Some people claim that acquiring languages needs to be done the same way as a child, ie natural acquisition. No translation into L1 etc etc. Which seems a bit silly to me, as I’ve always thought that a word, is a link to a concept in your mind. The whole lemma/lexeme thing. Thus, if you translate your L2 word into L1 you just establish a quicker route to a concept. Of course there are different boundaries involved, each translation is not the exact same concept.

So, with time, your L2 word links to its own concept, rather than going past the L1 to the first time you learned that concept. With fluency, both forms L1 and L2 are linked to their own lemmas (sometimes the same one if the translation are closely linked).

I also can add, that I may generate sentences in my head in all three languages which I have to use everyday. But there is no doubt, that there are people who can do it in five, six or more languages. Yeah, I always have a feeling that I am too lazy in improving my language skills and need to learn more and more.

Scientifically, I wonder. You’d know better than I would, but I read a while back that we never actually get to that point with L2. Instead, we’re still translating, we just don’t notice it. In other words the L1 part of the brain still flashes on the screen a moment before the L2 part does, but it’s all so fast that we never realise it.

Being the same kind of person who tries lucid dreaming, I’ve tried to catch myself having momentary English thoughts while deep in a Mandarin conversation. Of course, doing so pretty much sabotages my groove every time.

Thank you!