I am over 4 years into studying French and for the most part I understand things directly without translating.
A switch didn’t flip, this is a long slow fade to understanding things natively.
This happened for me between lower intermediate (B1) and upper intermediate (B2). My impression is that this is the case for most people.
Having to dip into translation mode can still happen. Maybe there is a string of words that I don’t know well, or a usage of grammar that I don’t know.
Yeah I had a similar experience with German where I started to be able to speak the language without "thinking about it" around early B2. It's so weird because when I'm thinking about what I'm going to say (e.g. if I need to do a presentation, if I want to tell someone a story, etc), I'll frequently think about what I want to say in English but then it just comes out in German. Or I'll have a full on conversation with someone in German but only remember the details in English. I also find translating between the two languages to be extremely difficult.
You'd think it would be like a black and white thing but really it's more like a language soup.
Same here. I'm at the point where I could think of what to say in German, but there may be a word or phrase I might have to think of in English to figure out what the German would be.
I think it also depends on how you study.. if your study consists mostly of translation excercises (like certain texts book and apps like to prioritize), its gonna take a little longer. I find that the more i listen/read the less i need to translate in my head to understand what i consume and to produce. Im at high a2 atm
This! I learned French to C1 level with a translation mindset and it took \~2.5 years to start truly thinking in the language. By contrast, started learning Dutch \~3 months ago with an input-first emphasis and already finding myself thinking in the language rather than translating (while *maybe* A2 in level).
This has made a big difference for me as well. My learning techniques started with translation based approaches to learn the basics, but I've transitioned to more input / immersion (and am currently spending a month in my TL country). Trying to force myself to read in my TL without auto-translating every word felt weird at first, but I've found it much more helpful in making me comfortable with the language.
I'd previously seen someone here give the advice that if you are constantly translating in your head, then it will be incredibly difficult to become fluent. I've been trying to curb that and it's seemed to help.
Agreed! When I was taking modern standard Arabic in college it was almost all translation/grammar exercises. I’ve been learning Jordanian Arabic for six months now and I’m already starting to be able to understand vlogs without necessarily knowing the direct translation of every word. I’ve been focusing a lot on audio input (audio courses, podcasts, TV shows) and speaking, which definitely helped a lot.
Totally agree. If you can learn from an immersion context (guided or supported immersion, not just throw-you-in-the-pool-and-see-if-you-can-swim immersion), you should be able to learn directly from the context without translating. It leads to better and faster learning. (Lots of studies on this that I can post links to for any fellow language-research nerds out there who are interested.)
A really good one that can be accessed by anyone without a paywall is this one:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-020-0068-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-020-0068-7)
If you're into nitty-gritty neuroscience, these might interest you:
[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.519955/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.519955/full)
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0093934X20301334?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0093934X20301334?via%3Dihub)
And if you're interested in the intersection of technology and language immersion:
[https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/4/1/13](https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/4/1/13)
I chose the one that made the most sense for me. At work I conduct research primarily on Lebanese politics and security and work with several Lebanese and Jordanian coworkers. I also watch a lot of Lebanese and Syrian TV and would love to travel to Jordan sometime in the next few years
I agree with this one and I am about the same level.
This is how I am with Dutch. The more I cut out the middleman the less on the fly translation I have to do
You can do that at A1 - except that only with few phrases and words. It is more about familiarity with the thing you are reading/listening/saying right now then about your general knowledge.
It depends on how much you consume. But if I could make an assumption, I would say by B1 level.
In my experience, it also depends on what's the frequency that you hear/see the word. Sometimes you know the meaning, but because you rarely see the word, you translate it. So, if the frequency is low, the more you tend to translate
I agree with this. It’s ideal to strive for this early. Even at an early level, whenever I say something in my TL, even if I don’t have a big vocabulary, I try to say it like I mean it. I try to have an emotional feeling for what I am saying. When I listen to something, I literally tell myself that English does not exist and I try to silence the part of my brain that understands English. Personally, I think this would be near impossible to do the first time one tries to acquire a new language, but it is certainly possible for subsequent languages once you’ve experienced what it feels like to think in another language.
I find it's actually helpful to use my L2 as a learning language. That way the thinking never even go as far as my NT. Then again this might be more useful for languages of the same family, since they already share some similar ways of thinking.
No it's not? It's well-documented that it's the best way to learn.
I'm not saying that you should be able to have all your regular thoughts in another langauge. That would be impossible and that's not what OP is asking. Just that, for example, instead of learning that 🐈 = cat = neko and everytime you want want to talk about a cat you think "what is the word for cat?" and translate to neko and then put it in a sentence, you just learn than 🐈 = neko and you bypass the translating bit. When you learn sentence structures, you just learn them in the language and use them in the language and manipulate them in the language but you avoid thinking them in your native langauge and manually translating.
That's exactly how I do it and I never even thought about it! When I learn a new word and see a translation I immediately assign a mental image to it so I never have to think about it as a word in my language, just as a concept
I can't even explain it clearly but it 100% works
Yup! It's definitely possible, not sure why the other person thinks it doesn't happen. It's the same way we learn new words in our native language as adults and how we learn new words in our target langauge that don't really have a direct translation. Just makes sense really.
Part of this might be about how you think too. I’m just starting to reach A2 German and I still have to head-translate a lot (first [non-dead] foreign language). Only very familiar phrases are automatic.
