The Secret to Stop Translating in Your Head and THINK in English

Is translation a blessing or a curse?

So, obviously when you're speaking in English  relying too much on translation is going to make  

you think extra hard, it's going to take you out  of the moment, it slows you down, it's just no good.  

But what role does translation have in your  learning as a whole? How much of it is a natural  

and good result of knowing more than one language? And when is it a good idea to avoid it? In this  

lesson we'll talk a little bit about that. So, that  you know exactly how this translation chip works  

in your bilingual brain. And when you know that  my belief is that you'll be able to start making  

progress towards depending less on translation,  so you can become a more fluent english speaker.  

Ready? Let's go! Also, stick around until the end  for some fun awareness raising activities which  

will help you become more conscious about the  negative effect of translation and how to avoid  

it. But in case we are meeting for the first time,  I'm Ollie and we help you understand fast english,  

be understood by anyone, and connect to the world.  In fact, Ahamed says that our videos are motivating  

and have given him a lot of self-confidence. So,  join our men in our growing global community  

by hitting that subscribe button and the bell  down below, so you can continue learning with us.

First of all, why do we translate from our native  language to English? There are five reasons  

and the first one is unawareness of English  rules or a lack of knowledge of some aspects  

of how the language works. We recently saw in  another lesson on this channel the sentence: "My  

sister has 21 years." If you say this sentence  first of all congrats on putting your English  

into use! But let's take a closer look. It might be  that you didn't realize that in English we use the  

verb "to be" to talk about age. "My sister is 21 years."  The other problem with that sentence is that we  

never say years and stop there. We always need  to say years old. "My sister is 21 years old." These  

two mistakes happened because you might have  translated from your native language. I know  

this because my bolivian and brazilian friends  have a tendency to make these same mistakes. I  

often hear some people say "I am agree" or "He gave  me an advice." Now, is translation a bad thing here?  

No, not necessarily. If you don't yet know the  specific grammar rule or the word you should  

use, of course you're going to compensate by  using the structures you already know from  

your native language. It's not bad because you're  still communicating and the person you're having  

a conversation with is likely going to be able to  understand you. And in this case we say translating  

is a crutch which means it's of help even though  it's a little bit wrong. Now the second reason for  

using translation might not actually be  translating, technically speaking. This is  

what linguists call interference. Interference is  like a tendency, a habit from your native language. 

When we spot mistakes that come from interference  we might say "Oh, you're translating." I have a  

friend who's an incredible English speaker.  She's really, really fluent. But the other day  

we were talking and she said that she knew a  guy at a pub and. I'm like, "You know a guy who  

works at a pub?" Then she corrected herself "Oh,  no, I mean I met a guy at the pub." By the way, as  

I said stay until the end because we're going to  do some fun exercises to test your ability to not  

translate, even when it's tempting. We're going to  come back to this common mistake. But anyway, back  

to common mistakes, some other advanced English  speakers I know might say "Did you posted the  

picture on Instagram?" The problem with this is that  the verb does not need to be in the past because  

we are already using did. Another common mistake  is when someone asks me a question they might say,  

"Speak portuguese?" Again, this is totally  understandable for me because a lot of  

the languages don't use auxiliary verbs "be, have,  can, etc." like English does, fun right? In all these  

cases the people who made these mistakes  know how to not make these mistakes. However  

it's called interference because sometimes it's  like a reflex, you use words patterns or habits  

that come from your native language to help  you. Can you think of a word pattern or habit  

that gets in the way of your English? I'd  love to hear about it in the comments below.  

A nice way of learning new words and word chunks,  so that you can stop translating in your head is  

by listening to and following the transcriptions  of our Podcast. On the Real Life English Podcast  

you will hear real life native conversations  about culture idioms, expressions, and hints  

and tips to move your English to the next level.  You can download the App by clicking the link  

in the description or by going to the Apple  App Store or the Google Play Store. And while  

you're there, why not leave us a five star review,  and we might shout you out on the next Podcast.

