How to think in English | No more translating in your head!

hey guys welcome to lingua marina and welcome to miami two questions have you ever had a problem when you're translating everything in your head from your language into english and question number two do you ever wish you could think in english if you answered yes watch this video to the very end because i'm gonna share the tips that help me start thinking in english let's do it and enjoy miami in the background [Music] first of all let me tell you my favorite story when i was 14 i won a competition to come to the uk

from my school to stay with a local family i was 14. i thought i was advanced in english my first shock was when i uh was crossing the border and the guy asked me something in british accent i was like ah sorry so i couldn't really understand what he was asking he was asking something super basic like why did you come to great britain but my second shock was when i woke up 14 years old woke up in the morning and people started speaking english to me you know when you wake up in the morning

your brain is like what's going on where am i new country new everything and then people start speaking english to you and my host mother asked me marina what do you want for breakfast very basic question but my brain was blank like i couldn't remember a single word in english because it was in the morning because i was shocked and i was like i am not used to speaking english in the morning but the thing is when you're 14 years old your brain is really adaptive and in two weeks and i was 14 years old

2004 no skype no internet no nothing i was completely immersed in english by the end of my second week i was dreaming in english when i came back i told this story to students at my school and they were like marina you have to share those tips here they are in this video [Music] the first tip is actually one of the most important things you can do as an english language learner when you see an object or a person name them in english what's going on right there it's a concert someone is singing you see

the problem is when we learn english at school they tell us backpack and then they say a word in your language which refers to backpack so you're not learning the concept you're learning translation and this is what's going to happen you're going to translate everything in your head so it's going to happen from now on you're going to kind of reteach yourself you're going to do things you're going to see objects and you're going to name them in english without even translating in your head so you're going to talk to yourself i am walking i'm

in miami i'm on vacation that guy is singing oprah you're not translating you are giving english language labels to your everyday objects and actions and once you get used to naming objects in english then you're going to start talking to yourself and some people are gonna tell you you're crazy you're crazy but this was a game changer for me when i started speaking to myself in english like i came back from school and i hated some person and i would be like talking to myself about that person in english just giving you some miami vibes

meditation you're gonna learn english you're gonna come here you're gonna enjoy this place oh my god it's one of the it's the first place i visited in the and uh u.s rings means a lot to me this is where i was like okay i need to move here this is an incredible place i hope you're getting these vibes as well one of the best things you can do in english and it's great in terms of motivation and also great in terms of learning start using english as an instrument to reach your goals and by this

i mean instead of watching a class purely about english watch a class about things that interest you for example i always take courses the recent course i took was about videos i took a course on productivity i took a course on economics like all of that stuff that interests you start learning about this in english because you're going to learn concepts right away when you're taking a course in english they're not going to translate from your language they're going to be like oh this concept you know investing in stocks let's talk about a stock what

is a stock it's a piece of company that you can own blah blah blah so this is the way you learn in english and once you start learning english as an instrument you would be able to learn concepts right away and this is a way to start thinking in english the platform to take courses from native speakers is called skillshare i have a long history with skillshare i've been using them myself a lot skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for anyone who loves learning and wants to explore their creativity and

new skills skillshare is one of the best platforms to take classes from native speakers and i've been using it a lot there is so many different classes there and they let you explore any topic as i mentioned productivity i.t design photography web design whatever you want to explore you will be able to find a course one of the courses that i wanted to recommend is by a fellow creator thomas frank so i'm super passionate about english and i can talk about english i can explore different concepts every single day because i love it he is

passionate about productivity he can explore productivity every single day and he put together classes that teach you how to build systems around productivity like how do you manage being a student working part-time learning english getting married having kids he tackles this problem by creating his own systems and i highly highly recommend learning from him he's one of the most amazing creators i've ever met and he has put together classes for skillshare the first 1000 people who use the link in the description are gonna get one month of free skillshare trial the link is down in

the description [Music] another thing you could do is switch one of your daily routines into english for example what i love doing when i do yoga i always use english speaking videos so you just go to youtube and type in you know 20 minute yoga or whatever if you write lists like shopping lists that's the best practice because sometimes there are words that we're so used to in our native language we're like oh but what's that in english like laundry detergent or dishwasher detergent like all of these words that we use almost daily but we

use them in our own language when we do shopping lists this is the way for you to learn how to say them in english so your task right now is to choose one of the things you do regularly like once in two days every day and switch them to english completely let's go oh where's my phone where's my phone there's my phone where's my phone see talking to myself in english where is my phone see you go around your life i'm pushing the button to get an elevator i'm getting the elevator my baby forgot her

