- Hey guys. Welcome to my channel. Today I'm gonna share my story of how I started thinking in English. And when we don't think in
English, we tend to speak slower, we tend to translate things in our heads, and we just tend to be less
proficient in our English. So, thinking in English is a key thing for you to move from being intermediate to upper-intermediate, advanced
and native speaker level. So, if you're interested,
continue watching. If you think that this
could happen overnight, it cannot, unfortunately. So, my story is I started
thinking in English for a couple nights when I was in the UK. I think it was my second or first visit, it was really early on. I was a teenager, so
the process went faster. So, what happened, every morning when I woke up in my homestay,
with the host family, I would be really
embarrassed about my English because my brain is still sleeping and they would ask me
questions in English, and I would be like, oh my God, they're asking me about my breakfast but the only way I can say
what I want is in Russian, in my native language,
'cause I just woke up. This was the hardest moment to switch languages throughout the day. But by the evening, because I was communicating
solely in English with other people, it
would be really easy for me to talk about what I want for dinner, or just, you know, discuss anything. And because I spent the
whole day thinking in English I went to bed thinking in English. And then I think it was my week three, and normally when you go to
learn your language somewhere, during summer, you stay there for like, maybe four or five weeks, or whatever, but by week three I went
to bed thinking in English, and I had a dream in English, and I woke up in the morning, and I realized I'm actually
thinking in English. And that was like, this
huge transition for me, because I didn't have this
switch in the morning, because I woke up with
my brain functioning in English already. And my level back then was,
I think upper-intermediate, so I was pretty good in
English, not spoken English. I was good at grammar, I
was good at vocabulary. But this switch was crucial. I remember coming down to the kitchen and sharing with my homestay, "Hey guys, I just dreamed in English." And it went away. I came back to Russia, it went away, because I switched back
to speaking Russian, I switched back to reading in Russian, But I created some tips for myself, because I really wanted
that feeling to stay with me throughout my life. And I really wanted to still
be able to think in English, even in my own home country. So, I have created a
couple of rules for myself that I followed carefully
until I moved to the US. And when you're in an
English-speaking environment it's super easy. Rule number one, travel to
an English-speaking country, stay with locals, as often as you can. Linguatrip.com, all the
programs are listed there. You know, select the one that fits you. But yeah, that requires
your time and money. But this is the most effective way. This is when I went through
this transformation. When I came back to Russia,
the second thing I did, I brought a lot of books
in English with me, and a lot of magazines. You don't have to go somewhere
to bring stuff in English, you can just go online, but for me, switching to
reading in English only, and I told myself,
okay, starting this day, for all the non study-related materials I'm switching to English, Because this is the way to
introduce this practice of consuming information in
English, into my everyday life. So maybe you follow this rule as well. Maybe you tell yourself, hey from now on I will only do fun stuff in English. So whether it's a YouTube
video, whether it's Instagram, whether it's a book that you're reading, maybe switch it to English. And the third thing that is really still working
for me here in the US, when you learn a new concept in English, so for example right
now I'm learning a lot about childbirth and pregnancy, and I've realized that when I encounter a new topic in English, and I learn all the terms, I
cannot think about this topic in my native language, 'cause I don't even know what things mean. I cannot translate them. Because I learnt the concept
in English straightaway I'm not doing this translation in my head. The fourth tip is that all of us are doing these translations, like when we're at school we
learn that this is a pencil, but we don't learn the concept,
we learn the translation, and they tell you a pencil
in your own language, and this is how your
brain learns the word. But this is the wrong way. This is not how kids learn language, and your goal is to learn a
language as if you're a kid. So, when you're learning a new concept you get rid of this stuff. For example, if you want to
read more about photography or if you want to read more
about filmmaking, blogging, do that in English. And if you encounter a new
concept, you just Google it, you go to images, and you
read what that word means without translating it. And this is the key. I remember when I moved
to Germany for a semester, to study mathematics, I learned so many new words, regarding econometrics
and mathematics in German, and then I came back to Russia, I couldn't speak Russian during my classes 'cause everything I knew was in German. This is like a game-changer as well. So learn new concepts in English,
and do not translate stuff from your own language into English. Try to learn them as a concept. And of course, other daily activities that you can switch to English, again, our goal, we have
12 hours a day, right? We do a lot of stuff
in our native language, just because we're surrounded by it. But our goal is to take all
the things during the day that can be done in English,
and do them in English. So, the next thing of course, switching your phone, your smartphone, your laptop, to English. This is like number
one thing you should do after watching this video, 'cause this is the key. The next thing you could do is
if you have a daily planner, if you have your habits tracker, if you have whatever, like a calendar where you're writing things
down, do that in English. Again, this would tell your brain, okay. When I was a kid, by
the way, I had a diary where I wrote down all of the activities that happened to me during the day, well, I think I did it til I was 18 or 19, I did it at first in English, because I didn't want my parents to understand what was going on, and then I switched to German,
and I did it in German. That was again, amazing practice for me, because I really wanted to do it and because I really had
a goal of other people not getting what I'm writing about. It was a great way to practice languages. Another exercise that
I would recommend doing is if you have a favorite song try to write down it's
lyrics while listening to it. There would be some words you
won't be able to understand, you will look them up later. So your goal, when you're listening to a song, is just writing down
everything you understand. Maybe leave some blanks. My task to you, there are
a lot of songs out there that you can practice with. But the most challenging song for me was a song by Modest Monkey, "Float On". Do that first. Like, start with that song. You'll be so confused, but the other songs will be so easy. So you just switch on the song and you write the lyrics down. Helps you with listening, helps you with thinking in English. Well, it's gonna improve
your listening dramatically. And the key thing, in all of
the things that I mentioned is being regular. So, you start with just
one thing, for a day, maybe even switching
your phone to English, and then you introduce more and more. If you have an activity tracker, and it really looks like it's, oops. Hello. It's a really simple thing
when you can make it yourself. Like activity tracker, for example you have English song and here you have gym and here you have your
supplements, or whatever. And like every day, you just put a plus in front of a thing that you've done. So, try to introduce a daily habit of like an English song
or reading in English. But when you do reading, tell yourself read at least 10 pages because otherwise reading is very vague, you're like ugh. I've read a text message in English. 10 pages at least. And then everyday, like
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so super easy to make, you just put a dot in front
of things you've done. And this way you develop a regular habit. That was it from me guys. I hope you enjoyed watching this video. If you're not yet thinking in English subscribe to this channel, 'cause watching more of this content would definitely help
you switch your brain from your own language into English. Like this video if you
enjoyed this content and please let me know,
down in comments below, what is this thing that you're
doing in English everyday. Thank you so much, and I will see you in the next videos.
