Language and Thought There is an important relationship between language and thought in learning a new language.

And it is hard to language learners to get this new system of meaning, to share ideas in a different way than his or her native language. Language learners already have a system of meaning (mother tongue) but think about what happens when he or she has to get a new system of meaning and linguistic code, he or she has to make differences between the two systems and two codes because both languages are different one from the other and he or she has to learn many words, many structures, etc. This is in a way difficult and hard for a person to get a new system of meaning and a new linguistic code and thats why language learners get first the new system of meaning (understanding what they hear listening) and then they get the new linguistic code (conveying ideas speaking) and this is what happens to many of us, we do understand what we hear but speaking is other story due to the hard part of expressing ideas with a new linguistic code but it is possible and you just have to keep going and then it becomes easier to speak in that language but you still have two semantic systems and two linguistics codes. A native speaker who has learnt both languages in the same context and almost the same period of time has only one system of meaning, for example, a language learner when he or she hears the word apple he thinks oh manzana and then imagines an apple but in the other hand, a native speaker hears the word apple, he or she imagines the apple and if hears the word manzana he imagines a manzana. Natives do not translate from one language to other one, they understand immediately and does not matter if they hear English or Spanish but language learners do translate most of the time because they are not used to the new system of meaning. This is how a new system of meaning is processed in the brain of most of the language learners when they acquire or learn two languages in different periods of time and also different contexts, and as you see it is opposite to natives who have learnt both languages in the same period and contexts. Other important thing about the relation between language and thought is that language learners actually can be as native speakers, in the way of having one single system of meaning and this is possible if they practice the new language and start to use languages like if they were the same method to convey your ideas. An example could be: imagine a situation when two persons are speaking Spanish, one of them is a native who speaks English and Spanish and the other one, a language learner who speaks both languages, too, and then an English speaker appears and says hi the native speaker will instantly respond hi but the other one will think after speaking. And this happens almost always to us when we are speaking Spanish and someone passes by and says something in English and we are like what did ya say? we do not know what to say or how to respond but I bet a native would understand unless he or she did not hear clearly.
Brown, D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. In D. Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (pages. ). Longman Publishing Group.