Hi everyone, welcome back to English with
Max. Today I'm going to give you five techniques that you can use to practise
thinking in English. Firstly, if you don't want to miss any new videos, make sure
you hit the red subscribe button, and remember that you can also follow me on
social media. I'd also like to remind you that every two weeks I send out a free
newsletter with English tips. If you'd like to subscribe to that, you can click
the link in the description. Okay, so thinking in English. Why is it
important to think in English? Well, basically because it can help you to
stop translating so much in your head, which can help all of your English
skills, but especially your speaking. Things will just be easier and faster if
you don't translate so much. That doesn't mean you have to be thinking in English
a hundred percent of the time. That's very unrealistic, particularly if it's
not the only language you speak. But the more you practise, the easier it becomes.
I'd also like to say that unlike a lot of teachers, I'm not going to tell you to
only use an English monolingual dictionary. In my opinion, it doesn't
really matter whether you use a monolingual or bilingual dictionary. But
I won't say any more about that, because I already made an entire video on it.
If you'd like to watch that, you can click on the card above or the link in the
description. So what are some things you can do to help you think in English more
often? The first thing you can do is change the language of your electronic
devices and apps. Nowadays most people look at their phones or computers
several times a day. If you change the language to English, not only will you
possibly learn some new vocabulary, but English will become a bigger part of
your everyday life. And remember I said apps as well. Think about the apps that
you use on a daily basis. Maybe it's Instagram or Whatsapp or
Facebook. Change the language settings. The second thing you can do is write
lists in English. If you're someone who writes to-do lists, you can start
writing them in English. Here is an example of a to-do list. Buy cat food.
Email Frank. Wash towels. Sort out insurance. Call the police about the
neighbours. I don't know, everybody has different things on their to-do lists.
If you're not somebody who writes to-do lists, you could write shopping lists in English. A shopping list is simply a list
of all the things you want to buy when you go shopping. The third technique is
to look around you and describe what you see in English in your head. You can do
this when you're sitting at home, walking in a park, or sitting on a train.
It doesn't matter. If you're a beginner, or if you're feeling lazy, or you don't have
much energy, you can just use single words. For example: lamp, cat, tree.
However, it is better if you can use full sentences. For example, if you're on a
train, you might think: That's a nice tree. It has long branches and the leaves are
starting to change colour. I wonder if Frank would like that tree. Another technique is imagining sentences that you might use in a conversation.
It can also be a good idea to write the sentences down and
practise saying them, so that they almost become automatic. Try to predict the
types of conversations that you will have. For example, if you've recently
arrived in an English-speaking country and you're going to go to a party, it's
likely that people will ask you questions. They might ask you where
you're from, or how long you've been there, or what your plans are. So you can
think of sentences like: I'm from Spain. I've been here for two weeks. I've come
to England because I really want to improve my English. I'm currently looking
for a job. I know that might sound silly or very simple, but lots of people make
mistakes with simple sentences like that, particularly if they're feeling a bit shy. The final technique is something you can do at the end of the day. Before you
go to bed, think of all the things that you did that day, but think about them in
English. You can also write them down if you want. You can either write full
sentences or short phrases. It's up to you. If you think that will take too much
time, a nice alternative is thinking about all the positive things from that
day and writing them down. So anything that made you happy or that you enjoyed.
This is actually something that life coaches and motivational speakers often
recommend. Not only might that put you in a better mood, but we are also more
likely to do things if it seems like less work. I remember one time when I was
getting a bit lazy about my exercise, I found it quite effective to say to
myself, "You only need to go for 20 minutes." Because if I said to myself,
"You should go for 40-minute run," I often didn't go running at all.
However, if I had in my mind, "You only need to go for 20 minutes," I was
more likely to do it. And often I ended up running for half an hour or 40
minutes anyway. I think the lesson is clear. if you set yourself short, pleasant
tasks, you're more likely to do them. I hope you find some of these techniques
helpful. Let me know in the comments if you already do some of these things, or
if you use other techniques to practise thinking in English. If you liked the
video, please hit the thumbs up and share it with your friends. See you next time.
