[FredPret]

I learned English and honestly the only thing that happened was my life got 100 times better socially and professionally. My thinking is exactly the same.

The only cognitive skills I've noticed improving is my ability to play word games and figure out simple phrases in third languages when traveling, because I have two languages to reference when thinking about word origins and relationships.

[nine_k]

Is your first language Germanic? Romance? Indo-European at all? The difference with English may be not stark enough to make you notice a different point of view.

Compared to English, say, Spanish has forms of verb so detailed that a single word expresses aspects that require a whole phrase in English: "venceremos" = "we will prevail", or "quisiera" = "I would like". You cannot opt out of this level of detail.

Also in a ton of languages you have to care about nouns being masculine / feminine (la ciudad, ein Stadt, etc). In e.g. Slavic languages you have to also care about nouns being animate / inanimate.

Regarding the Slavic languages, while e.g. Ukrainian has the typical English-like possessive construction, e.g. "I have a car", Russian uses something like "by me there is a car". It also has the perfect tense designation as a part of the verb, in all forms and tenses. With that, some verbs lack some tenses! Formally these tenses could possibly be formed, but are never used and are considered unacceptable. Notably, you can say "we will win", but cannot say "I will win" using the same verb.

Opposed to that, Japanese is highly regular, it has like 2.5 irregular verbs in the entire language. Its verb system is hugely flexible and expressive, but it lacks a future tense; you have to infer it from the context. Nouns also lack a regular plural form; you can mark a noun as plural in a pinch, but usually you have to infer it from the context, and omit when speaking. Most sentences are built around topic markers: instead of "I have a car" you say "Regarding me, a car exists". Adjectives are actually lightweight verbs, and can have a past tense. The system of politeness / honorifics permeates the language: not only "younger sister" and "elder sister" are different words, but "your wife" and "my wife" are completely different words, same for "my home" and "your home". To say nothing about the writing system that uses ideographic characters for halves of many words. Imagine using emojis for writing, with attached strings of letters for things like -ed, -s, -ing, etc.

Knowing stuff like this is mildly entertaining. What changes your perception is an honest attempt to use such a language, translating texts, and especially for daily communication. You start noticing untranslatable stuff, things that cannot be expressed in a different language, except with a lengthy and awkward explanation. Congrats, now you have a new mental tool.

[Tor3]

As for Japanese, the by far more important difference is, in my opinion, that the verb comes last. Imagine an automatic Star Trek Universal Translator feature: Can't happen. You can't translate the sentence as it's being spoken, you have to wait until the last word before you can get past the subject if you're translating to English.

What this means in practice is something you'll have to watch for to notice: It's far more common for Japanese people not to reply until the other party has finished the sentence. Because, depending on context, the verb is important. Important parts happens at the end of the sentence, while in my own language important things are at the beginning of the sentence and the remainder is just fluff, so it's extremely common to hear people communicate in overlapping patterns - you start replying mid-sentence (and the other party automatically stops because the point has already been made so it's fine). This is something which absolutely infuriates my Japanese wife, even though she speaks my language nearly perfectly. She can't get out of the habit of expecting people to wait until the very end, even though as far as the other party is concerned everything is already clear.

But this does instill a good habit - there's way less interruptions. Because when you learn your pattern of replying mid-sentence, sometimes you do miss the real point. And more.

[calimoro78]

Maybe English is not a mind-opening language :(

[ted_bunny]

Look at how English treats time as money. You save, invest, spend, waste it. There are plenty of these things out there, but they're subtle.

[fuzztester]

Yes, instead it is an opening-minded language :), as in, it creates work and business openings, being the de facto international language of business.

[freilanzer]

Depends where you are coming from.