Ah! Foreigners?

[Mathias]

Ok, so I'm talking to one of my friends from Vietnam on Facebook. And her English is actually quite not that good. So I was wondering. If a person has a lot of friends with people who speak a language she or he can't speak that well, what do THE DREAM CHARACTERS speak when they're dreaming?! If you have bad English and are somehow reading all of this, please tell me... In dreams, does the English come out smoothly and do people use words you don't understand like in real life? Or do the people who speak English SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE?! Or do any of you have friends who are like this and maybe even have lucid dreams to tell about?

[Loaf]

She'll dream in her native language. Either she won't encounter people who don't speak that language, or they will speak gibberish and she'll perceive it as another language even though its not an accurate portrayal of the actual language in reality.

[Hukif]

What loaf said. I always dream in spanish despite using english a lot more at some points.

[Mathias]

Thanks guys! I was really wondering about this haha

[Flying Mandarine]

I believe that most of the time, as Loaf said, it'll be gibberish or your main language. However, I think it is possible that sometimes, the characters (or even yourself) can speak with better skills than you consciously can. Of course it wouldn't be like saying words which you never read or heard, but the subconscious must have a better grasp of the language than your conscious self. I know it's quite personal, and dreams can be deceiving, but I'm pretty sure I've dreamed a few times of people speaking a better Japanese than me, and me having to think for some time in the dream before understanding it when those dream characters didn't have to think twice. It's very curious, because I sometimes wake up remembering those words which I thought were forgotten.

[Hyu]

I've mentioned this in another post, but in all of my dreams, everyone speaks english (me included) which is not my native language. My native language is luxembourgish, I study in germany so I speak german a lot, but I have a lot of english speaking friends I talk to over skype/teamspeak. I also watch movies / tv in english exclusively. Although I personally think that my english is ok, I feel like I have an even easier time speaking english in my dreams. I just find the words I want to use much more easily, and the overall flow of a conversation feels better.

[Loaf]

I'd like to see an accurate transcript of your dreams, Hyu, because I'd bet money that its not that English is easier in your dreams but you just aren't noticing that you aren't speaking it with precision compared to when you are conscious.

[Hyu]

Oh, I actually fully agree with this. What I meant to describe was how it feels like in the dreams. I don't really remember long conversations well enough to do a proper transcript, I mostly remember what a conversation was about, plus a few key sentences.

[Loaf]

Ah, I see.