Thinking in English

[MASM]

It's surprising how little you 'need' the left-hand side; it rather depends on how you learn. If you have a teacher who keeps switching languages it's hard to get immersed.

Personal memory: in 1971 when I was in Spain to learn Spanish, I was down on my luck, money running out, feeling rotten... And a dog threatened me. Back in England I had been friends with a Spanish-speaking family with a yappy dog. They were always shouting Vete Skippy!.

Back to Spain: I shouted Vete!, and felt much better (at the knowledge that I had reacted in a 'Spanish' way). Fortunately, at that stage, I had not been exposed to any of the cerebral antics that language learning can sometimes involve!

But I agree about finding long words easier. Back then I used to try to read the Vanguardia every day, and found the economics and politics articles relatively easy. But anything involving short/local words (especially sports coverage) was - as we say - 'a closed book'/'all Greek to me'.

Glad you like the graphic - thanks.

b

I love your anecdote, (hope you liked Spain anyway ). When I was living in the UK I used to read the Independent, but also magazines that my housemate had and watched TV a lot, especially cooking programmes (helped me a lot at the supermarket ).
I reached such a level of immersion that one day I was watching a film with a friend and the actors suddenly switched to Spanish for a while and I didn't notice it, my friend had to tell me!
I remember learning words in English and being unable to give the Spanish equivalent afterwards, but I kept thinking mostly in Spanish, although I was much more fluent in English.

[henrinaiara]

Nowadays I tend to communicate more in english than in my own mothertounge, because my clients and also coleagues are mostly from other countries and therefore we speak english.

It makes thinking in english more and more, even in dreams I speak english.
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English Saddles Tack

[mmasny]

For me, I'd say it's sometimes worth using a dictionary - but a monolingual one. If you do that, even when the situational context doesn't help, you have the context of other (non-native) words - as in the case of other books (which you mention). And certainly don't rush to a dictionary every time a word doesn't mean anything to you.

b

That's certainly right! To think that you can learn language without a dictionary is deluded. You can learn it well enough to communicate. But sometimes the key word is unknown to you and there's no chance for getting what it means from the context. There's no other help than the vocalbulary then.

[Kemaru]

My thought-process is in my native language, but I think in English when I speak the said language. I don't need to translate English to my native language to understand it, either (I don't want to think about it, too much, though - If I try too hard to understand, it isn't as easy).
A good way to practice English is to watch English TV series with subtitles. :)

[BobK]

... A good way to practice English is to watch English TV series with subtitles. :)

... but you can stretch yourself by switching the subtitles off (if it's an option). If not, most screens have enough of a static charge to hold up a strip of paper - so you may be able to use one to cover them up.

But dubbing is no help at all - at least, I found it unhelpful when I was watching Spanish TV. The lip movements (in my own language - mostly American films) were too much of a distraction.

b