How to Stop Translating in Your Head and Start Thinking in English
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Stop translating everything from English into your native language in your head, in your mind, in your brain and your noggin and to start thinking only in English. It is possible. Believe me. No matter what level you're at right now, it's possible to think in English and I'm going to show you how. I'm going to give you nine tips that will help you on your journey to thinking just like a native English speaker, so if this is interesting to you then keep watching.
So first of all what's the problem with translating everything into your native language before you come up with a respond in English. Well, if you're in a conversation or some situation where you need to really process information quickly and be able to respond rapidly in an appropriate timely mannerthen you really don't have time to translate. Even if you're super smart, which I know you are and you're really good at English, which I know you are. It still takes time to process all the information you're getting in English into your native language and then think in your native language“okay, what am I going to say? How am I gonna respond”and then translate that back into English. It's a lot of work for your brain to do and no matter how awesomely intelligent you are, it's gonna take too long in a native speed, kind of fast back an forth conversation. So, if you are in a social situation, if you are in a meeting at work, if you are at a presentation and you want to ask questions, you really need to be able to think in English. So the problem started with the way that we learn foreign languages. Of course it's easy and it makes sense to begin this way because we know vocabulary in our native language, but it actually is hurting us once we get into conversational English. So when I left the classroom, when I left my English classroom and I tried to have a conversation with native English speakers, I was like in total shock, my jaw hit the ground, because I couldn't understand anything and I definitely couldn't respond, because I was trying to just identify a few words that I could recognize, that I could hear, that I could listen to, that I couldcomprehendand then translate those into Chinese and then think in Chinese to translate back into English and I was a wreck, so I don't want that to happen to you. Maybe you know how that feels already. Let me give you some suggestions to get you started thinking in English.
First let's start small. Understanding everything in English and being able to respond in English is like a big meal. That's a lot of vocabulary or a lot of food to digest, right? So let's start by taking small bites and digest thoroughly. So start by doing small daily activities in English. So for example, every day I take my dog for a walk or sometimes for a run, so sometimes I talk to him usually in Chinese, but sometimes just to really confuse him, I talked to him in English. And instead of saying ”走,出發”, I'll say "come, let's go.”So you could do this in English. Maybe you have a pet, or if you don't have a pet, there's other ways too. I bet you have a phone. If you have a smart phone, you could set that in English. So that every time you open up your phone, there's English vocabulary for you to work with. This is an example of an everyday activity, probably multiple times a day you're looking at your phone that you could do in English. And maybe there's other thing that you can think of too. So what are some other suggestions of small daily activities that you could do in English. Comment! Let me know what you think.
