Name: How to THINK in English (and why you must)
Uploaded: 2024-10-24T06:30:22.000Z
Duration: 15 min 20 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of frequency

You're never going to become fluent in English if you keep making this mistake.

To-infinitive

You need to stop translating in your head from your own language into English.

Gerund

You need to start thinking directly in English.

And that's why in today's video I want to talk to you about why this happens, why it's a bad thing to translate from your own language into English, and how you can start thinking directly in English.

Now before we start, let's talk about why this is actually a problem.

Why shouldn't you translate from your own language into English?

If you're like most students, you have translated, you have done this before.

You want to say something, you have an idea, you translate that idea into English, you look for the correct grammar, you look for the correct vocabulary, maybe even pronunciation, and then finally you say it.

Because you should be able to speak just like that, right, without having to actually think about the mechanical side of the language.

You don't do this in your native language.

You don't even think about language when you're speaking your native language.

So why should it be any different in English?

And obviously there is the problem of, well, grammar in certain languages is completely different from grammar in English.

Some words in other languages don't have a translation in English.

So yes, it's obviously going to slow you down if you translate, but in some cases it might not even be possible to translate from your own language into English.

You need to think directly in English without worrying about the mechanics of the language.

Now I want to talk to you about how you can actually do this.

How do you make speaking English something natural?

Something that you don't need to think about?

It means you pretend to do something until eventually, after you do it a lot, you got it.

And what I want you to do is fake being a native speaker.

Now the reason why your native language is so natural to you is because your whole world when you grew up was in that language.

Your whole environment was in your native language.

And when you learn a second language or a third language, which might be English or another language, suddenly you have a different environment.

You still do things in your native language.

And when I say fake it till you make it, I mean pretend you're a native English speaker and live your life like a native English speaker would.

Surround yourself with the English language.

Think about what a native English speaker would do in the morning when he or she wakes up.

Maybe they would watch YouTube as they brush their teeth in English.

Maybe they would turn on the radio as they prepared breakfast.

Everything in their life would be in English because that's their native language.

And since they're exposed to the language, since they're surrounded by the language, it's natural to them.

That is the key to becoming fluent in a language.

If you don't do this, it will always just be a school subject.

It will always be something that you have to study, that you have to think about.

Do the things that a native English speaker would do in their life.

If you do the same things a native English speaker does to learn the language, to live their life, then you can achieve the same results.

And I think a lot of students forget this.

They're too focused on conjugation tables.

They're too focused on all these academic things.

And I think a big problem or a big part of this problem is the school system.

Because in school, when you learned English, you probably learned in a very unnatural way.

You probably divided your day into one hour of English.

And you sat down, you read a textbook, you did some exercises for that one hour.

And then after the class was over, you switched into your own language.

It's obvious why, but that method of compartmentalizing English or just blocking it off in a way won't help you become fluent.

Because it doesn't allow the language into your whole life.

If you're serious about becoming fluent, you should allow the English language to consume you.

Obviously, some things you can only do in your native language.

But the point here is that you need to pretend you're a native speaker.

A student came to me recently and she loved cooking.

And I asked her, okay, what language do you read those recipes in?

And she read them in her native language.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How to THINK in English (and why you must)

stuff

eventually

obvious

pretend