How I Trained My Brain to Think in English — Transcript

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1. 0:00There's a common misconception that I
2. 0:02would love to debunk. A lot of people
3. 0:05say that you have to be absolutely
4. 0:08fluent in a language before you can
5. 0:10start thinking in it. And I don't think
6. 0:13that's true. I don't believe in that. I
7. 0:15know this from my personal experience.
8. 0:18I'm currently learning Turkish and
9. 0:20Arabic, and I'd say my level is around
10. 0:23B1. But even when my level was much
11. 0:26lower, I remember catching myself
12. 0:29thinking in Turkish or Arabic once in a
13. 0:32while. Of course, it wasn't anything
14. 0:34complicated. Sometimes it was just, you
15. 0:36know, um, short sentence or a simple
16. 0:38thought that popped into my head in that
17. 0:40language. Or there were even moments
18. 0:42when I almost said something in Turkish
19. 0:44or Arabic in my class while talking to
20. 0:48my students just because that language
21. 0:50happened to be active in my brain, in my
22. 0:54head at that moment. So, my point is,
23. 0:57yes, you can start thinking in a
24. 0:59language long before you're fluent in
25. 1:02it. And in this video, I'm going to talk
26. 1:04about four things that I personally do
27. 1:08to think in English. Hi, I'm Alva. I'm a
28. 1:11non-native English teacher. Welcome to
29. 1:14my channel and thank you for watching
30. 1:15this video. Okay, let's start with the
31. 1:17first thing, which might sound a little
32. 1:20too obvious. I force myself to think in
33. 1:24English. Let me explain. Throughout the
34. 1:26day, we do a lot of thinking. We make
35. 1:29plans. We imagine conversations. We
36. 1:32worry about stuff. We replay things. We
37. 1:34get annoyed with someone. Basically, we
38. 1:37spend a huge amount of time inside our
39. 1:40own heads. You can use that time to
40. 1:43practice English. You can guide that
41. 1:46inner monologue into English. Imagine
42. 1:50that something interesting or maybe
43. 1:52frustrating or even annoying happened to
44. 1:55to today. And instead of simply thinking
45. 1:57about it in your native language, try
46. 2:00telling yourself a story in English. I
47. 2:04do this all the time. For example,
48. 2:06recently my husband and I celebrated a
49. 2:09wedding anniversary and we wanted to
50. 2:11have a nice romantic dinner at a fancy
51. 2:15restaurant with um good food, live
52. 2:18music, the whole thing. But everything
53. 2:22went wrong and I could tell myself the
54. 2:26whole story in English. We didn't make a
55. 2:28reservation in advance, so we had
56. 2:30trouble finding the right restaurant.
57. 2:33Plus, there were not a lot of
58. 2:35restaurants with live music available.
59. 2:38So, when we finally picked a restaurant,
60. 2:40we arrived and uh there were no tables
61. 2:43available. So, we had to wait at the bar
62. 2:46and then when the hostess finally seated
63. 2:48us, we ended up with a terrible table,
64. 2:51terrible view. We ordered food, the food
65. 2:54was not that good. It was just average,
66. 2:57which was especially disappointing
67. 3:00because the restaurant was quite
68. 3:02expensive. Yada yada yada. Needless to
69. 3:04say, we were both very upset. The whole
70. 3:07evening was ruined. You can do this
71. 3:10literally with anything that happens to
72. 3:12you. Something funny happened? Tell
73. 3:14yourself the story in English. Somebody
74. 3:16annoyed you? Explain to yourself why
75. 3:19you're feeling annoyed. Of course, it
76. 3:21would be great to have an actual human
77. 3:24being listening to you, maybe a teacher
78. 3:27or a study buddy, but if you have no one
79. 3:30to talk to,
80. 3:32>> [snorts]
81. 3:32>> that's totally fine. You can talk to
82. 3:34yourself. You can practice in front of a
83. 3:37mirror. You can totally be your own
84. 3:39study buddy. The next thing that helps
85. 3:41me think in English is reading. I read
86. 3:45in English. There's a quote by some
87. 3:47American writer, I honestly don't
88. 3:49remember his name, but it goes something
89. 3:51like this: A person who does not read to
90. 3:54cannot think. And I think this is
91. 3:57brilliant. If you want to think, you
92. 4:00need to give your brain information or
93. 4:03things to think about. You need
94. 4:06vocabulary, you need ideas, you need
95. 4:08examples of how people formulate their
96. 4:12thoughts. And reading gives you all of
97. 4:14that. However, there's one problem that
98. 4:17I personally have. There way too many
99. 4:20good books and not enough time to read
100. 4:23them all. And how do you know how to
101. 4:26choose the right book for yourself?
