This is Jack from ToFluency and welcome to the ToFluency podcast.
Now, today is a very important lesson, because we're going to talk about how to think in English, using a method that I also use when I learn new languages.
Now let's define what it means to naturally think in English when you're having a conversation with someone.
I like to define this as when you're not translating from your native language into English before speaking.
And also when you're not worrying or thinking about grammar rules or which tense to use.
Instead, you're flowing with the language.
Phrases and sentences are coming out automatically and it's also effortless when you're speaking.
So it comes out naturally when you speak in English.
And this is a stage to get to which just feels really good.
It feels great when you get to this stage, because this is when things just flow and you can enjoy the conversations.
Now, there's always going to be times when you're thinking, what word is that?
I can't remember this word.
You're pausing a little bit.
But the key to this is that you're improving this area where things are just coming out naturally for you.
And like I say, this is a great stage to reach.
Unfortunately, most learners never reach this stage.
So they study for years, they memorize vocabulary, and they even understand grammar rules.
They've learned grammar rules and they've done lots of practice with this, but when it's time to speak, they're translating, they're thinking about these rules and it doesn't feel good.
And the problem is that most learners that I come across aren't currently doing the things that will get them to this stage.
And I wanna focus on what you can do independently and you can start today to help you improve this area, because the key point here is that grammar and vocabulary and the way things sound in English have to be internalized.
Now, by internalized, this means where it just feels right, where you're not thinking about the rules.
Instead, you're producing and you're speaking the language and you get a feeling that this is right.
And when you hear grammar being used wrong, it just feels wrong.
It doesn't feel good in a way to have that.
So that's what it means to internalize grammar.
And this is a big part of being able to just think in English and to be able to flow when you're speaking.
So today you're gonna learn this simple method that you can start using right now to train your brain to think in English.
And I use this method too when I learn new languages, and this has helped me so much.
I used to think that I was a terrible language learner, that I could never learn a language, until I started to use this method.
And this, when I'm learning languages, is basically what I focus on the most.
I do this sometimes 10 minutes a day, sometimes two hours a day, and I've adapted this method over the years where I now call it something like the personalized sentence method.
And new technology has allowed us to do this now, because in the past, it was more or less impossible to create sentences with audio as we're going to talk about later without needing somebody to record it.
So by the end of this podcast episode, you're going to understand why this method works, how to do this step by step and how to do this consistently over time.
So you're gonna learn how your brain will start recognizing patterns automatically.
How to absorb English, which means how to take in English, instead of thinking about rules and thinking about how to translate words and phrases.
And this is when you're going to get to a stage where things just come out automatically.
And this is a fantastic stage to be at, a stage that I'm sure you would love to be at.
To help me just explain this, think about the verb to be.
The verb to be is an irregular verb.
And if I say, I am happy, and also say, you are happy and also say, are you happy?
That is something that, if you have a decent level of English and intermediate, even a beginner level of English, That just sounds natural to you now.
You're not thinking about to be conjugations.
You're not thinking about word order for questions.
Instead, it's just coming out naturally and it sounds right to you.
And that's not because you studied that rule the most.
It's because you got lots of repetition with those types of sentences.
And this brings us on to our first step, which is all about sentences.
Now you can think of this as phrases as well.
It doesn't have to be so strict as a full sentence.
It could be a very simple phrase too.
But the first step is to find or create sentences that are specific to you, your level of English and what you like to talk about.
Because if I were to use a language app to learn Italian before I went to Italy, I might learn sentences like Paul's brother is taller than him.
Now, that's not to say that that sentence is completely worthless.
But when I went to Italy, that wasn't a sentence I wanted to focus on, because it wasn't a sentence that I was going to use when I was in Italy.
And just a quick story about that.
I went to Italy just for a few days, and I had three weeks to study Italian before I went.
And I used this method that we're going to talk about right now in order to have decent conversations with people where I could ask for things in specific places.
I could understand what people were saying, I could order food and drinks.
I could ask about things in shops.
I could give my opinion.
I could talk about my life.
And that's because I did lots of repetition of these key sentences.
So, to go back to this step one is to find or create these sentences that reflect your world, that reflect who you are, where you are in terms of learning language, and also your hobbies, your relationships, your work.
Because when you speak in English, you're gonna be speaking about yourself.
You're gonna be talking about facts about yourself, your past, your goals, your desires, your likes, your dislikes, your hobbies.
But it could also be for specific reasons.
So let's say you travel for work and you need to use English in business settings, then learn sentences as well.
Get sentences that are specific to those situations.
Now, in order to create these sentences or to find them, you can use AI, something like ChatGPT, in order to help you with this.
Now, if you're looking for a glossary of these words that I'm using right now, then be sure to check the description of this podcast episode, because I'll leave instructions there and I'll also have a transcript for this podcast.
But the tool I use is Anki in order to get repetition, which we'll talk about later.
But step one is to create these sentences using AI or using a teacher, writing them down and then using something to help you understand what it means.
I personally like to have the translation of the sentence as well, so that I can fully understand what it is.
After some time, I don't need this translation.
Instead, I just use the word in the language that I want to learn.
And I'll also leave a link to a YouTube video where I show you how to do this, step by step, in terms of creating the right type of sentences.
But you can also think about having sentences that are going to help you learn difficult areas of English that you don't quite understand.
So, going back to grammar, let's say that you find it very difficult to use the present perfect.
You can create sentences that are specific to you in the present perfect.
For example, it might be, I've been to England a couple of times, or I've never been in a sauna.
