ENGLISH Harmony Lesson
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THINKING IN ENGLISH HAPPENS WITH YOUR MOUTH This video is dedicated to Juhapekka’s last comment on my blog where he says that he’d really like to be able to think about the most sophisticated and complex subjects in English, but he’s not really able to. Juhapekka is a Finnish guy and he’s a frequent commentator on my blog – he’s posted a good few comments and they’re very profound and I really, really appreciate his contribution to my blog. So, thank you once more Juhapekka! ;-) But now let’s get down to the business and let me respond to the actual comment. Let me tell you right up-front that it’s going to be useful to everyone – not just Juhapekka – so just watch the video above (or listen to the audio file just above the video in case you can’t access YouTube content) and you’ll definitely find something useful for your own English improvement routine.
Way back I posed an article on my blog called How to Develop Your Ability to Think in English It’s important because if you think in your native language and translate the whole thing in English when speaking, it’s not a natural process – that way you’ll just keep experiencing the same fluency issues over and over again and obviously in order to become a truly fluent English speaker you have to think in English. So in the previous comment Juhapekka asked whether I think it’s possible to think the most complex subjects in English and in this comment he elaborates a bit further on it and here’s what he says: Thanks. I asked whether it’s possible to think very sophisticated and complex thoughts in English because I spend a huge amount of my free time with my homework in Finnish but many course books are in English. So, anyway I have to read course books in English and I usually can “think” in English when I’m reading English books (it’s natural because when reading you haven’t time to translate) but when I have to do some real independent critical thinking, I always have to think in my native language. It’s a bit sad because it would be great opportunity to think in English and to speak my thoughts aloud but I can’t do that yet. When I said in my previous comment that when you think, your thoughts – whether it’s your native language or English – tend to be a bit messy. It’s not as if there’s a very clearly structured process going on in your mind; your mind wanders. Abstract thoughts appear here and there and everywhere, and your thoughts don’t really follow the same process as when you’re speaking. When you speak, you have to create sentences, you have to draw logical conclusions and even if it’s a self-practice session, you still go through a lot of reasoning and conclusion-drawing. So when you speak, you’re actually forcing your mind to follow your mouth!
You do the entire thinking-speaking process with your mouth, but if you just allow your mind to think on its own, more often than not, the thoughts are scattered. I personally find that even when I have to find a solution to some problem in my native language, when I just think about it, I keep going in circles in my mind. There’s a lot of interruptions and my mind wanders aimlessly. So I personally believe that whether it’s your native language or English – as far as thinking just on its own is concerned, you’re much better off speaking out loud while thinking :!: And that pretty much answers Juhapekka’s question – basically, thinking on its own just doesn’t cut it on most occasions! And obviously when you’re a non-native English speaker and you’re trying to do the whole thinking thing in English, and if you’re trying to JUST THINK the most sophisticated thoughts and do the critical thinking process ONLY IN YOUR HEAD in English, it’s very, very difficult to achieve it! You’re much better off doing the same thing I advise my blog readers to do in almost every blog post and every video I publish on this website: SPEAK OUT LOUD! Speaking out loud is the most effective way of putting a structure onto your thinking process and as a result you’ll be thinking out loud with your mouth. Thinking inside your head alone isn’t effective. Going back to the blog post about thinking in English I published years ago – I never actually meant that you have to be able to develop your ability to think in English inside your head. To be honest with you guys, even nowadays I personally can’t think in English just inside my head with the utmost clarity of thought – and I can’t really do that in my native language either, for that matter. I think that no matter what language we’re looking at, as far as you want to be able to do some critical thinking, there’s always some comparisons and conclusion drawing, and logical reasoning going on, and if you do it ONLY inside your head, your mind oftentimes wanders. Those thoughts tend to be rather abstract, and various words and concepts are popping up in your brain which actually prevents a clear, un-obstructed flow of thoughts. So let me re-iterate it once more. Speaking out loud is the solution, and there’s nothing wrong with that :!: You shouldn’t have the following mindset – “I badly want to possess the ability to think inside my head in English, and if I can’t do that, I’m useless…” Even if that’s what you IDEALLY want, real life is real life and you just have to do some speaking along with thinking inside your head.
