6 ways to STOP translating in your head THINK in another language
Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy
I probably look a little bit different today and that it’s
because I think I live in the hottest flat in England
or at least in Cambridge
Oh my God
right, so it’s around 27, 28 degrees outside which for England is really really hot
but inside my flat it’s like a damn rain forest
it’s humid muggy
that’s a really good word
muggy is when it’s like heavy hot sticky air
humidity
and I have a whole wall of windows which is great
because it lets in a lot of light
but it also
contributes to a green house effect in my flat and so I’m actually boiling
so
I couldn’t bring myself to do my hair
cause it was just like put it in and then it would fall out again
and also no turtle necks today
got my Coca Cola t-shirt instead
which is not sponsored
wish it was sponsored, imagine having Coca Cola sponsoring you, awesome
so today is a really really really important video
Today I’m going to give you some advice on how to stop translating
into your native language
Because a lot of people have this problem
I’ve asked lots of English learners and learners of other languages
and they say: “I would be able to speak so much more fluently if I could stop translating”
now, most of you probably already knew this
if you are new to this channel then I speak fluent Spanish
and I’m actively learning Italian
and I remember at the beginning of my Spanish learning journey
I really find it hard not to translate
and translating between English and Spanish can be really really difficult
and annoying
because the word other is so different
I’m now learning Italian actively
and I’m managing to do so without translating into Spanish or English
So
Speaking from my own experience as a language learner
and speaking from my experience as an English language teacher
I’m going to give you some advice and hopefully
help you get over this massive massive problem
that it’s preventing you from improving
Firstly, before we get started I’d just like to thank the sponsor of today’s video
Lingoda
This is a company I’ve been working with for a while
I really really belive in what they have on offer
They are an online language academy
They teach English, French, Spanish and German
and you sign up on a monthly basis
and you get a combination of group and private lessons
taught by a video chat
They have really really great materials
taught to you and delivered to you by real native qualifed teachers
and if you look at the prices it’s actually very very reasonable
it’s often much more affordable to study with Lingoda than it is to go to a like in person language school
they’ve given me a discount for you
you can get 50 euros or dollars off of your first month subscription at Lingoda
by clicking on the link in the description box
and using the discount code ENGLUCY6
ENGLUCY6
All the information is down there
Right,
Right,
Let’s get started with the video
Oh my God
IT. IS. SO. HOT
I bet all of you are in your country
Actually, let’s do something fun tell me where you live and
what temperature is where you are right now cause I bet something of you are in like 40 degree heat
I know my friends in Seville are really suffering with the heat and I’m here with 27 degrees
DYING!
I’m very sensitive
Okay so I’ve been thinking about this question for a long time
and I have actually made some notes on my phone
just because I want to get it in the right order for you
so bear with me
So,
How to avoid translating into your native language?
Well, the first tip I can give you and this will not apply to everyone
is don’t start in the first place
if you are in like a beginner level of English
some translation is inevitable
I mean, you are going to do it
the way we learn in school is
Amarillo
Yellow
Naranja
Orange
We learn through translation
However
Think back to when you were a baby
How did you acquire your first ever language?
Your mother tongue
You learn through observing, seeing, watching, hearing, smelling, tasting
watching actions
you didn’t learn through translation
because you had nothing to base your translation on
because you had no mother tongue
so babies are capable of learning a langue without any other language as reference
yet, we find it incredibly difficult
So, what you need to think is simplification
Babies start small and over years and years and years they build their vocabulary
and you need to apply this to yourself as well
is much more effective to learn vocabulary by observing and taking things in
than it is to just you know looking something at a dictionary
and that brings me on to my next point
Oh my God! I’m so hot!
and that brings me on to my next point which is
Grab your bilingual dictionary and throw it
out of the window! Don’t do that, okay? It might land on somebody’s head
Just place it to one side very carefully
and then pick up your monolingual dictionary
Is that the word for it?
