In this TED Talk, Lera Boroditsky discusses an interesting topic for me, which is the ability of languages to shape how humans think. Talking in our languages is not only a way of communication, but also a way to transmit knowledge across minds. When you speak in your language, you do not always transmit the exact meaning of your words. Each language has its own idioms that send hidden messages to others who speak the same language. For example, English speakers usually use the idiom: “Break a Leg” with each other, which means “Good Luck”. But if an English speaker said this idiom to someone from another nationality, he would not be able to understand the hidden message behind the words. He would think the English person was actually telling him to break a leg. In other words, humans can say the same sentence in their own languages; however, this sentence in each language can have a different meaning. People who speak different languages will pay attention to different things depending on what their language usually requires them to do, leading to the conclusion that the language you speak shapes the way you think.

One of the other ideas that Lera discussed was how grammatical gender influences thinking. As an Egyptian who speaks Arabic, I used to struggle to memorize the grammatical gender in German because some words have different grammatical genders in Arabic and German. For example, the word “Bridge” is masculine in Arabic, but feminine in German. As a result, I realized that the influence of my language is the reason behind my struggles. My language provides habits and patterns of my mind that guide how I pay attention to the world.