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Some more thoughts on #aphantasia and language. So, I don’t have visuals in my brain at all (I cannot picture my wife, or my parents, even if I try). I always thought when people said they were thinking about me, that it was in the same abstract sense that I think.

Somehow; this also means that my language skills are over-developed. I basically think in chunks of text. I was talking to a coworker about how she feels she needs to translate her spoken thoughts or words into written words, whereas I have the opposite problem. I used to have great difficulty translating my thoughts into speech. They come out as fully formed.. essays. And that is how I write.

I can write large chunks of texts quickly because I ‘see’ and ‘feel’ language in that way.

As a not-visual learner; mind maps confuse me: but I can scan complex academic texts and speed read and digest text very quickly.

This somehow doesn’t work with non-Latin languages. I have great verbal hearing (I can ‘hear’ and understand almost all Asian languages quickly to a fairly high level) but even though Mandarin is my primary other language perhaps because of the graphical nature of it, I can’t ’perceive’ or ‘feel’ it as well.

#Languages