Why Does Living In A Foreign Language Make You Less Emotional?

I have always thought that spending most of your life speaking your native language is extremely important. But for a long time, I looked at this idea in a more personal and surface-level way. When I started reading about the scientific side of it, I realized that the issue is not just about “knowing a language” or “being able to communicate.”

Language is not only a tool for communication. It is a mental infrastructure that shapes how we think, how we feel, and how we interpret the world. Many of the things that make us sad, happy, ashamed, guilty, or proud are learned and encoded through our native language.

Because the first “shame on you,” the first “well done,” and the first “I love you” we hear in childhood come through that language. When we think about someone we like, replay an argument with a friend in our head, or remember something painful from the past, most of that inner dialogue happens in our native language.

That is why, when a person starts living through a foreign language, it is not only the words that change. The way they access their emotions can also change.

A Foreign Language Can Create Distance From Emotions

When we live through a foreign language or start thinking in that language, the mental distance between us and the emotional side of events can grow.

At first, this can look like becoming more rational. In a foreign language, we may approach some things more calmly, make more utilitarian decisions in moral dilemmas, or feel certain events less intensely than we would in our native language.

But the issue is not exactly “being more logical.”

A 2017 study by Hayakawa and colleagues, titled “Thinking More or Feeling Less?”, points to an important distinction. When people make decisions in a foreign language, their emotional reactions may become weaker, but their logical reasoning does not necessarily become stronger.

In other words, when a person thinks in a foreign language, they may not be thinking more deeply. They may simply be feeling less.

Maybe We Are Not More Logical, Just Less Emotional

This distinction matters. It is easy to describe decisions made in a foreign language as “more rational.” But some research suggests that this may have more to do with a weaker emotional brake system.

For example, in moral dilemmas where one person must be sacrificed to save more people, people using a foreign language may be more likely to make utilitarian choices. This may happen because the intense emotional reaction triggered by the native language is not working with the same force.

In a native language, the idea of “sacrificing someone” can feel heavier, more real, and more disturbing. In a foreign language, the same idea may feel more technical, distant, and abstract.

So a foreign language can sometimes make a person look calmer not because it makes them genuinely more rational, but because it reduces the emotional weight of the situation.

The Native Language Sits At The Center Of Emotional Memory

This is where the power of the native language becomes very clear. A native language is not just the first language we learn. It is also the language of childhood, family conversations, first fears, first embarrassments, first loves, and first wounds.

We do not learn the meaning of a word only from a dictionary. The tone of voice we heard it in, the person who said it, the age we were when we heard it, and the emotion attached to it all matter.

That is why some sentences in a native language can go straight inside a person. The same sentence in a foreign language may carry the same meaning, but not the same emotional force.

“I love you” and its equivalent in another language may mean the same thing. But they may not carry the same weight in someone’s mind. One can be fed by childhood, family, memory, and personal history, while the other may remain more learned, controlled, and distant.

This Effect Can Be Stronger For People Who Move Abroad

This subject also matters in the psychology of migration and cultural adaptation. When a person starts living in another country, the dominant language of daily life changes. From grocery shopping to official paperwork, from friendships to work life, everything starts happening inside another language.

Over time, this can change the way a person relates to the outside world. Living in a foreign language can be freeing in a practical sense, but emotionally, it can sometimes feel incomplete.

Feeling lonely, struggling to form bonds, reacting less strongly to events, or feeling emotionally muted may not only come from cultural differences. Sometimes the problem is that the language which fully activates a person’s emotions has fallen outside daily life.

Of course, culture, social environment, economic conditions, sense of belonging, and personality are also very important in this process. But it would be wrong to ignore the emotional distance created by not speaking your native language.

Living In A Foreign Language Can Feel Like Looking Through Glass

For some people, living in a foreign language means building a new life. But at the same time, it can place a thin layer of glass between the person and the world.

You hear things, understand them, answer them, and handle your daily life. But some things do not reach you the way they would in your native language. It is as if the meaning arrives in the mind, but the emotion stays slightly behind.

Maybe that is why arguing in a foreign language can feel more controlled, apologizing can feel more technical, showing love can feel more formal, and describing pain can feel incomplete. Because sometimes a person knows the word, but does not carry the emotional history behind that word.

Conclusion

These are some of the ideas that have been on my mind lately while thinking about the possibility of living in another country.

Knowing a foreign language is a huge advantage. It opens the door to new people, new cultures, and new versions of life. But the emotional bond a person has with their native language cannot easily be transferred into another language.

That is why living in a foreign language may not always make a person more logical. Sometimes it may simply make them more distant, more controlled, and less emotional. Maybe the native language is not only the language we speak. Maybe the native language is the home of our emotions.