How to really THINK in English!

- Can you think in English?

Of course you can, if you are using the right techniques.

So let me show you how you can think in English.

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Hello, this is Keith from English Speaking Success

and the website, the keithspeakingacademy.

Now, when I started teaching English in Spain

many, many years ago,

I had a group of students in a company, business students.

And some of them translated everything.

I would ask a question,

they would translate the question into Spanish

to check they'd understood,

and then give the answer in Spanish

and translate back into English,

often word by word.

It went something like this.

Juan, do you like classical music?

Juan: (speaking in Spanish)

Me: "In English, Juan?"

Juan: (speaking in Spanish)

No, it no like me for nothing.

Where do you begin?

And what I did at the start

was to correct the students, but it didn't help.

And what I realised is we had to talk about translation.

So we had a conversation

about translating and to stop translating.

So it finally worked.

These were low level students, but over time and over time,

they began changing their habit and it helps.

So how do you fix this translating habit?

Well, in this video, I'm gonna tell you some simple ideas

on how to fix the translating habit you may have,

even if it's not as bad as Juan.

And there are ideas for absolute beginners

as well as higher level learners.

And then in the second half of the video,

I'll show you the different ways that we think,

and how this can help you think in English.

Finally, stay.

Stick around to the end of the video,

'cause I'm gonna give you a bonus.

I'm gonna give you some tips on how you can build

your English thinking habit right now,

finally, once and for all.

Sound good?

Let's do it.

Okay, let's fix your translating habit if you have one.

Just to be clear, translation is not always bad, right?

It gets a bad reputation, but translation sometimes is good.

The problem is when you're translating all the time

and you're translating word by word.

That just doesn't work.

So here are five things you can do

to fix the translating habit.

The first one is to learn and practise chunks or phrases,

not just individual words.

When you learn individual words,

you are more likely to translate word by word.

When you learn a phrase or a chunk,

you're more likely to remember that and avoid translation.

So learn chunks and practise them.

You don't have to speak out.

You can just think of them.

Let's imagine you learned this word.

A tram.

A tram.

So don't just learn tram.

Think, if you've learned a noun,

think or learn or find out in a dictionary.

Find out the verbs that go together

or the adjectives that go together with this noun, okay?

A tram.

To take the tram.

I take the tram.

Get on the tram.

Not get in, get on the tram.

How do you know?

Use a dictionary.

Have a look through.

Go for T, R, S, T, tram, T, R.

And all the young people are going,

Keith, doesn't he have a search engine

inside your dictionary?

Trim, try, tram, trash.

Ah, the good old days of using a dictionary, right?

Trans, tram.

Where are we?

Here we go, right?

Tram.

You can get to the beach easily by tram.

To go by tram, right?

So you sit there and you make phrases,

thinking, "I never take the tram."

"I need to get on the tram."

"I could go by tram."

And that's it.

So, so easy.

Same when you learn a verb,

learn the nouns or the adverbs that go together

and practise thinking.

That's number one.

Number two.

Number two is to notice and learn adjacent pairs.

Adjacent just means together, right?

My hands are adjacent.

They're next to each other.

An adjacent pair is in a conversation

where you have a two-part exchange, two speakers.

The first phrase has a reply or a second phrase

that is dependent on the first.

And these phrases often go together, right?

Like when you say, "Hello, hello."

That's an adjacent pair.

Very, very simple, right?

So when you're involved in conversations

or watching films or series,

look out for the adjacent pairs.

Start to notice them and learn them.

And again, practise them thinking, okay?

Adjacent pairs occur all over the place.

The most common ones are greetings, right?

Let me show you.

How are you?

Not too bad.

How's it going?

Fine.

Yay! (laughs)

So you've got two phrases adjacent next to each other.

Normally, they are semi-fixed.

There's a limited number of replies,

and the most common ones are the most natural ways

of speaking or answering, right?

Our conversations are littered with these adjacent pairs.

There are lots of them in many, many situations.

For example, giving an invitation.

Do you want to come to my party?

I'd love to.

Do you want to come for dinner?

That'd be great.

Asking for and giving information.

Has Mary arrived yet?

I don't think so.

Did you watch the football last night?

Yeah, it was great, wasn't it?

Okay, what about giving orders?

Maybe with your boss.

This needs doing right now.

Okay, I'll get onto it.

So there are all sorts,

and once you start noticing these in conversations,

you can pick them up and start learning them,

and it gets you thinking in English.

These are very, very useful, especially at lower levels.

But as your level gets higher,

you do need to be able to be more flexible

and learn to offer different alternatives.

But again, you notice these

as you listen to conversations more and more.

For example, the boss giving orders.

This needs doing right now.

I'll sort it out.

Don't worry, I'll make sure it's done.

No worries, we'll do it.

Okay?

So as you build your confidence and your level,

you can offer more flexibility to these adjacent pairs.

Extremely useful.