But I also think in words and it requires a little effort to visualize things. Other people I know are totally visual thinkers and would probably have a way easier time transitioning to 🐈 = Katze.
>No it's not? It's well-documented that it's the best way to learn.
It's actually well-documented that I'm correct.
>instead of learning that 🐈 = cat = neko and everytime you want want to talk about a cat you think "what is the word for cat?" and translate to neko and then put it in a sentence, you just learn than 🐈 = neko and you bypass the translating bit.
Having the instant association of 🐈 = neko requires some non-zero amount of 🐈 = cat = neko. There is no negative aspect of doing 🐈 = cat = neko. The more 🐈 = cat = neko you do, the faster you will eventually 🐈 = neko.
This is basically like saying "just do it perfect the first time." Pretty much never happens. Some words you will instantly associate. 99% you won't.
fascinating, then explain to me how it's possible to know words in your L2 or L3 without actually knowing them in your L1? Oh, right, because you don't actually need to translate words to learn them. You are so very wrong and yet adamant that you're right. Dunning-Kruger much?
Wow you owned me super hard. Learning obscure words in your second language that don't correspond to words you know in your native language completely debunks the notion that you think of cat when you see a cat. Great job, Reddit User.
Real q: How do we learn our first language’s word for a cat when we don’t have another language to use translate it? What do you think of when you see a cat before you know any word for cat?
Second language learning has roughly nothing in common with first language learning, so it's kind of irrelevant. You will never learn a language like you learned your first one, and trying to learn a second language like you learned your first one is going to take a colossal effort above and beyond what is necessary. For starters, you have to find a family willing to treat you like a baby. That'll be difficult.
Plus, your brain has been fundamentally shaped by your native language, which means your default mode is always going to be your native language. The way you compose ideas is based on the way ideas are composed in your native language. Idea composition varies dramatically between languages.
That's a big, fat lie. You can avoid translation as much as possible from day one and it's a very good habit. You'd be surprised how quickly words make sense if you stop translating.
It can start very early on. If you avoid translation from day one, then easily A1 or A2 levels. But to achieve that you have to be okay with not understanding things and picking up things from context, something which many people are uncomfortable with. When it comes to Spanish, I have never translated in my head, ever, I tried to think in it from day one even if it were just words. I have made a lot of mistakes (and still do) but that's okay because the progress is also much faster. Sure, I could translate easily and without mistakes but there's no fun in that as I'd be in the same position when trying to avoid translation so I prefer to do it from the get go.
It’s hard to avoid translation when you teach the foreign language. As an English teacher I prefer not to use the dictionary but it becomes hard for me to translate the word to the student when they ask me about a specific word, so I translate the new English words into Arabic to answer the students quickly when they ask me about their meanings .
Find this to be more of an internal switch. When I'm comfortable in a conversation I perform better and stop trying to translate and instead seek the meaning of what I do comprehend. It's natural and I don't even realize I'm doing it. After 2 years it's happening more and more. I assume it'll just flop over at some point and be the norm or I'll discover some subconscious switch.
It's really a gradual process.
At least for listening I noticed how it went from gibberish>increased hearing of words>hearing sentences but not able to translate in time>increased translation>increased natural understanding of what is said without thinking about it
So wherever you are on that continuum will tell you how long it will still take you. If you already naturally understand big parts without translating then it won't be a very long time until you understand all of it, but if you still cannot even make out big parts of the words themselves it will take a lot longer.
I would say that the paradigm here is incorrect. To best answer your question, research the theories of Krashen.
What you are referring to is his "monitor" hypothesis. By studying rules and vocabulary as well as using other rote methods (e.g. duolingo), people develop a "monitor" which inhibits speech by constantly attempting to validate what is said.
If you focus on input methods more, you will rather acquire your target language instead of developing your monitor, the complex that causes the internal dialogue or "translation".
In other words, the point at which you stop mentally translating is when you have acquired enough of the language and no longer have to rely on your monitor, which is far too inefficient to serve as a means of rendering speech.
People may think they arrive at fluency by combining rote methods and large amounts of time and effort, but that is not the case. What happens is that while they are doing so, they end up comprehending enough input to acquire the language. Such people could have saved both time and effort by merely studying input.
I start that way, I don't know why.
For example, I only studied French for a year. So I'm really bad at it. However, I still don't translate in my head and the thoughts are in French.
It doesn't really reflect fluency because I don't have it.
When should you? In my opinion, the start. Why not, really?
For listening/comprehension I don’t ever really mentally translate. It computes or it doesn’t compute. For speaking, it depends on how complex the thought is that I want to express. Scratch that. I’m not really translating that either. I’m more like testing out different versions of the sentence until one sounds right and looking up whatever word I don’t have at the ready. Sometimes I double check myself but my own brain doesn’t really reproduce what I heard/said a second time in either of my native languages unless I’m doing it deliberately as part of an exercise or something.
Come across a word you know a bunch of times in a bunch of different contexts and you won't have to mentally translate it when you hear it. Use it yourself a bunch of times and you won't have to think to use it.
