Claude speaks my language. I’m not sure it thinks in it.

I use Claude in both English and Spanish, and I’ve been thinking about something that has less to do with how good its Spanish is and more with what comes with the language.

Say I have a problem with my boss and ask Claude what to do. It might suggest sitting down with him, being direct about how I feel and talking through how we could improve the situation.

Nothing strange about that advice. But it also comes from a particular idea of how people should deal with conflict and authority. What works in an American workplace might feel awkward in Spain, and could be completely inappropriate in another culture.

That’s the part I hadn’t really thought about before. LLMs have learned from a huge amount of English-language content. Claude can answer me in very good Spanish, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the assumptions behind the answer are Spanish too.

And this goes beyond language sounding slightly translated. People ask Claude what they should say to their boss, how to handle an argument with their partner, whether someone’s behaviour is normal, how to negotiate something. Culture is all over those questions, even when we don’t explicitly mention it.

I’m not saying Claude literally thinks in English. I don’t think we can know that from its answers. But I do wonder how much of an English-speaking, and particularly American, way of looking at things gets carried into other languages without being obvious.

For those who use Claude outside English: do you notice this in your own language? Have you ever received advice that sounded completely natural but felt culturally off? And do you think Claude adapts to your culture, or mostly translates its way of looking at the world?