Let's move on.

Number three, learn and use collocations.

So we've just seen two phrases that go together.

Collocations are two or three words

that often go together, right?

For example, we talk about tea, black tea.

You can have green tea or black tea.

We don't say red tea.

The Chinese have this, Da Hong Pao,

and often talk about red tea, but it's not.

It's black tea in English, right?

Tea leaves.

Also, teabag.

Ta-da, lovely Tetley's teabag.

We can talk about a cup of tea, drink tea, or sip tea.

If you make a noise, actually, that's to slurp the tea.

Don't slurp your tea.

And so as you're learning words or verbs,

you can, as you're seeing things, you can think of them.

And as you're doing things,

you can think of the collocations, right?

So I feel like a cup of tea.

Ooh, that's nice, black tea.

Lovely.

But I prefer tea leaves.

Oh, well.

Great, let's move on.

Number four is to use a monolingual dictionary

more than a bilingual dictionary.

Monolingual means English to English.

A bit like this.

And I know you're thinking, oh, he's so cute, right?

He's using a paper dictionary.

Well, yes, and why not?

But I am also a little bit tech savvy.

I've also got here the Merriam-Webster dictionary,

and it's perfect, right?

Do you remember "tram" we looked at before?

Gives you a definition, gives you the different cases,

example sentences.

Take the tram to the departure terminal.

So listen, Merriam-Webster is a good online dictionary.

You can go and check it out too.

Next, number five is to keep 90% of your notes in English.

So when you're making notes of vocabulary,

new language that you're learning, 90% should be in English.

You can use translation sometimes, and that's great.

But the more you can do your definitions,

examples in English, the more you're gonna be

helping yourself think in English.

Nice.

I hope you're enjoying the video so far and learning lots.

In a moment, I'll tell you all the different ways

that we think and how you can think in English.

If you would like to get all of this information

in a nice lovely PDF, then just click on the link

in the description, and then when you click on the link,

it will take you to this webpage.

Learn to think in English,

or you do just put in your first name

and an email address,

and then press the PDF button,

and you will instantly get the PDF.

That's it.

Let's get straight back into thinking in English.

Now, in this second part of the video,

I'm gonna talk about different ways of thinking,

how we actually think,

and how this can help you think in English.

So different ways of thinking.

There are probably two main ways, right?

There's what we call idle thinking,

kind of lazy thinking.

And that's where the voice

in your head is talking and talking, right?

Everything that goes through your head, right?

Typically looks something like this.

It's cold.

It's raining again.

What am I gonna have for dinner?

Why did we paint that wall blue, right?

Thoughts just jumping all over the place.

It's very hard to control that voice in your head.

The second type is reflective thinking,

where you're consciously deciding

or making plans about how to do something.

Maybe something like this.

I need to plan tomorrow's lesson.

What topic can I do?

Hmm, transport.

Yes, no, I've already done that.

Okay, concentrate, okay?

And it's much more structured

probably with a specific goal in mind.

Now, within these ways of thinking, the two categories,

there are many different activities that we do.

Let's have a look at them and show you

how you can do exactly the same thinking in English,

whatever your level.

So one of the most common activities in thinking

is to have opinions and to voice your opinions in your mind.

When native speakers think in English,

or when you think in your mother tongue,

you don't often think like, "That's a tree."

"This is a book."

"This is a cup," right?

Although that can be useful for a beginner.

And indeed as a beginner,

you can build on that and you could say,

"That's a big tree.

This is a blue book.

This is a new cup."

And that can be helpful.

But in fact, when we're thinking in English,

we're normally having an opinion about something, right?

So actually, it looks much more like this.

"What an awful car.

I hate that colour.

What kind of car is that?

I should know this.

My brother would know, right?"

We're having opinions about the things we see,

often very critical of others and ourselves.

So one of the first things you can be doing

is to have opinions when you're thinking and seeing things.

Now, in addition to having opinions in English,

when we're thinking, we often talk to ourselves

and we tell ourselves what to do.

It's a bit like a dialogue,

but talking to yourself, right?

Saying, come on, you can do this, let's go.

And so you may find this kind of situation

a bit like this situation.

Oh, what time is it?

Oh, it's too cold.

Wait, hang on, it's Tuesday.

I've got a lot to do today.

Come on, get up.

We can do this, can we?

Just two more minutes?

That may look quite familiar to you maybe.

So whenever you're kind of talking to yourself

and telling yourself to do things, you can do it in English.

Thinking through in English,

even the first thing in the morning.

Boom, wake up with those beautiful English thoughts.

Come on, you can do this.

The third common thing we do

when we're thinking is we have ideas.

We voice our ideas in our head, right?

And this often looks a bit like this.

I think I'll go to the shopping mall.

That'll be nice.

I can get a coffee and lunch too.

I'd love to go to New York.

Why don't I book a flight?

Nah, I can't afford it.