Hope you find this useful, my friends!
Throughout the years while I’ve been running this blog, I’ve always focused upon needs of those nonnative English speakers who find themselves in a situation I was in a number of years ago – unable to speak fluently despite possessing fairly good grammar, reading, writing and comprehension skills in English. In other words, I’m catering to those foreigners who are long past the beginners English level in terms of general English knowledge and they’ve developed what I like to call a “writing mode” syndrome. But what about those who only start the journey into the English language now? Obviously, they wouldn’t be able to read and understand this article for the simple reason that they haven’t built and developed their vocabulary and all the rest, but I can definitely imagine a scenario whereby someone who just starts learning the English language is receiving some useful info from a person having read this article. Maybe it’s YOU who can help some friend of yours to acquire the English language the right way and AVOID all the pitfalls that we’ve been falling for and that have prevented us from developing natural English fluency from the outset: Learning meanings of individual words; Learning grammar rules and creating sentences by applying them; Translating directly from our native languages; and many more! Well, I know only too well that the worldwide dominance of the traditional grammar-translation way of teaching languages – English included – is so deeply ingrained in people’s minds that you’ll find it very hard (on most occasions – even impossible!) to convince people NOT TO learn vocabulary lists, NOT TO try to understand the exact meaning of new words and NOT TO analyze the syntax of sentences too deeply by trying to find the exact equivalent of the given English sentence in their native languages. It’s a constant uphill battle, and most of the times you’ll fail. It’s worth a try, however, because if you do succeed in persuading your friend to try out the contextual way of learning the English language right from the start, they will NEVER develop the English fluency issues in the first place! So, where to begin? Well, I guess a very good place to start would be by understanding that it’s SUPER-IMPORTANT to learn English word combinations right from the start – there’s no need to learn individual English words :!: Why? OK, here we go!
Our Brain Works Based on Associations The thing is, our human brain is wired to function based on associations. Anything we see, touch, feel or think about is perceived through associated memories of what those things go together with. Let’s take a very simple everyday item such as a coffee mug – you think you perceive this simple thing for what it is (an item fulfilling function of holding coffee) just because it IS a coffee mug. Well, in reality, it’s a bit more complicated. There’s thousands of memories deeply ingrained in your memory of you and other people using the coffee mug in a particular way – filling it with water, adding coffee, sugar and milk and then bringing it up to your mouth – and THAT’S what makes the item for what it is. All those ASSOCIATED ACTIONS create the unique perception of the mug, and the very same way any individual word in any human language associates with other words describing certain actions, concepts, items, humans and animals.
