How To Learn A Language Without Translating

Have you e'er wondered how you tin finish translating in your head, and learn to actually remember direct in your target language?

It's a question all beginner language learners take, and one I hear often from my coaching clients.

When listening to a foreign language, translating in your head tin slow downward your ability to understand others, and brand information technology easier for y'all to lose the flow of conversation.

When speaking in a foreign language, translating in your head tin ho-hum down your power to reply, and tin likewise undermine the confidence others have in your ability to really converse.

This was something I struggled with greatly when learning English for the first time. I ever had to interpret back and along from English to Italian when learning, and it was an endlessly frustrating experience.

Eventually, nevertheless, I did get through it. I am at present able to think direct in English (and several other languages), all thanks to a few powerful strategies I've practiced over the years.

Read on, and you can larn to stop translating in your head, likewise!

one. Don't Be Afraid to Translate

Often, when linguistic communication learners realize that translating in their head is holding them back, they make up one's mind to avoid translation altogether.

This unremarkably means that they'll do things like make flashcards with only images, or resort to only using monolingual dictionaries.

While these translation-free tools can be helpful in full general, I believe that avoiding translation birthday will leave y'all at a disadvantage.

Why? Because all languages share elements in common!

If you lot cull not to translate into your native tongue, you miss out on any opportunity to draw quick connections between the vocabulary, syntax, and grammer of both languages.

For instance, I institute translation to be very helpful when I was learning Castilian.

Equally a native speaker of Italian, the two languages were and then similar that I could practically interpret Italian sentences give-and-take-for-give-and-take into right, idiomatic Castilian. (This even works well if your native language is English language!)

Italian: Voglio andare al mare oggi perché il tempo è stupendo

Spanish: Quiero ir al mar hoy porque el tiempo es estupendo

English: I want to go to the sea today because the atmospheric condition is nice

Then, in a way, translation helped me think in Spanish fifty-fifty quicker than I would have been able to otherwise.

Fifty-fifty with less similar languages, translation often provides quick understanding of abstract concepts that would be incommunicable for beginners to grasp through images or dictionary definitions.

Try to explicate a concept like German'due south Gelegenheit without translating, for instance, and you'll immediately see what I hateful. (Gelegenheit means opportunity, by the way.)

Even if you want to stop translating in your head,don't abandon translation altogether. For beginners, information technology'southward oft the best manner to apace go comfortable with a new language, and make fast progress.

As you lot progress, you lot'll find that you'll demand to translate into your native linguistic communication less and less, and, just like the training wheels on a bike, you'll eventually grow beyond it.

2. Start with Elementary Sentences, and so Aggrandize

If translating in your head isn't what's keeping y'all from thinking directly in another language, and so what is?

In short, complexity.

Think most it. You're very comfortable in your native language. And then comfortable, in fact, that y'all tin can use it to instantly express nearly any thought that comes to heed.

And then, when trying to converse in your target language (say, for example, Japanese), you lot start try to arts and crafts a lengthy and elaborate sentence in your native language. And then, you try to translate it word past discussion, signal by signal, into Japanese.

And everything falls to pieces.

The trouble here is not that you lot're translating in your caput; it's that you're trying to be every bit articulate equally a native speaker, earlier you have the necessary skills.

Yous're trying to instantaneously convert a complex, nuanced sentence from your native tongue into the aforementioned circuitous, nuanced sentence in a language you don't know that well, yet.

So of course you fail. Anyone would, particularly when translating betwixt languages that aren't very shut (unlike Italian/Castilian, from above).

To recollect directly and clearly in your target language from the beginning, yous're nigh definitely going to have to simplify things as much as you lot can.

Starting time with simple sentences. If you're trying to translate from a more complicated sentence, break it downwardly into smaller, simpler pieces and sointerpret. It will be much easier.

For instance, if you want to take our sentence from in a higher place—

"I want to go to the sea today because the weather is dainty"

—and translate it into Japanese, you should first divide it into equally many unproblematic parts every bit you can.

The above sentence has two main clauses, so we'll use two parts—one for each clause:

1
"I want to go to the body of water today"
2
"The weather is prissy"

Looking at each clause individually, the translations are much more than straightforward:

1
"I want to go to the sea today" --> 今日は海に行きたいです (kyōwa umini ikitaidesu)
2
"The atmospheric condition is nice"--> 天気がいいです (tenkiga ī desu)

Finally, you take those two pieces, add a simple conjunction (から, meaning 'because'), and you lot'll suddenly got a consummate, grammatical judgement in Japanese.

Japanese: 天気がいいから,今日は海に行きたいです

Rōmaji: tenkiga īkara kyōwa umini ikitaidesu

English: I want to go to the sea today because the weather is overnice.

As you can run into, translation tin be helpful even when learning a linguistic communication that is very different from your own, both in terms of structure and vocabulary.

The primal to is to make it simple. What actually counts in advice is not the composure of your message, simply how well you're able to deliver information technology.

So when you're speaking, if you experience the need to translate in your head, don't worry. Just break for a moment, attempt to make the judgement as uncomplicated every bit yous tin can, and and so say it. If you want to, you tin can always expand your sentences past adding more details later.

three. Use Massive Input to Think Like Native Speakers Do

At this indicate, all I've talked almost is how translation to and from your native language tin really help you retrieve in your target linguistic communication.

"Only Luca, when do I actually get to cease translating in my caput?"

It's the hardest part of the process, simply definitely the most rewarding.

To move beyond your native linguistic communication when thinking in a new 1, you demand massive input to assistance you get at that place.

Massive input is simply what it sounds like: your regular kinds of input (i.due east, listening and reading), but just on a massive scale.

To develop your ability to think in your target language merely like a native speaker, you need to betrayal yourself to equally many unlike sources of input as yous can.

I'm talking about:

Books
Audiobooks
Movies
Music
Television
Podcasts
Online Videos
Social Media Posts
Livestreams
Blog posts
etc.

And that'southward but the tip of the iceberg.

At present, you lot don't actually have to regularly eat all of these types of media. Most of them probably won't fifty-fifty exist comprehensible to you, especially as a beginner learner.

However, the more of these that you lot gradually integrate into your lifestyle over time, the more than you'll exist able to think rapidly and fluently in the linguistic communication you're learning.

Massive input is necessary because language learning happens both consciously and subconsciously. You lot tin can learn a lot of language from just having conversations, just you really need a lot of exposure to make thinking in another language feel effortless and natural.

Decision

If you take annihilation away from this article, make it this:

When you're learning a new language for the start time, translating in your caput is a natural and inevitable part of the process.

Try every bit you might, you lot simply can't escape it. If one of your Greek-speaking friends points to a dog and says "σκύλος" (skýlos), your encephalon is probably going to connect the two, and retrieve:

"Oh, σκύλος means domestic dog in Greek!".

Sodon't fight the urge to interpret ; instead, work with it.

Utilize translation to assistance you speedily find your bearings in a language. Lean on your native language when necessary to create long, complex sentences out of small, simple ones.

Eventually,equally you gain massive input and increment your output, your brain volition become less reliant on your native tongue to produce target linguistic communication words and phrases.

And then, your native language will fade from your thoughts, and you'll exist left with just your target linguistic communication, and then you can recollect just like native speakers do.