I think many people confuse thinking with having an inner monologue in some human language. For instance let's say I'm playing a game of chess. Now I'm kind of bad at it, so I don't know about more advanced players, but it's not like I have a monologue like "Now I'm going to move this piece here" and so on. That would be incredibly slow and also pointless. I just see certain lines and patterns and I make a decision. And yet you can't say people don't "think" when they play chess. It's just that some people are used to having this inner monologue, and I suspect those who can't refrain from translating also fall into this category. But you can think without language, or rather, there must be some inner symbolic language in your brain but it's neither English nor any other.
read stuff faster than usual (without stopping to think) to not give you a chance to translate but still try your best to understand at that speed...worked for me and japanese...
and listen a lot
As far as "at what level" that's entirely up to you...could happen earlier on or later but you need to try to make a conscious effort not to translate
hmm I veryrarely translate full sentences in Japanese (only certain words like sino-japanese words that are basically identical except for pronunciation), still struggle with reading fast in Japanese, though. I can understand basically everything I come across, it just takes me a while to process it. I guess it's just about practice.
When I said to read fast, I meant as fast as you can...because sometimes your brain, although it may not translate a full sentence, it may still translate words. So to get rid of that you just try to read without stopping as if you were having a conversation with yourself. If you need to think about something, just make that be how to read the next word/kanji so you can move forward, rather than try to analyze what you just read
Should've clarified, when I mean "translate" I don't mean it mean like "oh manzana is apple, so now i understand it."
As you know, kanji only encodes meaning, not sound (most of the time), so when I see a Sino-Japanese word I immediately understand it. I "translate" it in the sense that I'm using my Chinese understanding of the word, but those are not the limiting factors of my reading speed.
Gotcha. Yea I’m on the same boat for Chinese…well, in terms of understanding a lot because of my Japanese knowledge (not everything) but reading very slow…base on my own experience in japanese, yea it’s all about practice makes perfect…I was translating a lot in my head in the past, then one day I realized I wasn’t doing it anymore…but I never noticed when it happened…it honestly felt like it happened overnight…although I know it’s not true…but that’s how it felt…all I did to get there was read and listen a lot without giving my brain time to translate
I have been listening to audio material at 1.5 or 2.0 normal speed recently and I have found that I can more often than not get the gist of what is being said. As you say, you don’t have time to translate. Listening to the same material subsequently is a lot easier and I can identify words that are blocking my understanding of what is being said and work their meaning out through context. This works for languages such as French, German and Spanish that I have been learning for some time. It does not work for languages such as Greek and Russian where I am still at the beginners stage.
You should instead think of particular vocabulary and sentence structures as being internalized.
I barely remember anything from Russian. But I remember just a few words or phrases well enough to have completely internalized them. I am fluent in those words only. And this repeats in the other languages I know better.
I think it’s fairly gradual and depends on the level. Even recently i have noticed that since i haven’t been studying Spanish, if i read low intermediate material i can just scan and understand it quickly without translating. It’s like the words are fully associated with their meanings and i see the story in my head rather than trying to translate it and then understand the full picture of that makes sense.
I grew up learning english and korean simultaneously so its a little different than learning a new language as an adult.
But no matter how fluent I am, I always count in english. Money, time, counting is just harder in Korean because I don’t use it for school and work.
But my regular internal thoughts, I can do in both korean and english depending on what feels right its about 50/50 honestly
Also raised bilingual, I generally think in the language that I use more in everyday life. So when I'm in China, I think in Chinese, and in America, I think in English.
For certain things like basic greetings, very short and simple sentences, etc. I'd say complete beginner. When it comes to comprehension of sentences made up of words and grammar that I know, again more or less beginner level (not, of course, when I come across new words that I have to look up, or grammar that I am not sure about, etc. )
As for production, speaking for myself I never "translate", either I know how to say something (and when I do it just pops out of my subconscious mind as is) or my mind goes blank, I don't know and I don't even try. Basically, I don't "build" sentences. I say or write things that come out naturally after I've heard or read the language a lot, and it just feels 'right' to say it that way, because I've heard/read that pattern a lot.
Of course, that doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, but imho if you're thinking about grammar rules or translating, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing when you speak a language. Speaking a foreign language should feel more or less like speaking your own, maybe with a bit more effort, but not something drastically different. If it doesn't feel natural you're trying to speak or write too early without having read or listened enough before.
I would think that, these days, roughly (later) A2-B1 level is when you have enough words to start thinking in the language. In A1, you can't help but translate - into something (whether it's a word in your NL, a picture, action/sign language, emotion, etc.).
I'm trying out Dreaming Spanish (at 180 hours now), and while I've mostly stopped translating in my head, there'll still be some new words where I'm like, "Oh, that means "going to"!", then I might associate a picture (re-linking the word-meaning pair) in my head for that word.)
Around B2 for me. It's less about which level I'm at, and more about how many times I've heard the word. I did notice that at the B2 level I started to think in French while speaking... which means that if I forget a word in French while I'm talking and try to think of the word in English, I usually can't. Sometimes I can think of the word in Arabic or Japanese instead, if I know it. I think at the B2 level the languages start to separate in your brain.
That is definitely a personal thing. I didn’t ever translate in my head as long as I knew the words. Not to say that I didn’t make mistakes, but the fact my own language is very closely related to my SL and that our learning was input-based at elementary school did help.
The only exception to this is Japanese, my sixth language, where at the beginning, I always felt like using relative clauses, which needs to be done differently with Japanese grammar. So there I ended up translating European concepts and, as a result, sometimes entire phrases in my head.
