Google Translate is Killing your FLUENCY in ENGLISH | Use THIS Method Instead

I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. Using  Google Translate too much is a bad idea, right?  

Yet a lot of English learners tell me  that they still use it!

Come to think of it, I use it too when I can't say something in  Spanish. My question to you is, do you use it too?  

So most times when we ask you what your biggest  frustration in English is you tell us: I can't  

speak. I forget words. My vocabulary is too small.  When I speak I get lost. I can't form sentences.  

I get it. You're still learning and, as such, you're  going to encounter some obstacles in your way.  

The thing is when you have those  frustrations, what's the quickest  

more practical and easiest solution  that's just one touch of a button away?

Google Translate! It's okay to use it every now  and then but if your goal is to learn English  

that you can actually use to improve your life  and connect to the world, you need to be careful  

because you don't want to make yourself too  dependent on Google Translate.

Google Translate is killing your fluency! If you're using it too  often, if you find yourself always going back  

to Google Translate, then watch this video before  we get started. If you're new here and frustrated  

with boring methods of learning English that just  don't seem to work, you've come to the right place.  

Each week we create lessons like this to help  learners like you get comfortable using English  

with confidence, anywhere at any time. If you'd like  to be part of our global community be sure to hit  

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In this video, I'll give you a few reasons why you  shouldn't use google translate and what you can do  

instead. At the end, I'll share with you an amazing  way in which you can use Google search engine,  

not Google Translate, that's going to grow your  vocabulary in English. It's going to make you  

better at learning and with just a few weeks of  using it your overall fluency is going to improve  

a lot so how does Google Translate work. The main  reason why using Google Translate isn't a good  

idea if you're trying to communicate in English is  because it doesn't try to interpret the context of  

each sentence. Instead the translations  are solely based on statistical events.  

Maths and odds. What this means is that it doesn't  or even try to think like a human. It's more like  

a robot trying to match a word with its meaning.  In fact, the brain of this robot is an algorithm  

called Statistical Machine Translation which  breaks down each sentence into individual words  

or phrases to find a match for their databases.

Google Translate has developed quite a bit over the years so more often  than not it will recognize the appropriate option  

when ambiguousness could rise. In Spanish "papa"  means dad but it also means "potato" and "pope".  

The only difference is that it's written without a  stress mark. "Papa". If you run the phrase "bienvenido  

papa" into Google Translate it will translate it  to "welcome dad" and not "welcome potato". Wow! Such  

incredible technology, right? However, what if you  actually meant "welcome pope"? Well, that actually  

led to a funny misunderstanding in real life  when someone greeted Pope Francis in this way.  

Now, if you sometimes feel lonely in your learning  and you want to connect with other learners from  

all around the world, I highly recommend you  download our app, the RealLife English app.  

With this you can connect with other learners  from all around the world for short dynamic  

conversations, as well as practice your  listening by listening to our podcast, 

in which you also receive a free transcript  and all the vocabulary that you can learn.  

The best part is you can download it right now  for free in the Google Play or the Apple App Store.  

Or you can just click up here or the link down in  the description box below. What are you waiting for?  

If you're someone who is learning English  to improve your life and connect to the world, Google Translate is actually a problem if you  

allow yourself to become heavily dependent  on it. Google Translate can be a solution,  

for example on the off chance that I needed to  say "excuse me, where's the restroom" in German or  

in Japanese. I'd get these results and maybe that  would be enough for me to get an answer.

Although,  me understanding the reply is a whole different  problem, perhaps for another video. However, if  

you're an English learner who wants to have real  world fluency, you should get the needed skills to  

not have to depend on Google Translate. One such  skill is using "vocabulary chunks". I'll talk about  

that in just a moment.

So one way in which you can use Google, the search engine not the translator, is  by searching something you're planning to say or  

write between quotation marks, and check whether  people are using that phrase on the internet 

or if google isn't getting many results with the  phrase you thought of. I have to say, I think this  

is more useful for intermediate and advanced  learners. Here's an example. Just a moment ago  

I used the adjective "dependent". If you're "dependent  on something" you need that thing. Now, I want to  

actually emphasize that and say "very dependent",  but I don't want to use that word "very" because  

it's a lazy emphasizer, so I'm going to think of  a different word that could go with "dependent".  

Could it be "greatly", or "highly", how about  "heavily". I'm actually not sure and so  

here's where I'm going to use Google search  to see how other people are using that word. 

So our search is "greatly dependent", and this  is what I get. Look at the number of results  

Here I can even take a peek at how it's used in  this sentence: "The future of the nation is greatly  

dependent on how many such people it contains".  Okay, I'll now try the other option with "highly".  

Wow it has way more results than with "greatly"!  You can even go to the news section of this  

search and look at some headlines. Let's now see  what we get if we look for "heavily dependent".  

We get 3.9 million results, this means you can use  it too. So this teaches you that heavily and highly  

are commonly used collocations with dependent.  Greatly, on the other hand by comparison at least,  

not so much. In addition to that you can clear  up any doubts about which prepositions to use  

if you're not sure whether to use  "on" or "off" after "dependent".

Again, put it in Google between quotation marks and you  can be the judge by looking at the results.  

Of course, you can't and shouldn't use Google search  when you're having a conversation in English. 

When that's the case I'd say just be present  and embrace mistakes as part of the process.  

But if you're writing or planning what  you'll say later, you can use Google in  

this way and you'll find out for yourself  how useful it can be.  

I foreshadowed  it earlier when I said that "word chunking" is a  

skill that you can put to use when you speak or  write so that you depend less on Google Translate.  

Word chunks are a sequence of words that come  naturally together to express an idea. For example,  

"heavily dependent" is a chunk or as it's also  known a collocation. So is when we say "it's raining  

heavily", but if I say "I need something heavily",  that's a false word chunk or collocation which  

simply means if you use it it will sound unnatural  and rather odd. Word chunks are incredibly useful  

for learning new vocabulary. Think about the moment  you first learned the phrase "nice to meet you".  

You didn't study each word in the sentence,  you simply learned them as a group.  

Take as an example these different chunks with  the word way. Collocations. Fixed expressions.  

Formulaic utterances. Sentence starters.  Verb patterns. Idioms and catchphrases.  

You can use  it but with discretion. There's no harm in using it  

for occasional help but depending too much on it  will result in you making mistakes. Don't take me  

wrong, making mistakes is great, but making them  because of Gogle Translate? Not so much.  

There's a whole other reason why not to use it, and this  is that it takes away the valuable opportunity  

for you to try to figure out something about  the language. Take that example where together  

we explored the options and alternative words  that went with "dependent". If you had simply put  

that phrase in your native language into Google  Translate you would have got the translation 

"very dependent". And as I said, "very" is a lazy word and  you would have missed the opportunity to explore  

the collocations with "highly" and "heavily". You would  have just got the easy answer and you would have  

missed the chance to make an effort to figure out  things about English. You learn by discovering, by  

solving the mysteries of the language yourself.  That's it for today's lesson. Congratulations for  

making it until the end, it shows that you really  want to learn. Now, continue your learning streak by  

watching this other lesson where we share with you  the secret to stop translating in your head and  

ways to start thinking in English. Once you learn  that you'll be able to speak much more fluently.