Get ready, because this is a major key to your success in becoming a brilliant speaker in a foreign language! And the incredible secret of it is, that its really easy.

Most teachers of foreign languages Ive met dont teach it this way, but thinking in a foreign language and translation back and forth between different languages are really different skills -- and thinking in the foreign language is much easier!

If you think about this for a moment you will discover the truth of it. Think of what happens to the average person who takes a class in a foreign language. S/he usually gets caught up in trying to translate everything s/he hears into her own native language, right? Perhaps you have even had this experience yourself.

Now think of the average person who doesnt know the foreign language, but moves to a country where everyone is using the foreign language. How quickly does s/he acquire a great deal of fluency in that language? Really fast, right? S/he is learning the language in context, much like a child learning her native language, so s/he isnt slowed down by the act of translating. S/he creates direct connections in her mind between ideas and the words in the foreign language. Its like the difference between taking the bullet train to your destination rather than taking a slow train with frequent stops and train changes.

When you allow yourself to let go and think in the target language and just speak from your thoughts, youre going to have really great results. Many students try to translate and then speak, which makes speaking exponentially more difficult. The same thing happens to me even with my own native language by the way. If I think something in Japanese, my second language, and then try to translate it into my native language of English, the initial result is often a choppy mess of very awkward English!

There is nothing wrong with translating; its just a completely different skill. Though it is an important skill to have, and is useful for certain things, you are probably going to find that when speaking you get much greater results from choosing the direct route of thinking in the target language, and then simply saying what you are thinking. I encourage you to go ahead and think in the language that you want to speak in and get ready to be surprised at how, almost instantaneously, how much more fluent and brilliant you are.

Heres to Your Success! Teresa Bolen

Copyright 2006 by Teresa Bolen. All rights reserved.