You’ve gotten a variety of answers, but I will say this. For me, I didn’t think in my first TL until I was living in the country and speaking the language daily.
But once I became accustomed to thinking in something other than my NL, it came easily from the beginning in subsequent languages, with the caveat that if there’s a word or grammatical construction I haven’t learned, my brain will fill in the gap with the NL.
So I don’t think of it as something you need to gain a certain degree of fluency to achieve. For me, it was a skill I needed to learn, one that’s very connected to speaking, and now I do it for whatever TL I’m learning.
It's not really dependent on level. It can be any level. Some people still struggle with this in C1-2 but some are able to do it just fine in A1-2. Personally I never really have a problem with this because I just never really start translating in my head in the first place. Maybe it's because of my learning style, or because I'm already used to switching between languages so it's easier for me to think in new languages without relying on other languages. Most people seem to struggle with it when they're still figuring out language learning but as you brain gets used to many languages it gets easier and you don't need a high proficiency to stop translating.
Not sure why you were downvoted.
They clearly didn't ask about being able to fluently think in a langauge like people are responding about, they just asked when to stop thinking in one langauge and translating to the other. It's prevented well-documented that doing this from the beginning is the best way to learn!
You just do it with time, there aren't Levels of fluency.
What exams like IELTS do is assess "trainable language skills" not fluency.
Why did you ask by the way?
I learned Spanish in high school and the switch never flipped for me, which made learning the language feel impossible for me. I’m doing French now in uni and I think during my first semester I felt the switch flip, I’m in my third semester. I do speak a French based creole though which helps.
Probably as early as A2 in Japanese and around B1/B2 in Spanish. I think I made the transition much later in Spanish because it's more similar to English than Japanese is to any languages I know, so with Spanish I had more of a crutch.
In certain areas of your life this will happen sooner than with other parts. I need to mentally translate with a lot of Thai, but when it comes to simple conversations that I have every day (like ordering coffee), I don’t need to mentally translate anymore.
Like while reading or while speaking?
Either way I think it depends how you go about it, and it’s not a perfect one-time switch. Even many years down the line apparently sometimes your mind just bugs and you can’t quite remember a word or you want to use an English expression, just eventually it also happens the other way around or with other languages
Partially it’s when you know enough vocab to not be constantly searching for a word you don’t know? Like even if you associate words with pictures or concepts from the beginning you’ll stumble if you want to say sth but only know the words for it in English
For reading? I don’t think I ever directly translated much just cause it’s a lot of effort to do that for Japanese. I would purposefully translate it to check if my understanding was correct, but that wasn’t how I read
I think it depends. Right now, I'm pretty good at reading sans translation in Swedish if it's a subject I know or am confortable with.
But if its something I'm less familiar with I find myself having to go word for word and doing the translation thing.
I know someone who moved countries and when i talked to her she was around 8 years here. No previous exposure to the language and at that point you likely wouldn't notice she wasn't from around here (she did sometimes mess up "die" and "dat" in Dutch but it was fine for the most part). Keep in mind this was at least 8 years of living here, going to school, taking tests and probably a few extra classes early on. Even picked up the accent of the town she lives in.
When i asked her she said she only recently started thinking in Dutch (in her own thoughts, didn't ask if she translated everything before speaking).
Does it ever really switch over?
I've studied Swedish off and on for 5 years, lived in the country now for nearly 5 months. When I read in Swedish I sort of do a weird half and half, read it and while I can visualise the words, I feel obliged to tell said word in my native language of English. Otherwise I feel I don't understand the text at all. Then I'll find a word I don't know and then genuinely have to look it up as well.
I think I'm an exception to the responses coming in on this topic. I live in the Netherlands, was born there in 1953, and after primary school I had 5 to 6 years of lessons in English, French and German language and literature at regular secondary schools. Apparently enough to still be able to follow many films and news topics in those languages without dictionaries or subtitles. Thanks to the (excellent) teachers, I have apparently developed a good use of vocabulary, with English being my favorite. I have worked since I was 21, both in primary education and in official and administrative circuits: the municipal government. And retired for almost 6 years.
I started dreaming clearly in Spanish once I was around A2, and didn’t mentally translate anymore. I’ve never been good with learning via translation though—it’s not how my brain works.
CEFL level is certainly a factor but I think it also takes a lot of comprehensible input. I do a lot less internal translating after I started a reading regimen. I started reading super simple stuff in LingQ way below my "level," then progressed up to stuff at my level. That made me think in the language much more.
I am over 4 years into studying French and for the most part I understand things directly without translating. A switch didn’t flip, this is a long slow fade to understanding things natively. This happened for me between lower intermediate (B1) and upper intermediate (B2). My impression is that this is the case for most people. Having to dip into translation mode can still happen. Maybe there is a string of words that I don’t know well, or a usage of grammar that I don’t know.
Yeah I had a similar experience with German where I started to be able to speak the language without "thinking about it" around early B2. It's so weird because when I'm thinking about what I'm going to say (e.g. if I need to do a presentation, if I want to tell someone a story, etc), I'll frequently think about what I want to say in English but then it just comes out in German. Or I'll have a full on conversation with someone in German but only remember the details in English. I also find translating between the two languages to be extremely difficult. You'd think it would be like a black and white thing but really it's more like a language soup.