Mm, maybe next year.

And so the ideas you are having

when you're thinking in English,

you can be using the kind of chunks like,

"I think I will do this.

I'd love to do this.

Why don't I do this?"

And instead of speaking out loud, you're just thinking.

So whenever you have an idea, think in English.

Now, another very, very common thing we do

when we're thinking is we identify problems

and find solutions.

We often have a lot of negative talk.

That voice in your head telling you

this is a problem, that's a problem.

Oh no, that won't work.

That's no good.

Why does she always do that, right?

We're complaining.

At the same time, we're also thinking to find solutions.

What I need to do is this.

I'm going to do that.

I could do that.

I should do that.

Okay, I'll do this.

And so the simple practise is to take this language

and to be thinking, identify some problems in your life.

Think of them in English and think of the solutions, okay?

Your goal is not to solve the problem.

Your goal is to practise thinking in English.

Think of problems like, well, the cost of living,

the stress of studying, the stress at work, your health.

There are, I'm sure, plenty of problems

that you could be thinking about.

Think of them in English,

short phrases and find the solutions.

Great, let's move on.

One more.

So finally, another activity when we're thinking

is we make plans, take decisions,

and then sometimes regret what we've done.

So when we're making plans, taking decisions,

you may be thinking, "I'm going to do this.

I'll do that.

Why not try that?

I might try this.

Okay, sure.

Yes, let's do it."

And then maybe, you regret your action and you go,

"Oh, I should have done that.

Why did I do that?

What was I thinking?

I shouldn't have done that.

I should not have done that.

I shouldn't have done that."

The great thing about thinking is it's easier

to pronounce in your head than with your mouth.

So when you're making plans, taking decisions,

or regretting things, you can be thinking it through

in English using these simple phrases.

I guess the point is, all of this language,

whether you are speaking or thinking,

it's the same language.

It's just getting into the habit

of thinking through whenever you do these activities,

whether it's making a plan, having an opinion,

identifying problems and solutions,

do it thinking in English.

Great.

Okay, so now you know how to fix your translating habit.

Now you know the different ways of thinking

and the kind of activities we often do when thinking

that you can start practising in English.

Let's finish with a bonus.

Some tips on how to build your English thinking habit.

So thinking in English is actually,

it's just a skill that you practise

and you need to practise.

The more you practise, the better you get at it.

It's like speaking English, okay?

There's no secret.

It's just practise.

So I suggest you start just even one minute

in the morning at breakfast time

when you are thinking about,

okay, that's a good time, right?

'Cause you're probably planning the day, got some ideas,

maybe a problem, and just go through

and start thinking in English.

Just for one minute, right?

The key is to start small and then build up.

So you can do one minute,

the next day, a minute and a half,

the next day, two minutes, and build up over the days.

My advice is the same time,

my advice is the same time,

same place every day and build the habit.

Popular literature tells us

it takes 21 days to build a habit.

Actually, the deeper research tells us

it's more like 67 days to build that habit.

But hey, that's great.

You've got plenty of days ahead of you.

So you can do it.

Just keep going, keep going, step by step.

Now, I know what often stops students is vocabulary.

They're thinking, and then they don't know the word.

Then that's fine.

Just think in English and then the word you don't know,

just use your mother tongue,

and then later, just go and check in a dictionary.

Go and look it up.

So cute.

Alright, go and look it up on your mobile dictionary.

Really easy, right?

Also, use simple words when you're thinking, right?

Focus on practising the thinking skill.

Don't focus on building vocabulary using complex grammar.

This is not the time.

Thinking in English is keep it simple time.

Build your thinking fluency slowly, right?

It does help to create an English environment

that's gonna make it more likely

that you will be thinking in English.

English environments are difficult,

but you can create lots of English moments.

So 15 minutes reading a book, 20 minutes with a podcast,

30 minutes with a Netflix series.

And you can just have these moments of English

that are gonna help you think in English.

Finally, you could use a prop something,

something that may help you feel more English.

Maybe it's a hat, maybe it's a pair of glasses,

maybe it's a cup, a cup of tea.

Whatever it is, the thing that helps you like an actor,

it's a prop you use to get into character

to be your English person

and use that when you're thinking in English.

Mm.

Whatever works for you.

So that's it.

I hope all of these ideas help you

on your journey to thinking in English.

If you've liked this video, please do subscribe.

Turn on the notifications to find out

about more videos coming up.

If you want to collect all of these ideas

in a nice simple PDF, you can click

on the link in the description,

go and download the PDF for free,

and that will help you start to create

your thinking habit, thinking in English habit.

I wish you lots of good luck, and I will see you very soon

in the next video just around the corner.

Thank you so much for watching.

Take care, my friend.

Bye-bye.

That was an interesting topic.

I wonder if it was too difficult.

I hope they manage.

Oh, I'm sure they will.

What am I gonna have for dinner?

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