How to stop translating in your head: 5-steps to get stuck LESS and speak FASTER in English

Hey, what's up? It's Hadar. And this is the accent's way. And today we're going to talk about how to stop translating in your head when you're speaking English. So you know this thing when you start a conversation and then a thought comes up, but it comes up in your native tongue, so you need to start translating it in your head before you start speaking. So you think about the words in your native tongue, and then you start translating it, looking for the words. I mean, you have all these things that you need to do, thinking about how you structure the sentence. I mean, this is so time consuming. This is really time consuming. Translating and then retrieving. Anyway, even without translating, it takes time to retrieve the words and think about how to structure the sentence and to add to that the translation. I mean, no wonder you get stuck. So as you start speaking and as you start practicing your pronunciation and your speaking, you also need to train yourself to start thinking in English. So you're basically limiting the mind's capacity to experience complex and varied thoughts, which is okay. But what you're doing is you're starting to get into the habit of just thinking in English, because when that happens, you do not have to translate your words in your head when speaking. So I'm going to share with you five things that you can start doing as of today. So to help you stop translating the words in your head, the first thing is to train yourself to think in English. What I want you to do is to set a timer every single day for five minutes. For five minutes. Let's start with five minutes, like any meditation practice. And what I want you to do is to sit down and to think in English. I know it seems funny and probably very boring, but every time you go back to your native tongue, every, every time a thought comes in, you need to go back and think it in English. So you can start by observing whatever is around you, you know, like thinking about that. You can start by thinking about what you need to do a little later on what happened to you today. But everything that is going on in your head is in English. If you're missing a word, then try to think about it differently. Try to think about something else. You try to retrieve the word. Take your time. So enjoy the fact that you have five minutes. And if all you need to do is to retrieve words and to think about the right words, then do it. But do it every single day. Be intentional about it. Make sure you don't skip a day and you don't have any distractions right? And you're only thinking in English. I mean, yeah, speaking is the most important thing, but right now we're focusing on one very specific thing, which, which is the act of translating the words in your head or translating the ideas and the thoughts. Okay? So start by training yourself to think in English. You can expand on that and then do it on the bus, or when, when you're waiting for someone, or even when you're on Instagram and you're seeing something. So try to think about it in English. Like, what would you say? What is your reaction to this person's picture? Right? So think about it. Think about how you would talk about it in English, but you got to train yourself to think in English. The next thing you can do is simulate conversations in your head. So come up with a certain situation. It could be a real situation that just happened to you or that you're anticipating, or you can make up a situation, okay, and create a conflict of some sort in your head and, and have that conversation in your head in English between two people. Between you and your mom, or you and your friend, or you and your teacher or your teacher and another student or whatever you want. Like, enjoy it, have fun. But create those conversations in your head. It's okay that you're not yet speaking. You're just training yourself to think and think and think about different things in English. And because it's only in your head, then you're probably less judgmental and you have more freedom to express yourself. Because when we speak, it's a little different. And then we become more self conscious about how we sound or about the fact that we get stuck, and in our head we get stuck a little less. So enjoy it, right? Enjoy it. And feel like, hey, I'm pretty fluent in my head now. The next thing you can do that is very, very helpful is to speak. Speak out your stream of thoughts, okay? So it's not no longer just thinking it, but thinking and speaking at the same time. So for example, you're driving your car and you're like, oh, there is a red light right now. You're actually speaking it, not just thinking, there is a red light right now. I should pull over. Look at this traffic. I'm never going to get home in time. I'm so hungry. I only ate an apple and a tomato today. Look at this person singing to himself. What is up with him? This is me driving, right? Okay, so you get the point. So you're driving and you're thinking and speaking at the same time slowly. It can Be like random thoughts. You don't need to make any sense. But right now you're starting to connect your thoughts, right? You're starting to connect thinking and speaking at the same time without the pressure of doing it in conversation, without the pressure of