Resina’s notebook 芮西手帳

 Enjoying in using different language to explore the world is really wonderful, but how to familiar with second language is a problem, there is an advice may help- ”thinking in second language”.

I am a Taiwanese, speak Mandarin, have learned English for more than ten years, remember lots of difficult vocabulary. However I still can not use this skill well.I have no confidence to use it, especially in talking and writing.

I want to know the reason why I can’t handle this skill, therefore I check the method I used before in learning English, I discovered something interesting at the end.

English to me is always a stranger, an intimate stranger, although I have known it since I was eleven years old, there is still a thin and invisible layer separates us.

What is the layer? I asked. The layer is that I never think in English directly. I always think in Mandarin to learn it.

This learning method has a bug which is its translating process.

Stop translating in my head ! I want to “think in English” like a native.

Stop to translate messages which I received in English into Mandarin, then translate it again back to English. This route is too slow in reaction while conversation and it’s a massive loading for brain.

Thinking is a inside job and speaking is an outside work, they are partner that can not be taken apart. After realizing this concept , I start thinking in English ,and writing down what I think directly. 

Language is alive. Mandarin is alive, I taste it, feel it, use it everyday. Therefore, I am going to vivify English too. If grammar is language’s skeletal, vocabulary is its muscle, then emotions must be its soul.

To resuscitate second language requires soul, requires us to think in it directly and filled it with our emotions.

Wish you can express your feelings fluently in your second language. I am still on my learning journey.

Thanks for your reading. Namaste.