English is Best Acquired Contextually – Even at Beginners Level! Let’s say, for example, if your friend wants to learn a new English word “to run”, it’s not the best idea to let them learn the word “to run” just on its own in its indefinite form “TO run”. Why? You see – typically what happens is the following. The word “to run” gets written down with its translation in the native language, and the beginner English learner creates a wrong association in his or her mind: “to run” – “to run (in their native language)” Is that useful? Not really. If you learn a new vocabulary word this way, you simply won’t teach your brain how this word “to run” acts in the English language and you’ll be permanently STUCK IN THE TRANSLATION MINDSET whereby every time you want to use a particular word, you refer to its translation in your language which is not how natural language acquisition is supposed to happen. It’s best to start to learn how to think in English from day one. In order to learn the new word “to run” and also start learning how it would be used in real life, it’s best to learn it as part of a very simple word combination: “I’m running” Now, please bear in mind it’s NOT NECESSARY for a total English learning beginner to understand that the word “running” is a Present Progressive form of the verb “to run”. It’s not necessary to understand that “I’m” is an abbreviated version of “I am”. If the beginner learner goes down the road of analyzing the language and trying to understand WHY this or that particular
word is said a certain way, it will simply put them into a perpetual cycle of over-analyzing and being unable to speak and write in English spontaneously later in their lives. It’s best to keep the beginner learner blissfully unaware of other variations of the verbs “to be” and “to run” when they’re saying the simple sentence “I’m running” for the simple reason that all they have to be thinking about at that moment in time is the activity of them running, nothing else! Don’t Analyze Too Much! There’s no need for the beginner English student to analyze verbs, conjugate them and then create sentences – that process is totally unnatural and does nothing but start the “writing mode” formation in their mind. Instead, the simple sentence “I’m running” needs to be repeated many times over till it’s embedded into student’s mind and they can produce it automatically, without any thinking whatsoever. Same applies on everything that the beginner English learner would be learning – if it’s a word “the sun”, they should learn a simple word combination “The sun is shining”. “Love” – “I love you”. “Speak” – “I speak English”. “Friend” – “You’re my friend”. And so on and so forth, till the person in question has acquired a good few English phrases they can actually start using from the very start and that will provide a solid foundation for further English studies whereby they’ll be able to learn more advanced sentences and vocabulary. Unfortunately, in real life in happens much differently. The English language gets broken down to the basic grammar concepts, and the inevitable process of cramming verb conjugation tables begins: I am, you are, he, she it is. We are, you are, they are. I was, you were, he, she it was… Then the poor English learner is required to create English sentences by sticking individual words together while translating from their native language and that’s the WORST part of it all! NEVER Translate Word-by-word From Native Language! You see, even if some translation is indeed needed to learn basic English concepts such as “They’re my family” (how else would you explain to a person who doesn’t understand a single word in the English language what it means, right?), it’s of the utmost importance to translate and help the student understand the meaning of FULL SENTENCES rather than individual words.
That way they’ll be encouraged to use word combinations and that’s something they can already work with as opposed to telling them – “Now you have to say “I came home at 9 o’clock last night” in English!” If you do that, the poor English learner has no other option but to perform a word-by-word translation process in their heads, and it inevitably leads to English fluency issues down the line. So, to wrap this all up, here’s the main points that should be applied when a newbie English learner makes their first steps into the English language: 1. Translation from/to English is needed at this stage indeed, but without much focus on individual words. Learn simple word combinations, and translate them without analyzing as to why certain things are said a certain way. It has to suffice that English speakers simply say it that way, the end of story! 3. Never encourage the English learner to create sentences – provide sentences they can MIMIC and then use when they speak or write in English! Basically don’t give them vocabulary lists to learn and then don’t ask to create something from those words; provide them with real life English collocations so that they can memorize them and use them! 4. Mindset is a very important factor – you have to persuade the beginner English student not to try to understand the exact meaning of English words. Explain to them that they don’t have to try to equate English and their native language by producing word-by-word translations. And most importantly – teach them that they don’t have to be afraid to trust their instinct when speaking and writing and also they don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes! And now, some questions that I’m pretty sure you’re going to ask in relation to this article: Q: OK, you’re saying, Robby, not to translate and learn individual English words. But how then is it even remotely possible to learn words such as “perseverance” if they’re not translated into the exact equivalent in the student’s native language? You just can’t learn what it means without translation?! A: Not really! Even such relatively complicated abstract concepts don’t require an exact translation in the native language! First of all – there’s no need for a beginner English learner to learn such sophisticated vocabulary - it wouldn’t serve any practical purpose. Secondly, when the English learner can say things like “I always work hard”, the concept of perseverance can be explained by saying it means to work hard on