Cultural Differences.

I'm fascinated by languages (as you probably know, if you've been hanging out here for a while) and I'm also fascinated by cultural differences. Both language and culture intersect, of course, and sometimes using a different language shapes what you are thinking or how you are thinking. That is another fascinating thing for me.

If you like that topic as well, here's a book (series) recommendation: the Foreigner series by C.J. Cherryh. It's a very long series about humans and an alien species co-existing on a planet, and a lot of it deals with language, and culture, and differences between humans and atevi. (Also Cherryh has mastered the art of letting the humans appear as the aliens - not that extremely in the Foreigner story, but if that is tickling your curiosity now, check out her Faded Sun Trilogy and the Chanur series.

Smaller cultural differences can even be found inside of Germany - there's quite a difference between some things and how they are done in the South and in the North. The further you move, of course, the more cultural clash potential you can get:

Irish and German people offering things pic.twitter.com/AoPgWJpK6L

— Killian Sundermann (@killersundymann) October 7, 2021

Language is also very much connected with emotions - at least our mother tongue typically is. Second languages are not as much a part of our cultural background (as they were not present, typically, during the formative early years), so they can be more detached, which has an influence on our thinking when using them, like this article in conversation.com explains. Which also means that sometimes it may be easier to talk about something very emotional when using a second language... amazing, isn't it?