#441 - How to Stop Translating in Your Head and START to Think in English — Here's What I Did
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All right. So as you probably know, I'm not a native English speaker. I was born and raised in Brazil. And if you watch today's lesson until the end, I'm going to teach you exactly what I did to stop translating in my head and start thinking in English. So there's three principles that you need to adopt. And I'm going to tell you all about these today.

And if you're new on this YouTube channel, you should know that every single week we make lessons just like this one to help you go from feeling like a lost and insecure English learner to becoming a confident natural English speaker. So if this sounds like something that you want to be able to do, hit the subscribe button and the bell down below so you don't miss any of our new lessons. All right, so the first principle is that you need to train your brain on purpose. First, initially, you need deliberate practice. You're not going to start thinking in English out of nowhere.

Because we want it to be automatic. That's the whole point, right? We think automatically in our native language, in our first language, and we want that to be the case in English too. And if it doesn't happen, then we think we're failing, right? But it turns out that it needs to be deliberate first, as I said. It's just like driving, for example. I think that's a great metaphor. When you start driving, you want it to be natural and automatic too, right?

And eventually it gets automatic. That's what everybody tells you. That's what driving school tells you. And that you also need to trust the process. That's what they say.

It's the same thing in English, right? So what I'm saying is think in English deliberately. So a great way to get started is to start thinking out loud, speaking by yourself at home alone like a crazy person. And I have some producers here in the studio, Thiago and Fabia, and I'm just wondering whether or not they've ever done this, like start speaking English just for practice, just because it's fun by yourself. Have you ever done that?

So Tiago is saying that he sings and Fabia, she thinks in English, for example, when she's brushing her teeth and just planning her day. So this is a natural habit, a practice that successful learners

apply and it's not so much something that we need to stress out about, right? Especially because there's no one hearing. So why bother like trying to speak perfectly English or think with perfect grammar, right? It's a perfect space for that. Anyway, so when you're driving, everything is deliberate. Everything is intentional as I was saying, right? You're too concerned with the pedals. Like there's the clutch pedal, the gas pedal, the brake. These are interesting words, by the way, right? Advanced words. The clutch pedal is that one they have in manual cars, right?

that you step on it in order to change gears, to shift gears. The gear is the stick, right? You have first gear, second gear, third gear. So that's something else that you're concerned with. And then the mirrors and the car in front of you. So everything is deliberate and you don't want that, right? You hate the fact that you're paying so much attention to everything and you start to think like, this isn't for me. Other people just feel really natural about it.

it applies perfectly to learning English, doesn't it? So trust the process. And let's go to the next principle, which has everything to do with this one as well as a great follow up that if it feels weird, that means it's working. That means you're doing it right. So you can actually expect to feel unnatural, right? That you're stepping outside your comfort zone.

I have another metaphor that is playing an instrument, learning how to play an instrument. So Fabia, one of our producers here, that's here in the studio with me, she was telling me the other day that she's been trying to learn how to play bass, bass guitar. And it's really painful in the beginning because your fingers hurt, right? The strings of the bass are especially, are particularly like thick. So...

it's not so comfortable in the beginning and you may think it's not for you. But, you know, if you're noticing these obstacles, that means you're going the right direction. It's just like that great quote. It's actually the title of a book. The obstacle is the way, right? If you're noticing obstacles, if you're doing the things that...

you want to, that you dream about doing, and you're realizing there are obstacles, that means you are meeting the things that will help you improve, that will help you grow, right? If there were no obstacles, probably at the end of the day, like you wouldn't have improved, right? So what you should remember is that this is all a part of the process before you become confident. Another idea that has a lot to do with this is that you need to focus on having courage, cultivating courage,

Not confidence because confidence is just like something that you feel. It's a consequence, a result after you have success and after you go through a lot of repetition. So being courageous. And I'll also say having the willingness to just go through it, to go through the process. The word willingness is a really interesting one here to keep in mind. If you don't know what that is, it's to be willing to do something is to be ready, to be open, to accept it. So

There's a great image that I saw that communicates this idea perfectly about having this openness to the challenge. All right. So if you're just listening, you're not going to be able to see this. But in this image that I'm showing, it's like showing these two perspectives on the reality of not knowing something. So we have two people. One of them is thinking, oh, I don't know how to do it.

And the other person is saying the same sentence, but with this feeling of excitement. I don't know how to do it. Right. So you can be either excited or stressed out.

Or I would even say just like frustrated because you don't know how to do it. Like you're in that state of being a beginner at something or not feeling natural yet. But you need to have this willingness, right? You need to want to go through the process to embrace the journey also, as they say. So there's a concept called stress is enhancing mindset that complements this really well. I brought a clip from a YouTube channel that will help explain this and we can watch it and talk about it.

When you're feeling stressed, and she shares this story in the context of test taking, when you're taking a test, most of us are going to feel a certain amount of stress. That's totally normal. And it could be a presentation at work. It could be anything that stresses you out. When you're in that stressful situation, naturally you have a stress response. Your heart rate increases, right? You get a little sweaty palms. You're feeling that energy going and you have two choices. You can choose to say, wow, I'm afraid. I hope I don't choke.

Let me calm down, right? Or you can say, wow, my body's really kicking in. It really wants me to do well. I'm excited. Let's go out and do our best. It's how we interpret the stress response that determines what it does for us. Kelly McGonigal says we can cultivate the biology of courage by simply saying to ourselves, I'm excited. So amazing, right? We talk about behavioral psychology on his podcast a lot, but this is...

an aspect of our minds that is really surprising to me. The fact that we may feel a certain way in our bodies, but our minds are actually what dictate the interpretation of that. So here's some interesting advanced expressions here that I just wanted to clarify first. So let's see, he said that when you're feeling stressed out, it's a great collocation, by the way, it's a great phrasal verb to use that is the same as just stressed, but it sounds more conversational, stressed out.