something, simple as that! And remember – it’s not necessary to know what the exact equivalent of the word “perseverance” is in the learner’s native language. It’s best to keep the two languages – English and the native tongue – in two separate compartments in one’s brain. Q: You’re saying not to teach the beginner student that the basic form of the word “running” is “to run”; also you’re saying not to teach them how it’s conjugated – “run, ran, run”. But how will they be able to use the word in different contexts? They’ll be able to say “I’m running home” but when they want to say “I ran home yesterday” – they won’t know how to say it!!! A: Treat EVERY new situation, every new grammar construct INDIVIDUALLY! “I’m running” is something a person would say in a situation when they’re actually running right now – and with combination with other words (which also needs to be learned separately on another occasion – not all at once!) would also describe a future action: “I’m running a 10 K race tomorrow”. “I ran home yesterday”, however, is a
phrase for a totally different situation, and at some stage the beginner learner is going to learn it. Same goes with other form of the verb – “I’m run down”, for example, would be used when a person is very tired and it includes the Past Participle of the verb “to run” – “run”. So, the answer is – over time the student will learn how to use all the necessary forms of the verb “to run” (and other verbs, of course!) in different contexts and situations, and all the frustration that is caused by conjugating verbs and creating sentences from scratch is going to be spared. Q: A child who starts learning English as their first language begins by learning an individual word – a noun or verb, then a noun and a verb combination, then a short sentence by mimicking what an adult teaches them before learning A-Z , writing and grammar. Surely if a beginner English student want to do the same, they still need dictionary from their native language in order to understand a noun or verb in English, right? A: This is one of the greatest misconceptions about learning the English language! You just can’t compare an ADULT with a TODDLER who’s just learning how to produce sounds!!! We, adults, are perfectly able to grasp abstract concepts and learn word combinations right from the start whereas a small child simply doesn’t have the mental capacity to do the same – and that’s why it’s not necessary for an adult non-native English speaking person to mimic what a child is going through and start by learning individual words. We can jump right into the next stage of natural language acquisition – learning short sentences, and it’s actually exactly what native English speaking children do as soon as they’re mentally fit for it. Speaking of learning A – Z, writing and grammar – it’s not part of natural English learning process; it’s just stipulated by the school system and any human being actually learns to speak any language FIRST and only then they go to school where all this formal education is forced upon them.
IMPROVING YOUR ENGLISH IS SIMPLER THAN YOU THINK If you’re a non-native English speaker working in an English speaking company, you may have gotten the impression by listening to those with better English than yours that you have to learn loads of specific English vocabulary in order to be able to fully function in your work environment. If you’re preparing to sit an English test or an exam – such as IELTS or CAE – you may believe that you have to dedicate all your efforts towards English grammar, syntax and irregular verbs. And if you aspire to learn to speak in English fluently so that you can simply communicate with other English speakers out there, you may also have this notion that you have to be able to discuss hundreds and thousands of various topics which would quite logically require you to learn a massive amount of new English vocabulary. All in all, you may believe that English improvement is: Super-hard, Inevitably based on studying textbooks, Demands exceptional intelligence and analytic mind! Is that so?
Not really, my friend! ;-) In reality, while requiring lots of hard work, English improvement is MUCH EASIER than you think :!:
Basic Ability to Speak Applies on All Life Situations The problem is that if you have a specific goal which demands you improve your English such as: Acquiring extra qualifications in order to advance your career; Passing an English exam in order to obtain a visa to gain entry to some English speaking country; Improving your IELTS oral part score… … you may think that in order to achieve your goal you have to do plenty of comprehensive studying focusing on grammar, English tenses, irregular verbs etc. In reality, IF you learn to speak normal, conversational English, you’ll be able to do all of the above and even more :!: Once you learn to conduct a simple conversation which consists of plenty of ready-to-go phrases used by English speakers across all industries, you’ll be prepped up enough to take on any test or exam even without doing in-depth grammar studies and acquiring massive amounts of technical vocabulary. Whether you’re applying for a new position in your company, speaking with an interviewer or answering oral exam questions, basic speech remains pretty much the same: Hello, how are you, it’s a really nice day out there, isn’t it? (typical English small-talk) Well, as a matter of fact, I’m not really sure how to put it into the right words… (this is how you use hesitation filler phrases) I decided to go for this position because having spent 3 years in my current job I figured out in the end it’s not really my cup of tea, so to speak! (such and similar idiomatic expressions can be used in ANY life situation!) Don’t Get Bogged Down on Technical Vocabulary! I was getting plenty of e-mails from my mailing list subscribers asking to provide examples of specific industry related expressions and vocabulary because my audience consists of people coming from all walks of life: Engineers Teachers Doctors Army personnel and much more! So I put together a list of phrases containing technical expressions and idioms following all these requests, however, I believe that there’s one thing all these industry professionals are missing – namely, they put TOO MUCH EMPHASIS on the technical vocabulary!
