How can I learn to think in English?
Learning to think in English will improve your fluency and help you use natural-sounding English.
Here are several ways you can practice this:
- Focus on thinking fluently
Instead of becoming frustrated if you can't find a word in English or worrying if it is correct or not, just use whatever language you have to think through your ideas. As you continue to improve your vocabulary by reading and listening in English, you will begin to find this easier and easier.
- Visualise
Visualise yourself thinking and speaking (or writing) in English. Our brains don't really know the difference between real action and imagined actions, so you can use this to your advantage. Visualising can help you feel comfortable thinking in English.
- Be disciplined
When you start thinking in English, you will have lots of gaps -- words that you are missing or you don't know. Stick with it and don't give up! Discovering these gaps is actually very useful and you can use any gaps you discover to improve your vocabulary on that topic.
- Read, read and read some more
Read something that feels easy for you so that you don't have translate any of the grammar or vocabulary in order to understand the text. If you know all the words, you can start to notice how chunks of words fit together. Using these chunks of language will help you think more fluently in English.
