How to start thinking in a foreign language?

Do you want to finally start thinking in a foreign language?

But have you ever wondered what that really means?

When your spouse announces the arrival of their mother for a long weekend, will you be cursing that idea in your head in Spanish?

Or will you be planning your next mountain trip in French?

Not quite.

When someone comes to me with the question, “How can I start thinking in a foreign language?” I know they’re actually asking about something completely different.

Think about it carefully…

What is the real problem for someone like that (and maybe even for you)?

In which language do you think?

I hear this question quite often when people learn that I use multiple languages on a daily basis. However, I always give them the same answer: “In Polish.”

How is that possible?

When you speak, for example, in Hindi, do you think in Polish all the time?

Not exactly. I can’t think and speak at the same time.

Thinking is a process I engage in when I’m not speaking or listening, such as when I analyze what someone said or when I think about blue almonds.

Therefore, you could say that I perform:

Three language activities

They are:

• speaking
• listening
• thinking

I always do the third one in my native language. A foreign language is only necessary for the first two activities.

Thinking in a foreign language – what does it mean?

So what do people mean when they want to start thinking in English or German?

They want to stop translating in their head from their own language to the language they are learning.

To achieve this, one thing is essential and becomes crucial at the B1 and B2 levels.

But let’s start from the beginning.

What should you learn at the A1 and A2 levels?

Imagine that you want to learn a new foreign language.

Choose a language that has interested you for a long time…

Got it?

If so, think about where you should start.

What should you learn first to begin communicating in that language?

Many language courses approach this incorrectly, which leaves learners feeling like they’re not making progress.

Do you sometimes feel that way too, that learning doesn’t bring results?

Exactly.

Imagine that you enrolled in a cooking course. You want to learn how to prepare simple dishes, but the teacher starts by describing sixty types of knives, fifty steaming and onion chopping techniques, and how to differentiate between different species of squid. Will you learn how to make dumplings thanks to that? Probably not.

The same unfortunately applies to language courses.

While we don’t learn the names of squid species in English or German, we often hear the following ideas from the teacher’s mouth:

“Today, we will learn fifty job titles in English, and tomorrow we will do exercises on filling in the correct forms of all tenses. I know you love that.”

And what about you? How often have you learned unnecessary words or grammar rules that never came in handy?

At the A1 and A2 levels, you should focus on something completely different:

• learning basic vocabulary (about 1000 words) – approximately 10-20% of the words in a text are enough to understand 80% of its content.
• learning basic grammatical structures that we use in 80% of cases. 

It’s not the specific number of words and structures that make a difference, but how often they are used in the language.

You can learn 2000 unnecessary words and not make any progress.

Levels A1 and A2 are like the Pareto principle in practice: 80% of results come from 20% of causes.

What should you learn at the B1 and B2 levels?

Okay, let’s go a step further. You already know the basics, but you still can’t understand what foreigners say to you, and you still can’t put together a sentence without stuttering and translating the words in your head.

Do you know why this is happening?

Your brain is like a big warehouse. You have managed to gather everything you need in it, but you are not yet able to quickly find what you are looking for in it.

When you hear a sentence in a foreign language, your inner warehouseman runs like crazy and tries to find the meaning of the words you hear. However, it does so very slowly.

Have you ever had a situation where you were listening to a speech in, for example, English and when the interlocutor said the fifth or sixth sentence, suddenly a light bulb went on in your head and you heard a happy voice in your head: “He must have said the word ‘xyz’ in the first sentence! I managed to understand something!”

You can see how hard it is for your brain to keep up at first.

To be able to find information much faster in the brain you need to automate the whole process.

How to do it?

Through continuous repetitions and practice. There are no shortcuts here.

Indeed, you should continue to expand your vocabulary, after mastering the basic vocabulary, even acquiring several thousand new words will only improve your communication skills by a few percentage points. But what good are those words if your brain can’t keep up with understanding and using them?

Automation is also necessary to start using the correct language structures. When a foreigner learns English, they often say, for example, “Is it possible to do it?” using a direct translation. You probably understand what they mean, but you also see that they should automate the structure with the word “can,” for example, “Can I do it?”

Have you ever wondered how many language mistakes you make? Do you sometimes use the expression “for sure” in English, which you translate from your own language? I recently spoke with an English teacher from the United States who mentioned that Americans rarely use “for sure.” This expression is used (or perhaps overused) almost exclusively by foreigners learning English.

What and how should you automate, then? How exactly should you do it?

First and foremost, focus on the structures and vocabulary you learned at the A1 and A2 levels. Only when you have mastered them well, move on to the next ones.

It’s not advisable to dive into deep waters right away. I always advise starting with simpler things and gradually raising the bar.

Here are a few things you can start with (in order from easier to more difficult):

• Start reading in the foreign language, but begin with simpler texts like blogs or books written in simpler language.
• Create new sentences using the structures and vocabulary you already know.
• Start writing in the foreign language. For example, try keeping a small diary and describe what happened during the day and your thoughts in it. Everything in the foreign language – at the beginning, a few sentences a day is enough. However, try to limit yourself to words and structures you know. If you lack a certain word, try to express your thoughts differently.
• Start using the language in conversations with foreigners, preferably in individual lessons where you can focus the conversation on what you want to practice at that moment.
• Listen a lot. However, choose simpler listening materials (such as slowed-down recordings like “Slow English” or podcasts on topics that interest you).

In summary

When you start automating your skills, you will suddenly notice something interesting – the need to translate everything in your head from your own language to the foreign language will disappear. You will start speaking immediately in that language, without stuttering or hesitating…

Your brain will learn to quickly access information, allowing you to handle situations without the intermediary of your native language.

However, in order to start automating, you need something to automate. It is necessary to master those 20% of structures that account for 80% of communication. What are these structures? You can find out more in the article here: Where to Start with Language Learning.

Article originally published at sekretypoliglotow.pl in Polish. You can find it here.