Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy I probably look a little bit different today and that it's because I think I live in the hottest flat in England or at least in Cambridge Oh my God right, so it's around 27, 28 degrees outside which for England is really really hot but inside my flat it's like a damn rain forest it's humid muggy that's a really good word muggy is when it's like heavy hot sticky air humidity and I have a whole wall of windows which is great because it lets in a lot of light but it also contributes to a green house effect in my flat and so I'm actually boiling so I couldn't bring myself to do my hair cause it was just like put it in and then it would fall out again and also no turtle necks today got my Coca Cola t-shirt instead which is not sponsored wish it was sponsored, imagine having Coca Cola sponsoring you, awesome so today is a really really really important video Today I'm going to give you some advice on how to stop translating into your native language Because a lot of people have this problem I've asked lots of English learners and learners of other languages and they say: "I would be able to speak so much more fluently if I could stop translating" now, most of you probably already knew this if you are new to this channel then I speak fluent Spanish and I'm actively learning Italian and I remember at the beginning of my Spanish learning journey I really find it hard not to translate and translating between English and Spanish can be really really difficult and annoying because the word other is so different I'm now learning Italian actively and I'm managing to do so without translating into Spanish or English So Speaking from my own experience as a language learner and speaking from my experience as an English language teacher I'm going to give you some advice and hopefully help you get over this massive massive problem that it's preventing you from improving Firstly, before we get started I'd just like to thank the sponsor of today's video Lingoda This is a company I've been working with for a while I really really belive in what they have on offer They are an online language academy They teach English, French, Spanish and German and you sign up on a monthly basis and you get a combination of group and private lessons taught by a video chat They have really really great materials taught to you and delivered to you by real native qualifed teachers and if you look at the prices it's actually very very reasonable it's often much more affordable to study with Lingoda than it is to go to a like in person language school they've given me a discount for you you can get 50 euros or dollars off of your first month subscription at Lingoda by clicking on the link in the description box and using the discount code ENGLUCY6 ENGLUCY6 All the information is down there Right, Right, Let's get started with the video Oh my God IT. IS. SO. HOT I bet all of you are in your country Actually, let's do something fun tell me where you live and what temperature is where you are right now cause I bet something of you are in like 40 degree heat I know my friends in Seville are really suffering with the heat and I'm here with 27 degrees DYING! I'm very sensitive Okay so I've been thinking about this question for a long time and I have actually made some notes on my phone just because I want to get it in the right order for you so bear with me So, How to avoid translating into your native language? Well, the first tip I can give you and this will not apply to everyone is don't start in the first place if you are in like a beginner level of English some translation is inevitable I mean, you are going to do it the way we learn in school is Amarillo Yellow Naranja Orange We learn through translation However Think back to when you were a baby How did you acquire your first ever language? Your mother tongue You learn through observing, seeing, watching, hearing, smelling, tasting watching actions you didn't learn through translation because you had nothing to base your translation on because you had no mother tongue so babies are capable of learning a langue without any other language as reference yet, we find it incredibly difficult So, what you need to think is simplification Babies start small and over years and years and years they build their vocabulary and you need to apply this to yourself as well is much more effective to learn vocabulary by observing and taking things in than it is to just you know looking something at a dictionary and that brings me on to my next point Oh my God! I'm so hot! and that brings me on to my next point which is Grab your bilingual dictionary and throw it out of the window! Don't do that, okay? It might land on somebody's head Just place it to one side very carefully and then pick up your monolingual dictionary Is that the word for it? And then Pick up the dictionary in the language that you are learning In many of your cases it would be English and start letting the language define itself so with words like nouns and verbs it can be a little difficult to understand but that's what you need to learn through observation When you are looking at adjective, adverbs and other things like that Try to understand the definition in that same language first Because what you are going to be doing is training yourself to think in the language that you are learning Which brings me on to my third point Oh my God! What a beautifully well planned out video this is So my next two points are about thinking and speaking to yourself in that language Now I actually recommend that you start by speaking out loud to yourself in the other language I think I mentioned that in a video about