102. 4:28That's where today's sponsor, Shortform,
103. 4:31comes in. Shortform gives you in-depth
104. 4:34guides to thousands of nonfiction books.
105. 4:37And what I like is that it doesn't just
106. 4:40summarize them. For example, I love
107. 4:42nonfiction or self-help books, and I'm
108. 4:45currently reading this book,
109. 4:48Start With Why by Simon Sinek. And of
110. 4:50course, I could ask ChatGPT or any other
111. 4:53AI tool to summarize this book for me,
112. 4:56but it would only cover what's at the
113. 4:58surface of the book. And that's actually
114. 5:01what I like about Shortform, that it
115. 5:03doesn't just give me a quick summary. It
116. 5:06goes much deeper. Shortform gives me a
117. 5:09one-page overview, a chapter-by-chapter
118. 5:12breakdown, and adds smart insights,
119. 5:16commentary, analysis, and connections to
120. 5:19other ideas and authors. There even
121. 5:21exercises after each chapter to help you
122. 5:24engage with the ideas. And that's
123. 5:26actually very useful before I read a
124. 5:29book and afterwards because I can use
125. 5:32the guide to decide whether I want to
126. 5:35spend hours reading this book, and also
127. 5:37come back and review it, and go deeper
128. 5:41into the ideas later. And there's also
129. 5:43the Shortform browser extension, which
130. 5:46lets you instantly summarize content
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136. 6:02through my link. Another really good way
137. 6:05to avoid translating in your head is
138. 6:08learning something new in English. And
139. 6:11I'm not talking about learning um
140. 6:14English grammar or vocabulary. I'm
141. 6:16talking about learning something that
142. 6:18you are genuinely interested in, but
143. 6:21doing it entirely in English. I actually
144. 6:24have a great example from one of my
145. 6:26students. She moved to Germany when she
146. 6:28was very little, and her parents are
147. 6:30Turkish immigrants, so they spoke
148. 6:32Turkish at home, and she learned German
149. 6:35at school. So, basically, she grew up
150. 6:38speaking Turkish and German fluently.
151. 6:41But here's something really interesting.
152. 6:43She can't talk about her job in Turkish.
153. 6:47And it's not because her Turkish is not
154. 6:49good. Again, she's completely fluent.
155. 6:52It's because she learned everything
156. 6:54related to her profession in German. She
157. 6:58works in German. She talks to her
158. 7:00colleagues every day in German. She
159. 7:03learned all the work-related terms in
160. 7:06German. That's why German is the
161. 7:08language her brain associates with this
162. 7:11topic. And I think this is a great
163. 7:13example of what you can do. Maybe you're
164. 7:16interested in psychology. Maybe you want
165. 7:17to learn about investing, or you're
166. 7:21getting into photography or video
167. 7:23editing, or maybe you're planning to
168. 7:26have a baby, or you've suddenly become
169. 7:29obsessed with making sourdough bread.
170. 7:32Whatever it is, instead of learning
171. 7:35about it in your native language and
172. 7:37then trying to translate everything,
173. 7:40learn about it directly in English.
174. 7:43Watch videos, read articles, take a
175. 7:45course in English, Google your questions
176. 7:48in English, and eventually, when you
177. 7:50need to talk about this topic, you won't
178. 7:53have to go "Oh, what is this called in
179. 7:56English? Or how do you say it in
180. 7:58English?" Because you'll already have
181. 8:01all the vocabulary and phrases in
182. 8:04English. You won't even have to
183. 8:06translate. And finally, this one sounds
184. 8:09ridiculously simple, but I promise you
185. 8:11guys it makes a huge difference. Google
186. 8:15everything in English. Okay, maybe we
187. 8:17don't Google as much as we used to in
188. 8:19the past. Talk to ChatGPT in English.
189. 8:23And this is something I do all the time
190. 8:25whenever I need to look something up.
191. 8:27For example, how to cook something, when
192. 8:29something breaks in my house, how to fix
193. 8:32it, what's the best way to clean
194. 8:33something, why something is happening,
195. 8:36where to buy stuff, and so on and so
196. 8:38forth. Instead of automatically looking
197. 8:41it up in your native language, make it a
198. 8:43habit to do it in English. And this
199. 8:46might seem like a tiny change, but
200. 8:48you're basically turning hundreds of
201. 8:50everyday moments into little English
202. 8:54learning opportunities. And the more you
203. 8:56do this, the more English becomes the
204. 8:59default language you use to find
205. 9:02information, and eventually the default
206. 9:04language you use to think about this
207. 9:07information. All right, that's it for
208. 9:09today. Thank you so much for joining me.
209. 9:12I hope you found these tips useful and
210. 9:14maybe picked up a few new things you can
211. 9:17try. Let me know in the comments what
212. 9:19you think of them, and I'll see [music]
213. 9:21you in the next video. Bye.