From Stanley Schaetzel
Psychologist Steven Pinker proposes that the “mentalese” of our inner voice does not require language. Your article offers a better explanation – that it is external speech without the articulation (1 June, p 32).
As a quadrilingual person I can confirm that in order to speak a given language properly, one must think in that language. For some people, their halting delivery reveals their inner translation process, as they try to go from one language internally, to speaking in another.
Westleigh, New South Wales, Australia