conversation, improving your conversation and communication if you are interested in that then you can watch that video just up there However speaking to yourself in the other language is a really really key factor in learning to think in the language So, For example with Spanish I'll be driving and I'll describe the movements that I'm going to be making with the car So I'll be like 'Conduciendo, conduciendo, voy a girar a la derecha... CABRÓN QUE TE ARRANCO LA CABEZA, GILIPO-anyway That it's what I do or I'll be pottering around my kitchen, cooking and talking to myself about what I'm doing and you will start to notice your own errors, specially when you hear yourself speaking out loud Once you are comfortable speaking out loud to yourself in private in that additional language Move on to starting to think Now, I think speaking should come before thinking But that's just my opinion, everybody learns in different ways I personally think it's easier to spot errors and get comfortable when you are speaking out loud Now, the speaking out loud, we should do in private but the thinking I want you to do it everywhere on the bus, seeing what goes past it can relate to the video I made on how to learn and remember vocabulary which you can watch up here it's a useful method where you observe everything around you check if you see if you know it in your own chosen language the full explanation it's in the video and some people have found that really really useful I know I found it useful see if you can apply using a monolingual dictionary to that video think I recommend using a bilingual one, see if you can do it with an English dictionary yeah, so by thinking in English and I'm talking about you know describing people, if you see someone walking think to yourself "That man is walking" "He is walking down the street" or just go in through your motions "I'm getting off the bus" "I'm going to go to the shops" in your head you are just starting to immerse yourself in the language Ah! That beautiful word! Immerse to immerse yourself Brings me on to point number five which is immersion and that's actually one of my favorite words I know I have a lot of favorite words but immersion immersion mmm that's nice, that's a nice word So immersion is something that you should be doing throughout your learning experience and it's something that you can do whilst multitasking which is one of my favorite things So, when I'm doing something that doesn't require a hundred percent concentration Like cooking or cleaning I always have something on in the background Cleaning, cooking, washing the car, gardening, whatever whatever any task that allows you to listen to something else at the same time as doing something else Have something on in that language in the background I know I'm saying it as if it's revolutionary but really don't forget to do it I know you can waste so much time and miss out on so much learning By, by having it on in the background and not even listening you will be getting used to pronunciation and accents by listening and concentrating on what they are saying you will be familiarizing yourself with certain grammar different vocabulary but also you will notice where you are lacking So, if you listen to a radio program about so if you listen to a radio program about politics for example My last point is make it daily Focus on frequency and consistency Okay, I always say to my students that twenty minutes a day of high quality Not even studying, just language acquisition I sometimes surprise myself with the words that come out of my mouth Twenty minutes a day of high quality English time There we are, that sounds more like something Lucy would say it's much much much more valuable than a hundred and forty minutes all in one day So, Make the general immersion and the thinking and the speaking to yourself something that you do throughout your day, make it part of your routine Make it become automatic to you You know I sometimes now go for an hour thinking in Spanish or you know thinking out loud in my head in Spanish and then I realize and I go God! You know, I just said something, I've just been speaking Spanish the whole time and it is because I do it so often it becomes automatic Then the little tweaks and the little kind of self-help part that you are doing at the end which is you know, searching definitions for words working on the grammar that you've identified that you are lacking in or attempting to expand your vocabulary that should be short and should be daily Right guys, as always I want to know your opinions you guys are a bunch of extremely intelligent minds and I love, I love hearing your recommendations and I apply them to my daily life as well So, I'd love to know something that helped you stop translating into your native language I'm sure you've got lots to share In my other video where I asked you how many languages you speak Some of you speak like seven languages which is unbelievable and really awesome really impressive honored to have a group of students like you guys Yes, so please share your recommendations and your experience In the comments below and also constructive criticism it's completely welcome So if you don't agree with something I say, say it say it in a nice way, because I like everyone to be respectful here but I'm not the goddess of English what I say doesn't go but I really do hope that I helped you and that's it for the video today Don't forget to check out Lingoda and see if it's for you The link is in the description box with my code ENGLUCY6 and don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media I've got my Facebook, my Instagram and my Twitter I will see you soon for another lesson