Your heart rate increases, right? The speed that your heart beats like boop, boop, boop, boop. And you get a little sweaty palms. So when your hand gets sweaty, you get sweaty palms. And when that happens, you have two choices. You can either think, interpret all of these emotions, all of these feelings as I'm afraid. I hope I don't choke. Let me calm down. So choke, right?

Literally, it's like when you're eating something and it gets stuck in your throat and you're trying to remove that from your throat. So, like you're choking. But figuratively, it's used a lot, for example, in sports. When a team loses...

because they make a lot of mistakes, it is said that they're choking. Now, Brian, Brian Johnson, the guy who was speaking there, he says that you can either interpret these emotions this way or you can think like, wow, my body is really kicking in. You know, I'm starting to feel excited. My body really wants me to do it well.

kicking in in this context is it's starting to accelerate. It's starting to get triggered to take action. Right. So it's really interesting, right? Like it's the same emotions, the same instincts that we feel in our body, but it's just the interpretation of it that makes a difference there. I know that adrenaline is something that helps us be more focused. So for example, this is something that you can see a lot in athletes, the top athletes, right?

they take all this nervousness and direct it to be focused. So remember the second principle, if it feels weird, that means you're doing it right. Now let's move on to the third and last principle. That is that you need to use your English in real life. If you want it to become more natural for you, if you're going to stop translating in your head and start thinking in English,

You're going to need to start using your English in real life. Now, we say this a lot here, right, in these lessons, but this time I mean something more specific. So watching a movie or TV series or a podcast in English is nice. That's living your English, right? So it's something that you do in your native language, but in English, that's basically how we define it.

but it's not really actively speaking or writing, right? You're not really having to think and put the words together and use your vocabulary there. So this time I mean that, like using your English in this sense. But the problem is if you try right now and say like practice writing sentences,

It'll probably not work. Now, the hard thing is actually finding an opportunity to speak English or write in a way that's really meaningful to you. You know, in a way that you don't have to convince yourself that, oh, I'm going to do this for practice. No, you're going to do that because that thing matters to you. You're just happening to do it in English. That's the hard part. So I have some suggestions for you here.

of things that you can try and do. And you'll see that when you do these things, it's not about English. It's about the thing itself. For example, if you like journaling, journaling is like writing reflections, maybe in the morning, maybe in the evening about your life, about what you want to do in that day, or maybe about something that you learned. So if you like to journal, journaling in English would be the very first idea here that I would give you because it's already right there in front of you.

If you're not doing that yet, what are you waiting for? So start doing that. The other idea that I would give you is finding a person, maybe a best friend or a close friend who speaks English and committing to only speak in English with that person for a day or maybe next time you go out, you're going to hang out, right? You want to speak with them. You want to share what's going on, what's new. And you want to do that in English. English won't be the focus, right?

It'll just be the bridge. It'll be what it's supposed to be, language, which will carry the meaning, right? The stuff that you want to communicate. Or say, for example, if you're married, maybe pick a day at home that you'll only speak English. Obviously, you're going to meet obstacles, right? Maybe the other person one day, they won't be so willing to do it, to try it.

But be serious with them in a sense that you know, like say that it's important Remember why you you want to do this? Maybe you have a dream or a goal in life that in order to actually achieve it You need to think in English and you know it that if you want to think in English you're gonna have to Live it and to insert it in your day in a way that's meaningful So you can try this and another thing that you can try that I already shared in another lesson is

is planning your day like thinking deliberately in English right you can go out in the morning and think for five ten minutes what you want to do on that day then you take note as well in English maybe on your phone and

And that'll already be a great way to deliberately practice in a meaningful way. You know, you have to, for example, if you want to buy a specific item in the grocery store, in a supermarket, and you don't know the word for that, you'd be like, what is the word for that? And so you can look it up and take note and

And it's very likely that you won't forget because it came up to you. It appeared in a moment of meaning, in a moment that you needed it. And that's a lot more effective for learning than just like learning from a list of vocabulary, for example. So to close this lesson, I've decided that I'm going to show you how to do this in practice by starting a personal project of mine.

that just happens to be in English and I need to do it in English, but the project itself is something that I've been meaning to do. I've been wanting to do for a long time. So right now I'm going to go to a hostel here in my city and I'm going to document a conversation that I'll have with a person where I'm going to be talking about their learning process. And I've been wanting to do this for a long time because I feel that it's

I just need to go out more, right? I need to speak with real people and understand their dreams, their aspirations, their journeys more, because that's something that I used to do more in the past, and I'm just missing that. So I'm going to be documenting this little adventure so you can see how I use my English in a meaningful way. Let's do this.

Hey guys, so if you want to watch the rest of this lesson, including this part where I went out there, I left my studio here to go and talk to a real person and show you how to use your English in real life, you should click the link in the description below because that'll take you straight to this lesson on the real life app.

So on the app, you can watch the full version of our lessons and you also get vocabulary flashcards of the most advanced expressions that we use in these lessons so you can learn and never forget them and actually use them when you speak English. And there is so much more that you can do over there. You get a full transcript of the lessons as well that you can tap on the words. Really amazing. You can practice your English with other speakers. Just go check it out right now. The link's in the description and I'll see you there.