water gun now let's take a look at the first video i published on this channel hey guys welcome to my channel today i wanted to share my story with you the story about how i passed trifle ibt so you see first of all because i'm doing this regularly when i see the camera i can tell my brain like hey this is time to speak english and my brain is like okay let's switch or i also vlog in russian and i'll be like it's time to speak russian and my brain is switching and the reason it's

working is because i've been doing this for six years almost every single day when i first came to the us and i started talking to my immigrant friends they told me marina the day when you start switching between two languages russian and english in your daily life without thinking this is when you master thinking in english because yes of course you can spend two weeks in an english-speaking country without internet connection without speaking in your own language but then you go back to your home country and you forget the skill the thing is you need

to create environment for yourself that you do the switching every single day i speak russian to my family to my kids to my husband half of my team speaks russian but i also have zoom calls in english i have my american friends i have you guys and because i do this daily switching from russian into english i think i've almost mastered it it's a piece of advice learning from all of this i was starting a youtube channel in english but i know that not everyone wants to be in front of the camera people say start

some kind of blogging some kind of social media in english it could be tick tock like super easy like say a couple phrases or it could be instagram where you take photos and write captions long captions long form youtube videos are the best for english speaking practice if you don't want to be in front of the camera if you don't like social media create a whatsapp group with your friends and tell them like guys this is a whatsapp group in english and we're going to discuss this in this topic but it's only going to be

in english and we're going to be discussing daily and you could discuss through voice messages through texting something and by doing this you're going to learn two things first english switching between languages second by having a community where you talk about things that matter to you you learn how to express your thoughts you learn how to negotiate you learn how to react when people criticize you all of these skills are super important for your whole life so there are three things that i believe in in this life first of all that everyone should learn english

second entrepreneurship is great and people should try and change lives by becoming entrepreneurs or helping entrepreneurs and three is that everybody has to have some kind of community a group of people who they talk to regularly because you learn so much from doing this so please find a way to do it for yourself when i lived in russia i loved using a technique called shadowing so shadowing is a technique used to improve your english language pronunciation it basically means that you select a person who you love whose accent you adore and you start repeating after

them you start watching more and more of their videos you start borrowing some of their phrases and yes i mentioned this is for pronunciation but because you're diving deeper into conversations because you're diving deeper into what that person says you start learning new words and you start getting used to thinking in english one of the people i love shadowing learning new words is gary vee a couple of examples he loves saying the word audacity and when you start following some people you will realize they actually love using the same words over and over again and

this is the best way to learn these words so find a person who you love find a person with an accent that you love because again there is british american canadian find that person and start following them religiously and by following them religiously i mean watching their videos at least once a day or once in two days and writing down things that you love repeating after them and when you're done with the initial list of phrases go back to that person and create a new list of phrases that you want to shadow [Music] so many

of you guys have followed me already live in an english-speaking country and one of the things that i noticed is that a lot of people come up to me and say like hey like for example i live very close to a russian community here in miami and they're like speak to russians all the time how do we practice and i noticed that a lot of americans they like small talks so whenever they come to a small coffee shop they would ask people how they're doing what's going on how many tourists are here try this like

this requires more energy because when i try to do it i'm like i'm so tired today i just really want my coffee and i want to go to the beach and that's it but um i noticed that a lot of people actually speak to almost everyone they meet and they're like they take their time to learn about those people like oh how's it going here today how many coffees have you served is that a busy day uh what did you do yesterday when it was raining like crazy this is a great way to practice it's

also a great way to develop the skill of how to make friends as you go like literally just buying coffee from someone and asking them how they're doing does so much for your language for that person and for your skills try that i'm still learning like i'm learning from my american friends i have some who are like really great at this but um you know most of the times i'm like i don't know should i talk to them should i not oh yeah they're amazing people thank you thank you so much have a great day

thank you bye-bye [Music] guys wanted to wrap up this video by saying that we talked about a lot of things that helped me other things might be helpful to you some things might not work for you but the thing is there are two key components to a successful studying process first of all stay excited think about how english is going to help you succeed how it's going to help you consume content that you love and second stay consistent practice every day do something in english every day and most importantly watch this channel weekly don't forget

to subscribe and subscribe to my instagram lingo marina i post a lot of stuff there daily stories from miami stories from california see you there and see you soon bye