And then
Pick up the dictionary in the language that you are learning
In many of your cases it would be English
and start letting the language define itself
so with words like nouns and verbs it can be a little difficult to understand
but that’s what you need to learn through observation
When you are looking at adjective, adverbs and other things like that
Try to understand the definition in that same language first
Because what you are going to be doing is training yourself to think in the language that you are learning
Which brings me on to my third point
Oh my God! What a beautifully well planned out video this is
So my next two points are about thinking and speaking to yourself in that language
Now I actually recommend that you start by speaking out loud to yourself in the other language
I think I mentioned that in a video about conversation, improving your conversation and communication
if you are interested in that then you can watch that video just up there
However speaking to yourself in the other language is a really really key factor
in learning to think in the language
So,
For example with Spanish I’ll be driving
and I’ll describe the movements that I’m going to be making with the car
So I’ll be like
‘Conduciendo, conduciendo, voy a girar a la derecha…
CABRÓN QUE TE ARRANCO LA CABEZA, GILIPO-anyway
That it’s what I do
or I’ll be pottering around my kitchen, cooking and talking to myself about what I’m doing
and
you will start to notice your own errors, specially when you hear yourself speaking out loud
Once you are comfortable speaking out loud to yourself in private in that additional language
Move on to starting to think
Now, I think speaking should come before thinking
But that’s just my opinion, everybody learns in different ways
I personally think it’s easier to spot errors and get comfortable when you are speaking out loud
Now, the speaking out loud, we should do in private
but the thinking I want you to do it everywhere
on the bus, seeing what goes past
it can relate to the video I made on how to learn and remember vocabulary which you can watch up here
it’s a useful method where you observe everything around you check if you see if you know it in your own chosen language
the full explanation it’s in the video and some people have found that really really useful
I know I found it useful
see if you can apply using a monolingual dictionary to that video
think I recommend using a bilingual one, see if you can do it with an English dictionary
yeah, so by thinking in English and I’m talking about
you know describing people, if you see someone walking think to yourself
“That man is walking” “He is walking down the street”
or just go in through your motions
“I’m getting off the bus” “I’m going to go to the shops”
in your head
you are just starting to immerse yourself in the language
Ah! That beautiful word! Immerse
to immerse yourself
Brings me on to point number five which is
immersion
and that’s actually one of my favorite words
I know I have a lot of favorite words but
immersion
immersion
mmm
that’s nice, that’s a nice word
So immersion is something that you should be doing throughout your learning experience
and it’s something that you can do whilst multitasking
which is one of my favorite things
So, when I’m doing something that doesn’t require a hundred percent concentration
Like cooking or cleaning
I always have something on in the background
Cleaning, cooking, washing the car, gardening, whatever
whatever any task that allows you to listen to something else at the same time as doing something else
Have something on in that language in the background
I know I’m saying it as if it’s revolutionary but really don’t forget to do it
I know you can waste so much time and miss out on so much learning
By, by having it on in the background and not even listening you will be getting used to pronunciation and accents
by listening and concentrating on what they are saying you will be familiarizing yourself with certain grammar
different vocabulary but also you will notice where you are lacking
So, if you listen to a radio program about
so if you listen to a radio program about politics for example
My last point is make it daily
Focus on frequency and consistency
Okay, I always say to my students that twenty minutes a day of high quality
Not even studying, just language acquisition
I sometimes surprise myself with the words that come out of my mouth
Twenty minutes a day of high quality English time
There we are, that sounds more like something Lucy would say
it’s much much much more valuable
than a hundred and forty minutes all in one day
So,
Make the general immersion and the thinking and the speaking to yourself
something that you do throughout your day, make it part of your routine
Make it become automatic to you
You know I sometimes now go for an hour thinking in Spanish
or you know thinking out loud in my head in Spanish and then I realize and I go
God!
You know, I just said something, I’ve just been speaking Spanish the whole time
and it is because I do it so often it becomes automatic
Then
the little tweaks and the little kind of self-help part that you are doing at the end
which is
you know, searching definitions for words
working on the grammar that you’ve identified that you are lacking in
or attempting to expand your vocabulary
that should be short and should be daily
Right guys, as always I want to know your opinions
you guys are a bunch of extremely intelligent minds and
I love, I love hearing your recommendations
and I apply them to my daily life as well
So, I’d love to know something that helped you stop translating into your native language
I’m sure you’ve got lots to share
In my other video where I asked you how many languages you speak
Some of you speak like seven languages which is unbelievable
and really awesome really impressive
honored to have a group of students like you guys
Yes, so please share your recommendations and your experience
In the comments below and also constructive criticism it’s completely welcome
So if you don’t agree with something I say, say it
say it in a nice way, because I like everyone to be respectful here but
I’m not the goddess of English
what I say doesn’t go
but I really do hope that I helped you
and that’s it for the video today
Don’t forget to check out Lingoda and see if it’s for you
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I will see you soon for another lesson