There’s something I have to admit: language can shape your mind, and the way you speak can definitely influence how you think.

It’s very obvious once you notice it. When you’re speaking English, you may feel like a totally different person from the one who speaks your mother tongue. Maybe you’re more logical, paying more attention to things rather than to emotions and feelings. Why does that happen? There are basically two reasons.

The Foreign Language Effect

The first is what researchers call the foreign language effect. Studies show that your native language carries much stronger emotion weight. Your memories, your childhood, your deepest feelings — they are all encoded in it. So when you switch to your second language, you naturally get a little more distance from those emotions. You become more open, more rational, less reactive.

Nouns vs. Verbs: How English and Chinese See the World Differently

The second reason is that when you’re speaking English, you pay more attention to concrete things. There’s a book called Anatomy of Chinese by Perry Link, published by Harvard University Press, that talks about how English and Chinese treat the world very differently.

English tends toward turning processes into things. For example, “inflation” becomes something you can fight or defeat — even though it’s really just a process happening over time. In Chinese, the same idea would be expressed more through actions and movement.

So if you’re using more nouns, you may pay more attention to concrete reality instead of emotions. You might say, “I have a feeling of sadness,” even when you’re genuinely devastated. That phrasing puts you from a distance — you’re observing your own emotion rather than drowning in it — and you’ll be more rational because of it.

That difference in language might actually reshape how we think. Learning a new language gives you new templates, new models for processing your emotions and dealing with the problems in your life. It’s unconsciously making you a better person.

The Danger of Labels

The second thing I want to talk about is how we’re becoming more extreme and polarizing in our language right now. We tend to use a lot of labels, because extreme and polarizing identifiers are more indexable by the algorithm. When we post something on social media, we pay close attention to titles and tags. We try to attract people with just one keyword. If you want to go viral, you need to find that single powerful word.

But human feelings and experiences cannot be captured by just one word.

Compare two ways of expressing yourself. The first: just use a polarizing label like mad, angry, or involution. The second: “I don’t agree with what he said, and my mind feels a little bit messy — I notice my body temperature going up.”

If you can be more specific with your language instead of slapping a label on your emotions, you’ll be less easily triggered by bad news or harsh words.

Emotional Granularity

This connects to a concept called emotional granularity, researched by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett at Northeastern University. Her studies show that people who can describe their emotions with more specificity are less likely to react impulsively — and actually have better mental and physical health overall.

So it’s not just about sounding more articulate. It genuinely changes how your brain processes what you feel.

That’s why the language we use every day is so influential. My motto is inspired by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said: “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” Because if you are narrow in your use of language, you are narrow in your world.