فارسی
How to think in English?
We want to look at an important question, how to think in English and how to avoid mental translation.
To master English, you need to get to the point where you can even think in English with no dependence on mental translation. But how to get to this point?
Our mastery of the mother tongue has been acquired over time, with practice and education both formally in school and informally in the environment, etc., so we must follow this process for English as well.
There are ways we can succeed in this path. In this article, we try to introduce methods that you can use to achieve the desired result.
Approaches to the problem of mental translation
A: Use English to English dictionaries, the monolingual
B: Have a partner for yourself
In this way, you tell all the needs and wants and even your arguments in English to that person. Ask your partner to do your work just in time or to accompany you as you express it in English.
This method is very effective because it engages your mind during the day and during everyday events in English.
C: Change the language of your digital devices to English
D: Watch movies, listen to music
I recommend that you do this. You may have seen a lot of English movies or listened to music. But, have you ever put yourself in the shoes of that actor or singer?
You can make most fun of what you’ve viewed being involved in interesting mental activities, instead of doing that boring translation. In this way, you repeat the dialogue of a movie or music text in front of a camera. Then you listen to it yourself. Compare the differences in your style of expression with the main role and try to eliminate the shortcomings in the next steps.
After a while, talk to yourself implicitly about an issue and record it. Make it more specialized over time, and you can even consult a language teacher to point out your shortcomings and help you address them.
We recommend this method for those who want to strengthen their English mind and be more successful in pronouncing words.
Again, your success in this endeavor requires practice, perseverance, and language immersion which can be meant trying to avoid mental translation. For further studies, you take a look at these articles “Ways to Prevent Mental English Translation” and “How to Think in English (It’s Easy)“.
