Stop Translating, Start Thinking in English! | Rule 5/7
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Adept English, the seven rules of Adept English, rule five. Hi, once again, and welcome to rule five of our seven rules of Adept English course. We're getting through the course now and you have a good idea of what it's about, the advice that it contains. Let's just do a little recap.

as we're now more than halfway through the seven rules course. So rule one says, listening and understanding what you hear is the most important task of learning.

Rule two says practice by repetition helps your English become automatic. This is the only way to fluency. Rule three says do your English learning while you're doing other things. Save time. Do your English learning at the same time

as doing your exercising, travelling, doing your jobs around the house. You'll be learning a little bit of English every day, every week, gradually building your fluency of understanding. Rule four says be kind to yourself. Give yourself a break from self-criticism and just give yourself time to learn by listening. Think about the four stages of learning.

and how we all go through these, especially when learning a language. And it's okay if your understanding is very much better than your speaking. That's perfectly normal when you're learning a language. And today we have rule five. Rule five of Adept English is nothing but English.

Adept English uses powerful techniques here to help you learn to think in English and grow that English part of your brain. And there are two parts to this nothing but English rule five. The first one is nothing but English. Get away from translating. The verb to translate, t-r-a-n,

S-L-A-T-E means to move between one language and another, usually your own language and the one you're trying to learn. That's to translate. So get away from translating.

Most of the time, you won't hear me speak any other language than English. This is purposeful and it gets around one of the worst things about traditional language learning. Traditional language courses often give you lists of vocabulary to learn alongside a translation in your own language. And traditional language courses like you to do translation from the language you're learning into your own language and maybe back again.

These activities mean that you become very good at translation. Maybe that's okay if you want to be a translator of written words. The problem is it's the worst thing you can do if you want to become fluent in speaking a language. If you find yourself attempting to translate when you come to speak English, it will get in the way of you becoming fluent. Your brain can't think that fast.

it's impossible to translate when you're speaking. Instead, you have to learn to think in English. And this means temporarily switching off your own language. You probably know this already, but I think it's worth saying. So the first part of Nothing But English is get away from translating. We're hoping by doing lots of listening, you learn to think in English, essential for fluency. And you need fluency

fluency of understanding before you can hope to have fluency of speaking. Automatic understanding of words. That's what that means. But also part of rule five, nothing but English, is learning in context. That means I'll always introduce you to words in context.

In context, C-O-N-T-E-X-T means surrounded by other words in association with a particular meaning that's relevant to the topic I'm talking about. So you're introduced to new words already with an association. And one of the benefits to this part of Nothing But English, learning in context,

You get used to working out the meanings of words as you go. From my explanation, this means you're less likely to be put off in real life conversation if there's a word you don't know. You're used to listening, working it out from the context. That's a really good habit to get into. For many people, when they're in real life conversation and they come across a word they don't understand, they go into a panic.

inside, P-A-N-I-C, and they lose focus and stop listening. But if you become used to, accustomed to, not understanding all the words when you're listening, you get used to it. You don't panic or give up. You have the experience of

trying to work out from the context what a word means. When you're listening to Adept English material, you have my explanation. And when you're in a real-life conversation, if you really don't understand the word, you can always ask.

But trying to work out the meanings of words is important and context is really helpful there. Also under this heading, Nothing But English Learning in Context, Rule 5, on the courses and in the podcasts and the episodes.

I introduce the words that I think you might not know with an explanation. I often spell them out for you and I tend to use those words I'm introducing in different contexts to help you remember them. Often, I'll repeat the word. So,

So here I'm using what's known as spaced repetition. This is a really powerful language learning technique and it helps use your brain's natural way of learning language. You meet a new word, you hear it for the first time and then just as you're forgetting it,

you hear it again, often used in a different context. And I try to paint a picture in your head so that you'll associate the new word with its meaning. This recreates the experience that a child has learning their language for the first time, naturally through association.

And it's the way your brain likes to learn. In our course, New Activate Your Listening, I do whole recordings called vocabulary recordings. And in these, I run through all the more difficult words and phrases that I've used with explanations all in English. It's like having your own personal tutorial, a special lesson, just you and me.

Sometimes you may remember which podcast or which part of a course or which subscription episode you first heard a word in. Learning by association is very powerful. And remember, your brain has to hear a new word about 30 times before you remember it. Hearing words in context helps build these associations. It makes the links in your brain

which help you remember the meaning of a word. You need to hear a new word quite a lot of times before you remember its meaning and automatically understand it. You probably need to hear it even more times to be able to use it automatically when you speak.

But if you do lots of listening, each time you hear a word, you're increasing the number of times you've heard it. When it gets to around 30 times, you'll start to remember it. You'll remember it to automatically understand it. And with a few more listens, you'll remember it well enough to use it yourself automatically, that new word. So rule five, nothing but English.

You may have heard me talk about my German lessons in school and why they were so good, so much more effective than my French lessons. In German, the whole lesson from our very first day was in German. No English words were spoken at all. So it was a nothing but German lesson. And we didn't always understand immediately what was being said, but it was a much better lesson because of that. My German teacher would say things like, Hilary,

Mach das Fenster auf. And I might not know what she was saying at the beginning. I'd have to work out that she wanted me to open the window. That's just one example. So the adept English listen and learn method owes quite a lot to my German teacher.

brow peel. And nothing but English means that you can stay in that part of your brain, which is starting to know English. No moving back and forth between English and that much bigger part of your brain, the part that knows your own language. So rule five, nothing but English, we are growing the English part of your brain. We're not growing your translation skills.

Your brain is very clever. It just needs the right conditions to learn. And every time you listen to a piece of English, that English part of your brain grows bigger. We're literally building connections. So if you do your 30 minutes a day of listening to spoken English, that's a lot of words. Just imagine your brain keeping a

of how many times you've heard each word. Can you see how that works? Nothing but English spaced repetition, learning in context.

And actually, if you're interested in the subject, the topic, you're probably not even aware of your brain doing its learning. It happens unconsciously. That's how brilliant your brain is. I do a lot of podcasts and episodes which are really just a discussion or a story or an opinion. This is to hold your attention and keep you interested.

while your brain does its listening practice. So just in case you didn't know it, when I mentioned that word again, brain, B-R-A-I-N, I hope that you're beginning to remember it now. That's the benefit of spaced repetition. That's enough for today. I look forward to seeing you in the next video for rule six.