You may think that bilinguals are the only people with the innate skill of memorizing two languages simultaneously.
But with enough practice and familiarity with your target language, you can think directly in it.
Here’s the best way to think in another language and why it’s possible for every language learner.
How does your target language affect how you think?
Imagine how you were brought up as a child.
You may have inherited your parent’s gestures and how they think.
Soon enough as you get old, you have your own methods of adapting to the new environment and have your own perspective on life.
Over a period of time, you’ll have a solidified way of thinking in your native language.
So, acquiring a new target language can become a stressful task.
For example, if you are an English speaker to become a Russian speaker, it’s hard to change grammar rules when you’re already used to the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) sentence pattern.
Language learning has many distinct effects, primarily when you’ve been used to speaking a single language all your life.
The Arabic reading and writing system starts from right to left which is very different for English speakers that read and write from left to write.
German speakers and French speakers also have different ways of describing numbers and telling time.
So you’ll have to watch out and be careful with the different
Think in another language: what are the best ways to do it?
Thinking in another language requires grit and motivation. That includes the method of how you keep yourself focused on your goals.
Some people use a study planner to keep track of which grammar topics they understand pretty well.
Other people prefer apps to use a flash card game for memorizing vocabulary or sentence patterns.
Books, on the other hand, don’t have a distracting interface that will take away your attention to words and sentences.
Hence, there are still people who learn languages when they read books.
Be fluent, not perfect
Do you know the phrase “analysis, paralysis?” When you focus too much on a concept, idea, or a rule that it becomes a huge wall that stops you from learning something new.
When it comes to learning a new language, it doesn’t matter for beginners to have a hard time pronouncing some words that phonetically sound foreign to them.
Seeing yourself progress with the right approach will motivate you.
Learning is always a marathon that takes time and progress and repeated steps with completed goals. It’s not something that you sprint through just because you need to.
Don’t be scared to make mistakes
In connection to being fluent, if you focus too much on being perfect in your grammar rules, you’ll be worrying more about the errors in creating sentences rather than just starting the conversation with a native speaker.
Although, it could be a great motivation to watch out for the mistakes and correct them as you proceed with the levels of your language skills.
Don’t hold back on speaking and reading materials in your target language. As they say, “just do it!”
Describe things you see in your target language
For me, this method works well when you want to really memorize vocabulary daily.
You should already replace popular words in English that you know and use the equivalent word in your native language or target language.
Try describing what you see when you’re on the road to work or travel.
Visualizing a foreign language is easy with technology.
When you just log in on the internet, you’ll be bombarded by foreign vocabulary
Observe the pattern in formal and informal sentences
See the pattern in the lessons and then compare it to how real native speakers form their sentences.
Of course, you might not be able to understand the way they talk since they talk faster and probably use colloquial words or idioms.
How native speakers think also affects the way the sentences are formed.
If you look at academic writing or journalistic writing, they are more formal as their audience is mostly professionals or people involved in authority.
On the other hand, informal sentences speak to the general public and are seen to have a more human touch with their content.
There are many differences when it comes to adjectives, verbs, noun endings, and conjunctions used.
Writing a journal in that foreign language
A journal is a great way to express yourself when you’re not confident to speak in a foreign language.
Writing helps you organize how you think too. Definitely, a must if you’re trying to memorize noun endings and different verb tenses.
If you run a blog, you can write blog posts in your target language.
Particularly, if you like the aspect of culture, food, tradition, perspective, and living in that foreign country, you’ll get to appreciate that foreign language easily too.
Talk to yourself
In order to communicate ideas, sentiments, and concepts, various languages use distinct word combinations.
As a result, we are able to communicate complex ideas and thoughts with one another, whether they are spoken or written.
Emotions, imagination, and action may all be elicited via words.
Start thinking in a second language
Language learning takes time as we’ve already discussed in our previous topics.
It’s not technically a miracle for language learners with fast language skills to become fluent in A1-B2 in just three months of learning.
However, for everyone else, practice on a daily basis.
It’s the only proven method for exercising your cognitive abilities.
