Does emotion have a language too?

The researchers observed that, when faced with potentially embarrassing situations, participants were more likely to use a foreign language. They also expected a less intense emotional reaction when doing so. ^[1]

The results suggest that the language we use can change the distance from which we process certain emotions. They do not establish that we feel less when speaking another language.

Another 2026 study used neuroimaging to observe how bilingual people’s brains reacted to information related to a threat. It also found differences depending on whether the information was received in the dominant language or in a second language. ^[2] That made me think about Spanish again.

I use the word therapeutic carefully. Speaking another language is not therapy, and I do not want to turn my experience into a general rule. But, at certain moments, it has had a similar effect on me.

French is tied to my childhood, my family and many layers of my history. Spanish came later. Perhaps that is why some words did not carry quite the same baggage.

There is also research on processing negative autobiographical memories in a foreign language. The findings are still limited, but they suggest that language can influence how we react emotionally when recalling certain experiences. ^[3] That does not mean erasing the past. In my case, it has been more about finding another position from which to look at it.

Speaking several languages also asks the brain to keep doing a small exercise. Choosing words, controlling interference, switching codes according to the context. I like to think of it as a gym, without promising superpowers.

What interests me most about speaking other languages is that it makes us step out of automatic habits.

To look for another word, to accept that something has no exact translation and to discover that the same idea can be built differently. And, sometimes, that we do not feel exactly the same about what we translate either. I am not a different person when I speak French, Spanish, Catalan or English. But I am beginning to suspect that I do not always look from exactly the same place.

One day, while listening to a radio programme explaining this phenomenon, I suddenly found words for what I was feeling. It helped me recognise a feeling that was already there. Perhaps that is why I still find languages so fascinating. They do not just give us new words with which to speak to the world. Sometimes they also give us another way to speak to ourselves inwardly.