Should we strive to THINK in a foreign language?

Today, I want to talk about thinking in the language we are learning.

It comes up all the time.

How do I get to where I can think in the language I'm learning?

To me, this is related to this other question of how can I speak like a native?

And here, I think we need to understand, at least my view of the whole process

of language learning is we start out at basically zero, knowing nothing

or very little, we may know related languages, but we're at the very

beginning and there's this continuous.

Sort of voyage, which eventually takes us to a higher level, but that higher

level is very rarely, if ever, perfection.

I just don't think perfection is a term we can think of when

we think of language learning.

If we come to this question of thinking in the language So even languages that

I speak very well in, say, my own case, in Japanese, in French, there are always

times when I will translate from English.

I may not do that for the longest time.

I might feel very comfortable in the language, but there will inevitably

come some point where I am actually using a structure or a word that I've

reached into my brain for in English.

And I translate it into the language.

It's a continuum.

So, as we're getting better and better in the language, there are moments when

we hear something, it's instant meaning.

We read something, it's instant meaning.

We go to say something and it just comes out.

And so there, we are, in a way, thinking in the language we're

learning, but we're doing it for, you know, a small part of the time that

we are spending with the language.

As we continue, as we become more comfortable, we get better at it.

As with so much in language learning, the deliberate effort to learn

something is often counterproductive.

The deliberate effort to avoid thinking in the language just makes

you uptight and makes it, you know, less likely that you will achieve that.

You have to relax and let it happen.

It will gradually happen.

More and more, you will start thinking in the language, if you continue with

all of your language learning activities.

And I think this concept of Thinking in the language is related to

sort of speaking like a native.

I have said before, I don't think we can achieve a hundred percent,

you know, sounding like a native.

There will always be something that betrays you as not a

speaker of that language, but you can become very, very good.

And in this whole issue of this sort of continuum, where we start in the

language and you get better and better.

It brings up these two terms that I see very often from linguists.

One is interlanguage and the other is fossilization.

And apparently those two terms were developed by a professor

of linguistics, Larry Selnicker.

So interlanguage explains the ability.

The ability of people to speak better in the language they're learning because of

the influence of their native language.

And so structures and even vocabulary items, not to mention pronunciation

from their native language will influence how they speak in

the language they're learning.

To me, that's obvious.

I'm not sure why we need a term like interlanguage.

Native speakers of certain languages will tend to make the same kinds of

mistakes that reflect patterns and structures in their own language.

They don't all do that.

Some do, some don't.

But to some extent, these patterns are Reflective of the

native language of the speaker.

That's normal.

We use what we know and what we're comfortable using, and we apply that

to the things that we're learning.

It's even suggested that learners might speak or produce the language

better in a classroom drill setting.

But then in a casual conversation, they revert back to interlanguage.

But that to me is normal because you can have a structured

environment in a classroom.

You can have the impression that something's been

taught, but once you revert.

Say, a couple of days later, when you're in a normal situation, and possibly a

stressful situation, then that deliberate learning may not help you that much,

although probably does contribute to gradually getting better in the language.

Again, fossilization is presented as some kind of a final stage in interlanguage

because some learners simply don't progress beyond a certain point.

So they're stuck at this interlanguage or this less than optimal level in the

language and they don't get better.

But I think we continue to think in our own language to

some extent, varying degrees.

We continue to use structures that reflect our native language.

That's always the case.

But I think if we put enough effort into listening and reading, and if we

are relaxed about it, and don't say, I want to speak better, but we aren't

prepared to put in the hours of listening and hours of listening and Thousands

and hundreds of thousands of words of reading to allow our brains to get a

better sense of the language, then we're not going to get beyond that point.

However, it's important to remember that many speakers of a second

language are, in effect, fossilized.

They have come to a level, it might be a very high level, where they are happy.

And I'm this way in a number of languages that I speak.

Good enough.

I can communicate.

I understand.

People understand me.

I'm good.

I'm happy.

It's even suggested in one of these papers that, to some extent, the interlanguage

may be an expression of identity.

I think that's unlikely.

However, I've mentioned this before, even my father, who spoke English very, very

well, had larger vocabulary than I did.

I think at some level it bothered him that English spelling was so inconsistent

and therefore he would pronounce English words as if they were written in Czech.

So as I've said, Bank of Nova Scotia was Scotia, Nova Scotia, because

to him somehow TIA should be.

And so there's a sort of a psychological element of resisting

the new language, which is also, I think, not an unimportant factor.

But my father thought in the language, I'm a hundred percent

sure he thought in English, but he didn't speak like a native.

So it's possible to get to a level where we think in the language

where it's instant meaning.

We express ourselves, not necessarily like a native, but without thinking about it.

So we are thinking that we're in the language, but our utterances are

not a hundred percent native like.

All of these things, to my mind, are part of language learning, of communicating,

of the fact that we cannot expect perfection in language learning, and

we shouldn't beat ourselves up if we don't yet feel that we think in the

language as well as we would like, or we aren't as fluent as we would like.

All of these things are perfectly normal.

And so I would leave you with a couple of videos I did on the whole issue of errors.

The importance of errors, if we recognize our own errors, that helps us learn.

But at the same time, learning to live with our less than

perfect use of the language.

Bye for now.