The road to fluency in a foreign language is never short or particularly easy. There’s a lot to learn: verb conjugations, grammar, and sometimes a whole new alphabet. Not surprisingly, it is a task that many consider to be formidable. But it doesn’t have to be. If you stop translating in your head and make the decision to think in your new language as often as possible, your fluency will improve considerably.
This is not an easy task, but never fear! Progress comes from accepting uncertainty. Often the usual way of learning languages in a classroom is not enough. You must work outside of this environment to achieve mastery. And you don’t need complete cultural immersion to do it. How can you stop translating and start thinking in another language? Making changes in your daily life. Here are some ideas to get you started:
describe your world
No matter how limited your vocabulary is, use it to describe the world around you. If you only know colors, mentally label your child’s red sweater or orange traffic cone, green leaves, and trees. Maybe you know adjectives. What around you is tall, short, pretty, soft, etc.? Do you know directions? Are you turning east, west, north, or south? What are the rooms in your house? The fruit in your kitchen? You get the idea. Make a conscious decision to use these words every day.
Change your daily conversations for new ones
Think of simple conversations in your new language. When you see your neighbors, how would you greet them in your target language? What are some ways they could respond? How would you order your favorite drink at the corner cafeteria? Mentally ask your coworkers about their weekend using the language you are studying. Write down the words that are difficult for you to remember. Do this every day.
talk to yourself
That’s how it is. I said “he talks to himself”. Without worries. There have been recent studies showing that people who talk to themselves are geniuses, so that’s okay. And you will be a genius who speaks in another language no less! Talking to yourself will help you organize your thoughts. You can practice complicated pronunciation.
Don’t you like talking to yourself? Try recording yourself on video to track your progress. Post your videos on YouTube and maybe your videos will even go viral and the world will be blown away by your language learning skills! Again, talk about what you are currently learning. Is it the months of the year, the weather or the idioms? Talk about it!
use technology
There is no better time to learn another language and there are countless ways to enhance your language learning using technology. Here are a few:
- Read news and blogs in your target language, even if you have no idea what it says.
- Find online message boards in your target language
- Change the language of your home page to the language you are learning. Or try doing this with your Facebook page or other websites. If you’re studying Chinese and visit the Ikea website looking for a new sofa, select the China website when you search the site.
- Change the language on your cell phone. The need to know how to navigate your phone will force you to become more proficient.
- Watch movies in your target language without subtitles or better yet, watch a movie in your native language with the subtitles in your target language. Then read the subtitles to increase your reading speed.
- Choose your favorite theme and play online for a while. Make it fun, but watch it all in your foreign language.
- Listen to podcasts, music, and radio stations in a foreign language. Listen to the news. You can find some great music, but you’ll also get an idea of the cadence of the language.
- For a more advanced language learner, you can install a version of Windows on your computer that is in your target language. When you need to navigate your computer, it may be difficult at first, but you’ll eventually get the hang of it.
Learning languages is best done when you decide to get out of your comfort zone. Practice outside of class in whatever way you like. When we do something fun, he has a better chance of staying with us. Forget translating in your head; Experience the language and watch your competition rise!