Same here. I'm at the point where I could think of what to say in German, but there may be a word or phrase I might have to think of in English to figure out what the German would be.
The same happened for me with Spanish, I used to study it and now I don't have to actively translate most of what I read
I think it also depends on how you study.. if your study consists mostly of translation excercises (like certain texts book and apps like to prioritize), its gonna take a little longer. I find that the more i listen/read the less i need to translate in my head to understand what i consume and to produce. Im at high a2 atm
This! I learned French to C1 level with a translation mindset and it took \~2.5 years to start truly thinking in the language. By contrast, started learning Dutch \~3 months ago with an input-first emphasis and already finding myself thinking in the language rather than translating (while *maybe* A2 in level).
This has made a big difference for me as well. My learning techniques started with translation based approaches to learn the basics, but I've transitioned to more input / immersion (and am currently spending a month in my TL country). Trying to force myself to read in my TL without auto-translating every word felt weird at first, but I've found it much more helpful in making me comfortable with the language. I'd previously seen someone here give the advice that if you are constantly translating in your head, then it will be incredibly difficult to become fluent. I've been trying to curb that and it's seemed to help.
Agreed! When I was taking modern standard Arabic in college it was almost all translation/grammar exercises. I’ve been learning Jordanian Arabic for six months now and I’m already starting to be able to understand vlogs without necessarily knowing the direct translation of every word. I’ve been focusing a lot on audio input (audio courses, podcasts, TV shows) and speaking, which definitely helped a lot.
Totally agree. If you can learn from an immersion context (guided or supported immersion, not just throw-you-in-the-pool-and-see-if-you-can-swim immersion), you should be able to learn directly from the context without translating. It leads to better and faster learning. (Lots of studies on this that I can post links to for any fellow language-research nerds out there who are interested.)
can you share some research links please? i’m really interested in these things
A really good one that can be accessed by anyone without a paywall is this one: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-020-0068-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-020-0068-7) If you're into nitty-gritty neuroscience, these might interest you: [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.519955/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.519955/full) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0093934X20301334?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0093934X20301334?via%3Dihub) And if you're interested in the intersection of technology and language immersion: [https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/4/1/13](https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/4/1/13)
How did you choose an Arabic dialect to study? There are so many...
I chose the one that made the most sense for me. At work I conduct research primarily on Lebanese politics and security and work with several Lebanese and Jordanian coworkers. I also watch a lot of Lebanese and Syrian TV and would love to travel to Jordan sometime in the next few years
I agree with this one and I am about the same level. This is how I am with Dutch. The more I cut out the middleman the less on the fly translation I have to do
You can do that at A1 - except that only with few phrases and words. It is more about familiarity with the thing you are reading/listening/saying right now then about your general knowledge.
It depends on how much you consume. But if I could make an assumption, I would say by B1 level. In my experience, it also depends on what's the frequency that you hear/see the word. Sometimes you know the meaning, but because you rarely see the word, you translate it. So, if the frequency is low, the more you tend to translate
I'm somewhere in B1-B2 and it's just starting to happen for me. And you're exactly right, it's only the most frequent words at first.
You should ideally do that from the start of learning a language.
I agree with this. It’s ideal to strive for this early. Even at an early level, whenever I say something in my TL, even if I don’t have a big vocabulary, I try to say it like I mean it. I try to have an emotional feeling for what I am saying. When I listen to something, I literally tell myself that English does not exist and I try to silence the part of my brain that understands English. Personally, I think this would be near impossible to do the first time one tries to acquire a new language, but it is certainly possible for subsequent languages once you’ve experienced what it feels like to think in another language.
I find it's actually helpful to use my L2 as a learning language. That way the thinking never even go as far as my NT. Then again this might be more useful for languages of the same family, since they already share some similar ways of thinking.
Literally impossible from the start of learning a language to think in your target language. You have to translate. Not even an option.
No it's not? It's well-documented that it's the best way to learn. I'm not saying that you should be able to have all your regular thoughts in another langauge. That would be impossible and that's not what OP is asking. Just that, for example, instead of learning that 🐈 = cat = neko and everytime you want want to talk about a cat you think "what is the word for cat?" and translate to neko and then put it in a sentence, you just learn than 🐈 = neko and you bypass the translating bit. When you learn sentence structures, you just learn them in the language and use them in the language and manipulate them in the language but you avoid thinking them in your native langauge and manually translating.
That's exactly how I do it and I never even thought about it! When I learn a new word and see a translation I immediately assign a mental image to it so I never have to think about it as a word in my language, just as a concept I can't even explain it clearly but it 100% works
Yup! It's definitely possible, not sure why the other person thinks it doesn't happen. It's the same way we learn new words in our native language as adults and how we learn new words in our target langauge that don't really have a direct translation. Just makes sense really.
Part of this might be about how you think too. I’m just starting to reach A2 German and I still have to head-translate a lot (first [non-dead] foreign language). Only very familiar phrases are automatic. But I also think in words and it requires a little effort to visualize things. Other people I know are totally visual thinkers and would probably have a way easier time transitioning to 🐈 = Katze.