speaking about something very specific or, or building an argument or saying something more complex. Okay? Just your train of thought that is delivered through your mouth, out to the car or the room or. But, but make sure that you're alone. Okay? The next thing is less of a practice, but more of a mindset change. If you know anything about me, you know that I always like to talk about how you need to change the way you think about English and how you see yourself as a non native speaker in order to improve your confidence and your fluency and how free you feel when you communicate in English. So the one thing you need to understand when you switch from translating in your head and in general when you speak English is, is that you need to accept the gap. You need to accept the gap between how you express yourself in your native tongue and how you express yourself in English. Especially when you think in English and then speak right away, right? It's going to be limited. It's not going to be as rich and expressive as it is in your native tongue. And that is. Okay. That's the only way to learn. That's the only way to start expressing bending your abilities. That's the only way to, to make more words available. Okay, for you. And, and it's just how it is. So when you resist it, when you feel like, oh, no, that's not good, I'm supposed to be better by now, or I'm supposed to be as fluent as this person or that person. I mean, that doesn't help you and it definitely doesn't advance you, right? It's only holding you back. So once you let go of that and you accept that it's not going to be the same, then you are ready to really learn and to apply all the things that you want to apply. Now the fifth thing is a challenge, but a fun challenge because once you start doing it, I mean, it's not going to be simple at first, but once you start doing it, you will see the amazing impact it has on the immediacy of the words and your communication in English without translating. And that is improvisation. When you improvise in English, what does that mean? So when I was in school, when I was in acting school, we had improv classes. Now I dreaded those classes because you had to come up with an idea and do it right away anyway, Even in my native tongue, it would feel strange and awkward for me. I'm not spontaneous. I need to plan things out. I need to be ready, I need to be perfect, and then I can do it. And then I'm super proud and happy. But if I'm not prepared or I'm caught off guard or I'm doing something that is not my strength, I feel terrible. Like I don't feel safe. But I took these classes as an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and improve the skill. But I noticed that it was a lot harder for me to improvise in English than it was for me to improvise in my native tongue in Hebrew. And I really struggled with that. And I tried to explain it to my friends who were native speakers. And it was kind of hard for me to tell them that words are not in my gut, they're not in my head all the time. So it was hard for me to think them. But I did get better at did become easier. And this is where I realized, hey, I'm not only better at improvising in English, but everything becomes quicker. Okay? Everything is a lot easier. So it helped me not only in my improv classes, but also in speaking. So what can you do? First of all, if you have English improv classes around you, then go ahead and get out of your comfort zone and enroll in one of those courses and just, just. Or go to one class and see how it feels. Okay? It's going to feel scary, I'm telling you. But once you're done, you'll also feel very, very accomplished. And you'll be like, hey, I did it. And it's something to sell your friends. So a few things you can do on your own. You can look at a dialogue or a book and start reading the beginning of the sentence. And instead of finishing it, you can just finish it on your own, right? So continue it in any direction that you want. It can be completely non realistic. It can be something concrete. It can be whatever you want, right? But you finish it and you have to think fast and you can't take any pauses. Okay? So this is a really cool exercise, and I've done it with a few of my students. So you start a sentence and then you just finish it the way you want to finish it. And again, do it alone. So even if it's stupid, no one sees it. Okay? Another thing you can do is play the ABC game. So you look at the Alphabet, and then you look at the letter A and you need to say a sentence with the letter A and then the next sentence should start with the letter B and then the letter C, so on and so forth. And you need to you can think about it in advance and it needs to be related. Okay? The second sentence that starts with the letter B needs to be a continuation of the first sentence of sentence A. Okay, that's it. These are the five things that you can start doing as of today that will help you start stop translating in your head every time you speak in English. Okay, that's it. Thank you so much for watching. Let us know in the comments below. What are the things that you are doing that help you stop translating in your head every time you speak in English? If you like this video, consider subscribing and share it with your friends. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next week in the next video.