Whatever it may be, make it specific to you so that you can understand when this tense is used.
So you can use the grammar that you're struggling with, create sentences and then over time as we're gonna talk about soon you can learn these sentences too.
So let's say you now have 50 sentences to begin with.
They're very personal to you.
They are specific to what you want to learn.
The next step is to add audio.
I think this is such a big step.
For me, it is critical.
It's everything for me to have the audio for these sentences.
Because you're not just learning, what to say, but you're learning how it sounds naturally too.
And, in addition to this, when it comes to using the tool we're going to talk about later, you can repeat these sentences so that you can start learning the correct pronunciation over time, which is such a big part of being able to produce natural English.
Now, there are a few ways to do this.
Firstly, you can ask someone to do this for you.
You can use sentences that have already been created but are specific to you, and they have the audio.
But what I like to do is to use the tool that we're going to talk about Again I'll leave full directions in the description and have that tool create audio using AI.
A few years ago I wouldn't recommend this as much, But as AI, audio and text-to-speech tools have got so much better, I think this is now a very powerful way to get audio for your sentences.
And the goal here is to hear the rhythm, intonation, and pronunciation exactly as it should be.
Now there's always going to be variance here because obviously there's no standardized English and pronunciation can be different in the US parts of the UK and also obviously, with foreign accents.
But you can also get specific with this by choosing the right type of text-to-speech tool that is specific for you as well.
And then you're going to start noticing patterns.
You're going to start noticing things with the pronunciation and consistently get better over time.
So you're going to learn how things are pronounced, how things are said naturally in English.
And you can do this with AI audio these days.
So now you have 50 sentences with audio.
What do you do with this now?
Well, this is the part where you're going to use repetition and a method that is really powerful.
Again, this is the method that I have used to learn languages and it's really powerful.
So the two apps that you might use are, Anki or something like Memrise.
Again, don't worry too much about the technical part of this, because you can learn this after the podcast.
I'll leave that link in the description.
But spaced repetition means that you see each sentence and you practice this sentence, just before you're about to forget it.
So it gives you repetition, which you know is important, but it does it efficiently, because we don't want to keep repeating sentences that we already know and that we already flow with.
Instead, we want to be very efficient with this.
So you don't waste time reviewing what you already know.
You don't waste time reviewing sentences that you already have internalized.
And the things to do with these sentences that I think are really important are to listen to the audio.
So listen and read at the same time.
You see a sentence and you hear a sentence.
Then repeat it out loud, trying to match the sound exactly like the audio.
You can even add more intonation here.
You could add more stress.
You can make it stronger.
But the key is to try and match that audio and to understand what it means every time you say it.
So let's just say the audio sentence is, I've never had sushi before.
I've never had sushi before.
And you repeat this, two times today, then tomorrow, then in four days, then in eight days.
What's gonna happen is if you picture this in your head too, and I think this is such an important part where you have this feeling of it.
So when you're saying this, you can picture yourself in a situation saying this word.
If the sentence was, is there a table outside?
Then you can picture yourself asking this question at the front of a restaurant.
This is a big part of using this system.
But the key is that you're going to get these sentences and repeat them.
You're going to repeat them out loud and you're going to get the repetition you need in order to internalize this.
And over time, these sentences are just going to be internalized.
But what's more is that you're going to be able to be flexible with it too.
So let's say I've never had sushi before.
I've never had sushi before.
You repeat this. then you will start just naturally saying, she's never had pasta before.
She's never had pasta before.
Because you're learning lots of different sentences where you'll notice these patterns and you'll be able to use them in a flexible way.
So let's now say you have this and you're using this system and you have this system set up.
Step four is to do your best.
Do your very best to make it a daily habit.
To make it a daily habit because this method works best when you do it every day, every day, even if it's only for five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, because some days you might do an hour, some days you might do two hours, but also you're going to have a day where you feel really tired, you don't have motivation to learn English, you're really busy, you're traveling.
On those days, say to yourself I'll just do five minutes, I'll just do 10 minutes, and make it a habit to do that, because over time you'll start noticing something incredible that you'll begin to think in English.
You'll begin to use English naturally and automatically, without translating, without thinking about grammar rules.
And you'll start speaking more smoothly without that fear or that hesitation.
And that is when English starts to become much more internalized.
And as you progress, you'll keep adding new sentences that match your life in English.
So you might have a situation where you couldn't express your opinion about a specific topic.
You can then go create those sentences using AI, finding them online wherever it may be, add in the audio, get in the repetition and then you'll start internalizing those sentences again.
So this is always going to change.
It's always going to evolve, and the type of sentences that you put into the system are going to change too.
But every sentence you repeat and every sentence you internalize.
The audio, the rhythm, the sentence becomes part of your brain's automatic system where you can just use this more flexibly next time when you're having conversations.
So the next step for this is to click the link in the description to watch that video on YouTube, where I just show you in a technical way how to do this from finding the sentences, adding the audio, getting the software you need, and then how to use the app too.
And just like anything, what might work for someone might not work for someone else.
So try this out and see how it works for you.
The key though is to know that it takes time to get that repetition.
So maybe give it 30 days, 60 days, and then, as these sentences come up and you start to recognize them straight away and you can repeat them straight away and your pronunciation improves, then you'll have more confidence in the method to then use it over the long term and to even spend more time using this method.
So let me know if you have any comments about this.
Just leave them below.
Go to the description to get more information about this and share this podcast episode with a friend.
Thank you so much for being here, and I'll speak to you soon.
Bye for now.
