Thinking in a foreign language is an important step in the long road
that is fluency in a foreign language. Thinking in the language you are
learning is not necessarily easy, but it’s something you can practice at any
time of the day. Thinking in the language you’re trying to learn is one of the
easiest ways to review the vocabulary and grammatical patterns you’ve recently
acquired. Plus, by actually forcing your brain to think in a language it is not
used to think in, you’ll also help activate the newly-acquired information by
giving you a real-life use for it. Another great reason to practice thinking in
a foreign language is that you will make decisions that will tend to be less
biased, more analytic, and more systematic. A foreign language provides
“psychological distance”. So by thinking in a foreign language you will not
only be jump-starting your skills in that language, but you’ll also make
smarter decisions. Many people approach language learning in a “confined” manner.
They see language learning as something to be “studied” or “learned” during a
certain period of time during the day/week, and then everything else they do is
somehow totally unrelated to the language they are learning.
There is no need to go abroad to immerse oneself in a foreign language. So
how can you actually start thinking in a foreign language?
1: Create a “target language
environment”. The idea is to surround yourself as much as possible
with the target language. Computer settings – News – Music –
Videos.
2: Look around your room,
your neighborhood, and your workplace and start making a conscious effort to describe things around you in your
target language. See it as a game, something
to enjoy doing. As you begin to increase
your vocabulary little by little, start gradually increasing the complexity of
your thoughts by making phrases and by describing what’s going on around you.
3: As you go about your day
try to think through some typical conversations you would normally have in your
native tongue. That’s an extremely useful way to quickly gain useful vocabulary
that you know you are likely to use in everyday situations.
4: Speak to yourself. Aside
from being useful in organizing your thoughts, it also allows you to practice pronunciation.
If you do the same, you’ll kill two birds with one stone and be able to connect
with other members of the language learning community. Make the foreign
language a part of your life.
5: Change the language of
your phone to the language you are learning. At first it will be really
uncomfortable, but the necessity to understand your phone’s function will soon
be strong enough so that you’ll have no choice but to remember a whole lot of
new words and become proficient in using your cell phone in a foreign language.
6: Watch movies in the target
language. When you watch movies in your own language, try to watch them with
subtitles in your target language. This will also tremendously help to increase
your reading speed.
7: Install Windows on your computer
in your target language. Just as with a cell phone, it will be really
uncomfortable at first, but you’ll get used to it eventually.
8: Meet friends who speak
your target language. Join a local club, a website, volunteering. Whatever you do, remember you have dozens of
ways to get to speak in your target language.
By implementing only a few of the many tips, you will see, within a
short period of time, a dramatic change in your fluency and in your ability to
think in your target language. See it as a game, and as a way of pushing
yourself and making language learning more than something that needs to be
“studied”.
Remember: It’s always about having fun!
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