinking in a foreign tongue reduces decision biases. Psychological Science, 23(6), 661–668.

Marian, V., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2004). Self-construal and emotion in bicultural bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 51(2), 190–201.

Pavlenko, A. (2005). Emotions and multilingualism. Cambridge University Press.

Pérez Foster, R. (1992). Psychoanalysis and the bilingual patient: Some observations on the influence of language choice on the transference. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 9(1), 61–76.

Rolland, L., Dewaele, J.-M., & Costa, B. (2017). Multilingualism and psychotherapy: Exploring multilingual clients’ experiences of language practices in psychotherapy. International Journal of Multilingualism, 14(1), 69–85.