Now, the third reason why we translate is  actually a good one, it's because it's totally  

fine. Your native language has some things in  common with English. Cognates are words that  

are very similar in your native language and in  English, for example, the word future in English  

in Spanish and Portuguese is "futuro." So, sometimes  you can use cognates to your advantage. The fourth  

reason why we translate is because we fall for a  trap. False cognates are words that look the same  

in your language and in English, but they  actually mean completely different things.  

You might hear your teacher use the term "false  friends" to describe this. Alrighty, let's have  

a little quiz! This word "embarazada" is a Spanish  word. What English word do you think it looks like?  

Excited, empire or embarrassed? If you answered C  then you're correct! It seems like the English word  

"embarrassed", right? However "embarazada" does not mean  this. Funny story, I was dancing in a nightclub in  

Bolivia, and my pants split open and I said to  my friend, thinking I was using the correct word.  

"Estoy embarazada" which I thought meant  "I am embarrassed." And my friend said,  

"Impossible, Ollie, men can't get pregnant." I was  shocked and embarrassed that I was using this word  

incorrectly. So, be careful. And actually a student  of mine confused the meaning of the word "assist"

when he said he assisted a football match. This  word looks similar to "asistia" in Spanish, but  

what he actually meant is attend. So, be careful  as there are lots of "false friends", especially  

if your native language is written with the same  alphabet that English has. A fifth reason why we  

translate is fatigue, yeah, you heard that right!  You see, speaking a second language takes some  

mental energy, and while it's easier to  speak when you're fresh and energized,  

it gets considerably harder after a long day  of work. Trust me, I know. The ability that many  

advanced non-native speakers have is that they  can speak with a high level of idiomaticity.  

This means they can use expressions that are  natural and correct. It means that they actually  

don't translate. These types of speakers, however,  do tend to fall more often for the temptation  

of translation when they're simply tired. A friend  of mine said in a zoom call that he was the only  

father in that zoom call. Now, that sounds a bit  weird especially because there were women in that  

call. What he actually meant to say is that he was  the only parent present there. He probably was too  

exhausted from looking after that child, that he  said that, because he's really fluent in English.

What can I do to translate less? I have one  magic tip that's the kryptonite to translation.  

Seriously, it's the best tip to ever avoid  translating but I'll get to that in just a moment. 

First, what can you do to translate less?  Well, the answer is what hopefully you've  

been getting from this video so far. It  might sound cheesy but that is awareness.  

In fact, the exercises that I have prepared for the  end are called "Awareness raising exercises." Think  

about it! You need to be aware of what comes from  your native language and what English is. There are  

a lot of things that overlap, but there are also  a lot of things that don't mix. So, knowing exactly  

what those things are helps a lot. Obviously as an  elementary or lower intermediate English speaker,  

you're still figuring out the differences. You're  still learning by making tons of errors, but as you  

become upper intermediate you're able to much  better separate your two languages. You gain  

this by being exposed to the language as much as  possible, by being curious, by questioning things.  

For example, if your English is intermediate and  you are with two friends you might say something  

like "We're three". However, later in your English  learning progression you'll learn that you should  

say, "The three of us" or "Us three." It all goes back  to awareness, to basically being less confused and  

having figured out more things about the English  language. Okay, so for me the best tip to avoid  

falling into the trap of translation is learning  vocabulary chunks. And you might be thinking,  

"What does this mean?" Well, instead of focusing on  learning individual words, learn groups of words.  

It's not to say that you shouldn't look  up a word if you don't know what it means,  

but as I said your focus should be more on chunks.  Word chunks are a sequence of words that come  

naturally together to express an idea, for example,  when you first learned nice to meet you, you didn't  

study each word in the sentence, you simply learn  them all together. And even how to answer it by  

saying, "Nice to meet you too", right? When we say  chunks we mean collocations, fixed expressions, 

formulaic utterances, sentence starters,  verb patterns, idioms and catchphrases.