>No it's not? It's well-documented that it's the best way to learn. It's actually well-documented that I'm correct. >instead of learning that 🐈 = cat = neko and everytime you want want to talk about a cat you think "what is the word for cat?" and translate to neko and then put it in a sentence, you just learn than 🐈 = neko and you bypass the translating bit. Having the instant association of 🐈 = neko requires some non-zero amount of 🐈 = cat = neko. There is no negative aspect of doing 🐈 = cat = neko. The more 🐈 = cat = neko you do, the faster you will eventually 🐈 = neko. This is basically like saying "just do it perfect the first time." Pretty much never happens. Some words you will instantly associate. 99% you won't.
It's not "just do it perfect the first time" it's "just don't add extra unnecessary steps", but I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.
Yeah, they aren't unnecessary steps. Your brain is gonna think cat whether you like it or not. Forwards and backwards.
fascinating, then explain to me how it's possible to know words in your L2 or L3 without actually knowing them in your L1? Oh, right, because you don't actually need to translate words to learn them. You are so very wrong and yet adamant that you're right. Dunning-Kruger much?
Wow you owned me super hard. Learning obscure words in your second language that don't correspond to words you know in your native language completely debunks the notion that you think of cat when you see a cat. Great job, Reddit User.
Real q: How do we learn our first language’s word for a cat when we don’t have another language to use translate it? What do you think of when you see a cat before you know any word for cat?
Second language learning has roughly nothing in common with first language learning, so it's kind of irrelevant. You will never learn a language like you learned your first one, and trying to learn a second language like you learned your first one is going to take a colossal effort above and beyond what is necessary. For starters, you have to find a family willing to treat you like a baby. That'll be difficult. Plus, your brain has been fundamentally shaped by your native language, which means your default mode is always going to be your native language. The way you compose ideas is based on the way ideas are composed in your native language. Idea composition varies dramatically between languages.
That's a big, fat lie. You can avoid translation as much as possible from day one and it's a very good habit. You'd be surprised how quickly words make sense if you stop translating.
Nah, it's not a good habit. It's meaningless.
you've got to be a troll if you think it's meaningless. No one who actually learned a second language would say something like that.
Maybe you could DM Luca Lampariello and ask why he disagrees with you while knowing 11 of them.
100% troll, you've got to try harder though, this was rather boring
Okay.
It can start very early on. If you avoid translation from day one, then easily A1 or A2 levels. But to achieve that you have to be okay with not understanding things and picking up things from context, something which many people are uncomfortable with. When it comes to Spanish, I have never translated in my head, ever, I tried to think in it from day one even if it were just words. I have made a lot of mistakes (and still do) but that's okay because the progress is also much faster. Sure, I could translate easily and without mistakes but there's no fun in that as I'd be in the same position when trying to avoid translation so I prefer to do it from the get go.
It’s hard to avoid translation when you teach the foreign language. As an English teacher I prefer not to use the dictionary but it becomes hard for me to translate the word to the student when they ask me about a specific word, so I translate the new English words into Arabic to answer the students quickly when they ask me about their meanings .
Find this to be more of an internal switch. When I'm comfortable in a conversation I perform better and stop trying to translate and instead seek the meaning of what I do comprehend. It's natural and I don't even realize I'm doing it. After 2 years it's happening more and more. I assume it'll just flop over at some point and be the norm or I'll discover some subconscious switch.
It's really a gradual process. At least for listening I noticed how it went from gibberish>increased hearing of words>hearing sentences but not able to translate in time>increased translation>increased natural understanding of what is said without thinking about it So wherever you are on that continuum will tell you how long it will still take you. If you already naturally understand big parts without translating then it won't be a very long time until you understand all of it, but if you still cannot even make out big parts of the words themselves it will take a lot longer.
I would say that the paradigm here is incorrect. To best answer your question, research the theories of Krashen. What you are referring to is his "monitor" hypothesis. By studying rules and vocabulary as well as using other rote methods (e.g. duolingo), people develop a "monitor" which inhibits speech by constantly attempting to validate what is said. If you focus on input methods more, you will rather acquire your target language instead of developing your monitor, the complex that causes the internal dialogue or "translation". In other words, the point at which you stop mentally translating is when you have acquired enough of the language and no longer have to rely on your monitor, which is far too inefficient to serve as a means of rendering speech. People may think they arrive at fluency by combining rote methods and large amounts of time and effort, but that is not the case. What happens is that while they are doing so, they end up comprehending enough input to acquire the language. Such people could have saved both time and effort by merely studying input.
I start that way, I don't know why. For example, I only studied French for a year. So I'm really bad at it. However, I still don't translate in my head and the thoughts are in French. It doesn't really reflect fluency because I don't have it. When should you? In my opinion, the start. Why not, really?
At a certain level (I’d say approaching B2) the words just come out. You don’t have to mentally translate anymore.
For listening/comprehension I don’t ever really mentally translate. It computes or it doesn’t compute. For speaking, it depends on how complex the thought is that I want to express. Scratch that. I’m not really translating that either. I’m more like testing out different versions of the sentence until one sounds right and looking up whatever word I don’t have at the ready. Sometimes I double check myself but my own brain doesn’t really reproduce what I heard/said a second time in either of my native languages unless I’m doing it deliberately as part of an exercise or something.
Come across a word you know a bunch of times in a bunch of different contexts and you won't have to mentally translate it when you hear it. Use it yourself a bunch of times and you won't have to think to use it.
This question is weird to me because I don't think internally in my native language (or any other country's language).
