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How to stop translating in your head

Hi. I’m Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. How can you stop translating in your head when you speak English? Let’s talk about it. I recently got an email from a student from Vietnam who told me, “Vanessa, I can’t stop translating in my head. I want to stop, and I don’t think it’s good to translate, but what can I do to stop translating?”

This is a question that I want to answer for him today and also for all of you who feel like you’re translating in your head, and you want to stop, but first of all, I want to talk about something heart to heart with you.

This is, a lot of English learners make rules for themselves about what they should and shouldn’t do. “I shouldn’t use subtitles. I shouldn’t translate. I shouldn’t use a dictionary.” This is really stressful on yourself because not the same method works for everyone. It’s sometimes useful to use a dictionary.

Sometimes you’re going to translate in your head. It happens. I want to say to you first, if you feel like “I shouldn’t do this” or “I shouldn’t do that,” take a step back and think about why do you feel like that. Is it actually useful for you? If it’s useful for you, don’t stress about it. Follow that method if it is working for you.

Now that I’ve talked with you about not stressing when you’re using English, let’s talk about how you can start thinking in English more so that you’ll stop translating all the time. My first tip is to listen to English a lot and surround yourself with English. For me, when I’m learning French and I watch a French movie, after I watch the movie, my brain is going, going, going in French, and I really just want to use it and speak because it’s in my head a lot. The same will happen for you.

If you’re listening to an English podcast or watching a TV show, even if you’re using English subtitles, hearing and surrounding yourself with English is going to help you transform your brain into English, and that’s going to be the step to help you stop translating all the time. The second thing is to use an English-only dictionary. Do you ever use a dictionary to translate words that you’re not sure about?

Well, something that’s useful is to get a dictionary that is completely in English. The definitions are in English and everything is in English. This way, when you read the definition, you’re also learning new words. You’re learning how to describe that word in English. This is just another method for surrounding yourself with the language. The third tip to help you stop translating in your head is to use sticky notes.

Do you know what these are? These are little pieces of paper that are sticky on one part so that you can put them somewhere, on the wall, on your book, anywhere. Well, these pieces of paper are great for surrounding yourself with English. How can you do this? Well, you can take a little piece of paper and write a sentence on it with expressions or words that you want to learn.

I recommend making a full sentence like this one here. “I like to drink tea in the morning.” Maybe if you’re learning “in the morning,” “in the afternoon,” “at night,” this is a great way to learn this in context, and if you like to drink tea in the morning, you can tape or stick this piece of paper close to where you make tea so that in the morning, when you make tea, you’ll see this, and you’ll think, “Oh, yeah.

I like to make tea in the morning.” This is something to help surround you with English, no matter where you are, even if you’re not living in an English-speaking country. I did this when I was learning French at the very beginning, and it was so helpful and pretty fun to think about where could I put another note or another idea so that I could improve some expressions and learn naturally.

I hope that these three tips, listening, using an English dictionary, and making sticky notes, has been helpful for you and giving you some ideas about how to surround yourself with English because, in the end, this is the goal. You want to surround yourself with English as much as possible. Now, I have a question for you that I’d like to ask you, and you can write your answer in the comments below.

My question is, what are some other ways that you can surround yourself with English, no matter where you live? Let’s give each other ideas, and you can share with each other. I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say. Talk to you later. Bye.