In a paper released by Cambridge University press  called "Learning language in chunks" they mention  

three important reasons why word chunks  are a great way to learn vocabulary. They  

are fluency, idiomaticity. subsequent language  development. "How does it contribute to fluency?"  

you may ask. Well, various research studies  have found that more fluent speakers  

are able to speak faster and with less  hesitation due to the effective use of chunks.  

Then, it increases idiomaticity, because chunks  help students appear as idiomatic language users.  

By that we mean they can use expressions that are  natural and correct, and are also of a high level.  

Lastly it helps subsequent language development  because it creates a strong base of language  

upon which more advanced language can be supported.  Anyway, we believe so much on the power of learning  

vocabulary chants that we made a recent lesson  called "The number one key to advanced fluency.  

Word chunks." So, be sure to check it out for a more  in-depth learning experience, I'll link it down in  

the description below or you can also click up  here. Let's now move on to the last section of  

this lesson, which I hope you've enjoyed so far.  I'm going to describe some scenarios, and you'll  

have to form a sentence. Now, in order to create the  correct sentence you'll have to resist translating  

because they all contain idiomatic features. Let's  try it out! The first scenario is the following.  

It's about my friend who met a guy at the pub.  They started dating and she said that as she  

started to know more details about this  person's life, she fell in love with him.  

Now, your task is to fill in the blank with the  correct expression hint use the word no and him.

As I got to know him better, I  realized that he was the one.

The reason I use this example is  because the different meanings of  

know, meet, and get to know tend to confuse  learners. Scenario number two, imagine you  

want to know the duration of the flight from  say Barcelona to New York. How do you ask that?

How long does it take to  fly from Barcelona to New York?

With this one maybe you get confused with the word  last, long, or much time, or have a tendency to use  

word duration. however, the word take is the most  commonly used in this case. Scenario number three,  

and it's no secret that Bill Gates has a lot of  money. Actually, he has more money than anyone else,  

I think, and how do you say that in a short  to the point sentence using the word richest?

Bill Bates is the world's richest person. Maybe your first reaction was  

Bill Gates is the richest person in the world.  

Which is also correct, more learners say that  instead of the world's richest person, because  

saying the richest person in the world is closer  to a lot of people's first language. Scenario  

number four, now imagine you want to invite a  friend to have some drinks after work. How do  

you ask them when they stop working on a specific  day? Hint, don't say leave work, use a phrasal verb.

What time do you get off work? Then, after you have a few drinks, how do  

you say that your friend doesn't need  to pay because you'll pay the whole bill?

Did you say "I'll pay the bill"? Well, that's not  wrong a more idiomatic expression is "It's on me" 

or "I got it" or even "My shout!". Scenario number five,  the last one is a basic grammar error in English  

that probably is correct in your native language.  What do you call this? Use the word star and hotel.

"This is a five-star hotel." The reason why I  thought of this example is because I often  

see people saying "a five stars hotel." The thing is  English adjectives are never in the plural, that's  

why it's "not a million dollars question" it's a  "million dollar question." Okay, so in this lesson  

we went over the five reasons why we translate  because we don't know something in English or  

any other language we're learning, so we fall back  into the structures of our native language, which  

is totally normal. And because of interference, and  also because of cognates which are words that seem  

similar. I gave the example of futuro and future  in English. And I'm sure in your language as well  

there are many other cognates. Then, there's false  cognates which are the opposite of that. And lastly  

because when you're tired you're likely to make  more mistakes than usual. Natural, right? Then, I  

covered how being more aware of similarities and  differences is what is going to make you translate  

less. I also talked about vocabulary chunks as a  great learning strategy that's going to make you  

become more fluent. So, make sure you follow us on  Instagram at reallife.english so you can stay updated  

with all our lessons across all of our channels. I  hope you enjoyed today's lesson, and I will see you  

next time. Aww yeah!