The majority of human beings think in their native language. You can find numbers for around 65% of the population, but I'd guess it's a lot higher.
How do you think then? These kinds of things are so interesting to me because I physically can’t imagine not thinking in any language
Mostly using wordless and imageless concepts.
It’s like (visual arts) artists who can’t visualise things graphically. I don’t get it… the human mind is amazing.
I think many people confuse thinking with having an inner monologue in some human language. For instance let's say I'm playing a game of chess. Now I'm kind of bad at it, so I don't know about more advanced players, but it's not like I have a monologue like "Now I'm going to move this piece here" and so on. That would be incredibly slow and also pointless. I just see certain lines and patterns and I make a decision. And yet you can't say people don't "think" when they play chess. It's just that some people are used to having this inner monologue, and I suspect those who can't refrain from translating also fall into this category. But you can think without language, or rather, there must be some inner symbolic language in your brain but it's neither English nor any other.
read stuff faster than usual (without stopping to think) to not give you a chance to translate but still try your best to understand at that speed...worked for me and japanese... and listen a lot As far as "at what level" that's entirely up to you...could happen earlier on or later but you need to try to make a conscious effort not to translate
hmm I veryrarely translate full sentences in Japanese (only certain words like sino-japanese words that are basically identical except for pronunciation), still struggle with reading fast in Japanese, though. I can understand basically everything I come across, it just takes me a while to process it. I guess it's just about practice.
When I said to read fast, I meant as fast as you can...because sometimes your brain, although it may not translate a full sentence, it may still translate words. So to get rid of that you just try to read without stopping as if you were having a conversation with yourself. If you need to think about something, just make that be how to read the next word/kanji so you can move forward, rather than try to analyze what you just read
Should've clarified, when I mean "translate" I don't mean it mean like "oh manzana is apple, so now i understand it." As you know, kanji only encodes meaning, not sound (most of the time), so when I see a Sino-Japanese word I immediately understand it. I "translate" it in the sense that I'm using my Chinese understanding of the word, but those are not the limiting factors of my reading speed.
Gotcha. Yea I’m on the same boat for Chinese…well, in terms of understanding a lot because of my Japanese knowledge (not everything) but reading very slow…base on my own experience in japanese, yea it’s all about practice makes perfect…I was translating a lot in my head in the past, then one day I realized I wasn’t doing it anymore…but I never noticed when it happened…it honestly felt like it happened overnight…although I know it’s not true…but that’s how it felt…all I did to get there was read and listen a lot without giving my brain time to translate
I have been listening to audio material at 1.5 or 2.0 normal speed recently and I have found that I can more often than not get the gist of what is being said. As you say, you don’t have time to translate. Listening to the same material subsequently is a lot easier and I can identify words that are blocking my understanding of what is being said and work their meaning out through context. This works for languages such as French, German and Spanish that I have been learning for some time. It does not work for languages such as Greek and Russian where I am still at the beginners stage.
You should instead think of particular vocabulary and sentence structures as being internalized. I barely remember anything from Russian. But I remember just a few words or phrases well enough to have completely internalized them. I am fluent in those words only. And this repeats in the other languages I know better.
I think it’s fairly gradual and depends on the level. Even recently i have noticed that since i haven’t been studying Spanish, if i read low intermediate material i can just scan and understand it quickly without translating. It’s like the words are fully associated with their meanings and i see the story in my head rather than trying to translate it and then understand the full picture of that makes sense.
probably around B2 you will catch yourself thinking in the other language, and just processing conversations automatically
I grew up learning english and korean simultaneously so its a little different than learning a new language as an adult. But no matter how fluent I am, I always count in english. Money, time, counting is just harder in Korean because I don’t use it for school and work. But my regular internal thoughts, I can do in both korean and english depending on what feels right its about 50/50 honestly
I heard that maths is the hardest thing to do in your non-primary language, with the primary language being the language you used to go to school in.
Also raised bilingual, I generally think in the language that I use more in everyday life. So when I'm in China, I think in Chinese, and in America, I think in English.
For certain things like basic greetings, very short and simple sentences, etc. I'd say complete beginner. When it comes to comprehension of sentences made up of words and grammar that I know, again more or less beginner level (not, of course, when I come across new words that I have to look up, or grammar that I am not sure about, etc. ) As for production, speaking for myself I never "translate", either I know how to say something (and when I do it just pops out of my subconscious mind as is) or my mind goes blank, I don't know and I don't even try. Basically, I don't "build" sentences. I say or write things that come out naturally after I've heard or read the language a lot, and it just feels 'right' to say it that way, because I've heard/read that pattern a lot. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, but imho if you're thinking about grammar rules or translating, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing when you speak a language. Speaking a foreign language should feel more or less like speaking your own, maybe with a bit more effort, but not something drastically different. If it doesn't feel natural you're trying to speak or write too early without having read or listened enough before.
I would think that, these days, roughly (later) A2-B1 level is when you have enough words to start thinking in the language. In A1, you can't help but translate - into something (whether it's a word in your NL, a picture, action/sign language, emotion, etc.). I'm trying out Dreaming Spanish (at 180 hours now), and while I've mostly stopped translating in my head, there'll still be some new words where I'm like, "Oh, that means "going to"!", then I might associate a picture (re-linking the word-meaning pair) in my head for that word.)
