A look at the ways that the construction of language can have implications for the way we think, act and parse the world around us.

La 2 e’ anche molto italica:

in English, we’ll often say that someone broke a vase even if it was an accident, but Spanish and Japanese speakers tend to say that the vase broke itself. Boroditsky describes a study by her student Caitlin Fausey in which English speakers were much more likely to remember who accidentally popped balloons, broke eggs, or spilled drinks in a video than Spanish or Japanese speakers. (Guilt alert!) Not only that, but there’s a correlation between a focus on agents in English and our criminal-justice bent toward punishing transgressors rather than restituting victims

“S’e’ rotto il vaso. Ops.”

5 examples of how the languages we speak can affect the way we think