If you do, it's a really bad habit to have.

So in this lesson, I want to give you four

ways to start thinking in English and stop translating in your head.

This is going to help you speak more fluently and make less mistakes.

Are you ready?

Hi, I'm Greg, and this channel helps you

improve your pronunciation and fluency speaking English.

Now, if you translate from your language into English, you are not alone.

I think possibly most people do this.

I used to do it, too.

I learned French and eventually studied

French at University before I went to live in France for one year.

And during those ten years of studying French, I used to do the same thing.

I used to think what I wanted to say in English, then get frustrated because I

didn't know the vocabulary or the correct grammar to say that in French,

so I couldn't say the things that I wanted to say.

I spent too much time focusing on vocabulary that I didn't know and too

much time worrying about complex grammar that I didn't know either.

And to be honest, it wasn't good for my confidence because I

was thinking of what I wanted to say in English, translating it in my head

and trying to say something equally perfect in French.

This is not a good way to speak a foreign

language, and it was difficult, but I fully understand why you do it.

But something changed.

When I was in France.

I started to learn Spanish,

but it was a very different experience because my goal in Spanish was to go

to Spain and talk to the people, enjoy the culture, talk to the people.

Do you need perfect grammar for that?

No, of course I wanted to learn different

tenses so that I could express myself so that I could talk about the past

and the future, the present, hypothetical situations.

I wanted to learn that, I wanted to learn

vocabulary so that I could talk about different things.

But I didn't care if that grammar or vocabulary was right.

A very important thing to do if you want

to start thinking in English is to not get too obsessed about perfect grammar.

And this takes us to the second way that you can start thinking in English,

and that is to focus on the words you know, not on the words

you don't know.

If you only know a thousand words in English, use those words.

It's probably enough to express yourself and get what you want.

And listen. Native speakers do this too.

According to the BBC, there are more than 170,000 words

in English, but the average native speaker uses about 20,000, so we do it too.

We focus on the words we know,

to express ourselves, to tell stories, to ask for things, to work, to live.

We don't worry about the 151,000 words. We don't know.

It's not important. So on a much smaller scale, you can do this in English, too.

And on an even smaller scale, I can see how my daughter is doing this now.

She is two years old.

She's starting to speak.

She doesn't have a big vocabulary, but she can tell us exactly what she

wants, and she can tell us very simple things about her day.

So let's have a look at an example of this.

Imagine you go to England and you go to a cafe.

You want one white coffee and one black coffee to go.

But you don't know the word white coffee,

and you don't know many grammar rules either.

So you say something like this: two coffee, one milk, one milk, coffee go.

So you have focused on the words, you know, and you have got what you want.

And if you do that, and if you just focus on the words you know,

it's the best way to start communicating because you don't get so frustrated about

all the grammar and vocabulary that you don't know.

Okay, so to recap, you are not going to worry about mistakes,

and you're going to only focus on the words and grammar that you know,

and you're not going to worry about everything that you don't know.

Now, the next important step is

never stop listening and copying.

So back in the situation of the cafe, if you say to a waiter,

something like one milk, one milk, the waiter naturally will probably reply

to you with the correct expression just to make sure that he has understood.

So if you say one milk, one milk,

he will probably say one white coffee and one black coffee.

Similarly, when you say: coffee go,

the waiter might reply something like, oh, you want it to go? That's your opportunity

to listen, copy and repeat. Want it to go. I want it to go.

So you're learning, you're expanding your

English, but you're still following points one and two.

You're not too worried about mistakes.

And you are focusing on the words that you

know – which is getting bigger – and not on what you don't know.

This is exactly how I learned Spanish

to fluency. I see this too with my two year old daughter.

She copies everything.

She will say something like this:

Me hungry nanana Daddy. And I will reply something like, oh, do you want a banana?

And then she will reply: want a banana.

So she uses what she knows.

She listens, she copies,

and she learns.

Now the fourth way to start thinking in English and not translating

from your head is by focusing on chunks rather than individual words.

Now, chunks are groups of words that always come together.

So let's use the example in the cafe from earlier.

And what I really wanted to say was this:

Please can I have one black coffee and one white coffee?

So one example of a chunk from this is;

Please, can I have... That is a chunk of words.

Do we need to analyse the grammar of this?

Do we need to know that when we use can

in a question we invert the pronoun and that the modal verb can comes before

the main verb have and that we don't need a preposition with the word can?

You don't need to know any of that to know the chunk

"please, can I have" and you can use this

chunk, "please, can I have" in a million different situations at work, in a cafe,

in a restaurant, in the street. Even if it's not the exact expression you need,

if you want to know the time and you ask

somebody in the street, instead of saying, Excuse me, have you got the time?

If you say, hey, please, can I have the time?

We're going to understand you and you will get the answer you want.

As I said before, make sure you're always

listening to English and make the effort to copy and use chunks.

If you do these things, if you take these steps to start thinking

in English, you will not feel so frustrated when

you're speaking English, and you'll certainly feel more confident

if you're not worried about making mistakes and are able to communicate using

just the words you know. It's a great feeling when you say

to yourself, wow, I could ask for this advanced thing using my limited English.

When I had a super basic level of Spanish,

I needed one of these and I didn't find it in this shop.

So I asked somebody who worked there.

I didn't know three way adapter

in Spanish, but I said to the man, I have a radio, I have a television,

I have a lamp, I have one hole in the wall. And he said ----- and he came back with this.

It felt great.

I was so happy with my Spanish, even though my level was super basic,

I got something very advanced with what I knew.

And of course, when he gave it to me,

he told me that the Spanish word was 'ladrón' on and I learned the word.

Okay, do you have problems translating in your head when you're speaking English?

Tell me in the comments or just say Hi.

I love hearing from you.

So thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next lesson. Bye for now!