Yes, fair enough, if you read some industry related article it would probably consist of technical vocab for the most part, however, spoken English is different. When you speak, your speech consists mostly of expressions and phrases ANYBODY uses, so I’d say it’s important to develop your ability to speak fluently in general, and then you can focus on the specific industry related vocabulary and phrases. Just read this article where I’ve been writing about Forex trading. It consists of 16 general English phrases and only 5 specific industry-related terms, so it just goes to show that specific vocabulary isn’t the end of it all. Don’t Get Side-tracked by Exam Scores! If you’ve failed your IELTS exam due to poor performance in the spoken part, for example, you may be too focused on the pass score and the necessary requirements to achieve it. You may dedicate another month of your life in order to hammer the most advanced English tenses in your brain, for example, so that you can use them during the test because your assessment said so. Guess what? It may confuse you even more, and next time around when you do the oral exam, you may hesitate and stutter even more because you’ll be frantically trying to implement this or that particular English tense in your answers. What you should be doing instead is – learn relevant English expressions that include all the necessary grammar tenses in them, and focus on acquiring only a small number of more advanced grammar constructs: Had I… I would have… It’s not that… it’s just that… … and all of a sudden you’ll sound more native-like and your chances of passing the exam are going to increase big time than if you learned the entire English Grammar Tenses table and tried to implement all that theoretical knowledge while answering questions and having the minimum score requirements showing up in front of your eyes the whole time. Having a Specific Goal is Important – But Remember that Conversational Fluency is Universal! I’ve always maintained that it’s important to have a specific goal in mind when you go about your English improving routine so that you can stay focused while engaged in your activities and motivate yourself to keep up with the daily English practice. I mean – you just have to talk about subjects that are relevant to you and your particular situation, otherwise you’ll lose your focus and keep wandering what spoken English topics you could discuss… At the same time, as I’ve already stated previously in this article, you shouldn’t become bogged down on learning specific vocab the whole time because developing your general fluency should be your first
and utmost goal – technicalities will almost look after themselves once you’ve gained the ability to speak fluently without constructing English sentences in your head!