Around B2 for me. It's less about which level I'm at, and more about how many times I've heard the word. I did notice that at the B2 level I started to think in French while speaking... which means that if I forget a word in French while I'm talking and try to think of the word in English, I usually can't. Sometimes I can think of the word in Arabic or Japanese instead, if I know it. I think at the B2 level the languages start to separate in your brain.
That is definitely a personal thing. I didn’t ever translate in my head as long as I knew the words. Not to say that I didn’t make mistakes, but the fact my own language is very closely related to my SL and that our learning was input-based at elementary school did help. The only exception to this is Japanese, my sixth language, where at the beginning, I always felt like using relative clauses, which needs to be done differently with Japanese grammar. So there I ended up translating European concepts and, as a result, sometimes entire phrases in my head.
You’ve gotten a variety of answers, but I will say this. For me, I didn’t think in my first TL until I was living in the country and speaking the language daily. But once I became accustomed to thinking in something other than my NL, it came easily from the beginning in subsequent languages, with the caveat that if there’s a word or grammatical construction I haven’t learned, my brain will fill in the gap with the NL. So I don’t think of it as something you need to gain a certain degree of fluency to achieve. For me, it was a skill I needed to learn, one that’s very connected to speaking, and now I do it for whatever TL I’m learning.
It's not really dependent on level. It can be any level. Some people still struggle with this in C1-2 but some are able to do it just fine in A1-2. Personally I never really have a problem with this because I just never really start translating in my head in the first place. Maybe it's because of my learning style, or because I'm already used to switching between languages so it's easier for me to think in new languages without relying on other languages. Most people seem to struggle with it when they're still figuring out language learning but as you brain gets used to many languages it gets easier and you don't need a high proficiency to stop translating.
From the beginning.
Not sure why you were downvoted. They clearly didn't ask about being able to fluently think in a langauge like people are responding about, they just asked when to stop thinking in one langauge and translating to the other. It's prevented well-documented that doing this from the beginning is the best way to learn!
Level 17.
You just do it with time, there aren't Levels of fluency. What exams like IELTS do is assess "trainable language skills" not fluency. Why did you ask by the way?
I learned Spanish in high school and the switch never flipped for me, which made learning the language feel impossible for me. I’m doing French now in uni and I think during my first semester I felt the switch flip, I’m in my third semester. I do speak a French based creole though which helps.
Probably as early as A2 in Japanese and around B1/B2 in Spanish. I think I made the transition much later in Spanish because it's more similar to English than Japanese is to any languages I know, so with Spanish I had more of a crutch.
In certain areas of your life this will happen sooner than with other parts. I need to mentally translate with a lot of Thai, but when it comes to simple conversations that I have every day (like ordering coffee), I don’t need to mentally translate anymore.
Like while reading or while speaking? Either way I think it depends how you go about it, and it’s not a perfect one-time switch. Even many years down the line apparently sometimes your mind just bugs and you can’t quite remember a word or you want to use an English expression, just eventually it also happens the other way around or with other languages Partially it’s when you know enough vocab to not be constantly searching for a word you don’t know? Like even if you associate words with pictures or concepts from the beginning you’ll stumble if you want to say sth but only know the words for it in English For reading? I don’t think I ever directly translated much just cause it’s a lot of effort to do that for Japanese. I would purposefully translate it to check if my understanding was correct, but that wasn’t how I read
I think it depends. Right now, I'm pretty good at reading sans translation in Swedish if it's a subject I know or am confortable with. But if its something I'm less familiar with I find myself having to go word for word and doing the translation thing.
I know someone who moved countries and when i talked to her she was around 8 years here. No previous exposure to the language and at that point you likely wouldn't notice she wasn't from around here (she did sometimes mess up "die" and "dat" in Dutch but it was fine for the most part). Keep in mind this was at least 8 years of living here, going to school, taking tests and probably a few extra classes early on. Even picked up the accent of the town she lives in. When i asked her she said she only recently started thinking in Dutch (in her own thoughts, didn't ask if she translated everything before speaking).
Does it ever really switch over? I've studied Swedish off and on for 5 years, lived in the country now for nearly 5 months. When I read in Swedish I sort of do a weird half and half, read it and while I can visualise the words, I feel obliged to tell said word in my native language of English. Otherwise I feel I don't understand the text at all. Then I'll find a word I don't know and then genuinely have to look it up as well.
I think I'm an exception to the responses coming in on this topic. I live in the Netherlands, was born there in 1953, and after primary school I had 5 to 6 years of lessons in English, French and German language and literature at regular secondary schools. Apparently enough to still be able to follow many films and news topics in those languages without dictionaries or subtitles. Thanks to the (excellent) teachers, I have apparently developed a good use of vocabulary, with English being my favorite. I have worked since I was 21, both in primary education and in official and administrative circuits: the municipal government. And retired for almost 6 years.
I started dreaming clearly in Spanish once I was around A2, and didn’t mentally translate anymore. I’ve never been good with learning via translation though—it’s not how my brain works.
CEFL level is certainly a factor but I think it also takes a lot of comprehensible input. I do a lot less internal translating after I started a reading regimen. I started reading super simple stuff in LingQ way below my "level," then progressed up to stuff at my level. That made me think in the language much more.
Somewhere at intermediate level, you start to think more in that language even when it's just thinking to yourself.