Idiomatic Expressions: Why I’m Highlighting Some Bits of Text in Red in My Blog Posts Here’s the short answer – they’re bits of spoken English any foreign English speaker should know to communicate effectively! They’re word combinations used by native English speakers and by using them you’re going to make your spoken English sound more natural and native-like. English collocations, phrasal verbs and sayings all fall under the broad category of these idiomatic expressions, and to put it simply – you can’t come up with these sort of sayings just by sticking the words together; you have to learn the EXACT phrase or word combination to be able to use it :!: There are also typical full English idioms among them, but I have to admit I have some reservations towards learning certain idioms like “It’s raining cats and dogs” or “pot calling the kettle black.” They are typical English idioms that you’ll find on any decent English idiom list online, yet they’re rarely heard in real life, if at all. My take on the whole English idiom thing (like it’s on spoken English in general) is the following – you don’t need to hammer loads of English idioms in your brain that you’re not going to use. You’d much better off using your potential as a foreign English speaker by learning idiomatic expressions because there’s a much bigger chance you’re going to use them in real life! How about the following ones: “for the argument’s sake”, “to jump to a conclusion”, “fit for the purpose”? These are typical idiomatic expressions that have some characteristics of full idioms, but at the same time it would be possible to derive their meaning from the words alone. Also, they don’t even need to be long phrases to fall under the category of idiomatic expressions. “On target”, “straight away”, “I’m all ears”, “big time” and similar short expressions are the ones that can make a difference between you being perceived a so-so English speaker or quite an advanced one! Not that you should care what others think of you, but still it’s nice to be capable of communicating with native English speakers like an equal, isn’t it? ;-) So to help you with learning these idiomatic expressions, I’ve been highlighting them in my blog posts in red color so that you can immediately see which bits are useful to memorize! Just to remind you – idioms are sayings and phrases you can’t take literally, for instance “a piece of cake” means something is very easy to do but it’s got nothing to do with pastry. You can’t infer the meaning of this idiom from the words alone :!:
Idiomatic expressions, for the most part, would reveal their true meaning even to those who hear them for the first time, yet you as a foreign English speaker wouldn’t be able to construct them on your own anyway. Let’s take the expression “for the most part”. You could quite easily guess its meaning even if you hadn’t heard it before, yet could you come up with an identical phrase on your won? Of course not, simply because natural English language doesn’t always comply with rules that are set in stone. You can’t translate directly across languages, and every language has its own unique means of expressions. Sometimes foreign English speakers might even think there’s something wrong with grammar in the idiomatic expressions. If I was asked to create a sentence conveying the same message, most likely I’d come up with something like “for the biggest part”, or “at the biggest part”. How could I ever think of pairing up the words “most” and “part” if it doesn’t make grammatical sense to me? Yet for one reason or another it’s how native English speakers speak and I strongly believe you’re much better off just repeating it without questioning WHY they say it. Leave it to academics! But now let’s go back to where I started – explaining why I favor idiomatic expressions over typical idioms. The reason behind it is – you’ll use the former ones an awful lot more than the latter ones. Spoken English is full of things people would describe as “I don’t know why but they just say it this way in English”! Sometimes I’d refer to it as having the gut feeling for spoken English which means you just have to “feel” what the right thing to say is. This feeling can be acquired by plenty of exposure to the English language and engaging in as many English conversations as you can, so that eventually you’ll mimic native English speakers. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not saying you don’t need to know any proper English idioms! If you ask your friend about his plans for the evening and he tells you “we’ll play it by ear”, it’s obvious that you need to know the meaning of this idiom to understand what your friend meant :!: There are plenty of full English idioms that you’ll pick up naturally just like idiomatic expressions and they’ll come in handy to make your spoken English natural and fluent. The point I was trying to make is that many of those idioms are outdated so you shouldn’t learn all idioms that come along. You have to be selective and learn the ones you hear on a daily basis around you! Sometimes it’s pretty hard to say where an idiom becomes an idiomatic expression. For instance, a saying I hear quite often in Ireland is “to scare the living daylights out of me”, which means that something or something gave me a terrible fright. Is it an idiom? Probably yes, because it’s not clear as to what “living daylights” has got to do with being afraid. On the other hand, is it possible to guess its meaning? Well, I’d say it is! So – it’s probably not a full idiom whose meaning can’t be inferred by taking the words literally; it’s probably more like an idiomatic expression because the word “to scare” gives away its meaning! Anyway, I don’t want to spend more of your time trying to figure out whether this or that particular saying is an idiom, or idiomatic expression or whatever, it wouldn’t serve any purpose in your quest to becoming a fluent English speaker.
All you need to know is that there’s loads of English sayings and small talk phrases that are typical for the English language only and that you need to know a good few of them to make your conversational English sound natural and also so that you can fully understand what other English speakers are communicating with you!
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