How I Speak Without Translating

Key Concepts:

• Translation vs. Direct Understanding: The difference between learning a language through translation and understanding it directly like a native speaker.
• Sound-Situation Connection: The brain connects sounds (words) with situations, whether physical or abstract.
• Varied Examples: The importance of multiple, varied examples to understand a word or concept fully.
• Eliminating Doubt: The core problem in language learning is doubt, which can be overcome by complete understanding.
• Unpredictability of Communication: Real-world communication is unpredictable, requiring learners to be prepared for various accents, speaking styles, and vocabulary.
• Naturally Varied Review: Getting lots of varied examples, not just repeating the same thing, to help understand something in the language you're learning.
• Incomplete Understanding: The kind of core problem with learning is people have doubts when they try to speak.
• Comprehensible Input: The goal is to eliminate the doubt that stops you from speaking.

1. Translating vs. Direct Understanding

• Many language learners translate from their native language, which hinders fluency.
• Even within a language, multiple words can describe the same thing (e.g., "cash," "greenbacks," "bills" for money). The brain doesn't distinguish these as separate languages.
• Example: The word "tsunami" originated from Japanese but is now an English word for many, directly associated with a large wave.
• "The problem with trying to learn through translations is that you will think through translations when you speak."

2. Connecting Sounds with Situations

• The brain connects sounds (words) with situations, whether physical or abstract.
• Example: Teaching the alien word "C." Showing a t-shirt and saying "C" starts a connection. Multiple examples (t-shirt, pants, hat) help refine the meaning to "clothing."
• "We're trying to connect a sound or a word with the meaning of that thing by just connecting with the situation itself."

3. Abstract Words and Phrases

• Abstract words (e.g., "as," "could") are best understood within larger phrases.
• Example: Learning "as" through phrases like "as a doctor," "as a teacher." The goal is to understand specific uses without needing to translate.
• "The point is not to know every definition of the word 'as'; it's to understand specific uses of it and then to feel confident about those uses without needing to translate."

4. Learning Like a Native

• Native speakers learn words through context and multiple examples, not just definitions.
• Example: The word "trunk" can mean a box or an elephant's nose. Each new definition expands understanding.
• "When I say like a native, I mean directly in the language rather than needing a translation or an explanation to understand it."

5. Naturally Varied Review

• The speaker emphasizes the importance of naturally varied review.
• The basic idea is that if you are good at understanding physical things like marker or cat or dog something like that but if you have more trouble understanding more abstract things or something short like a like a preposition or or any even even something you know like as or could or whatever they're lots of different words like this it's better to take that and then place it inside a larger context.
• Nothing too big you basically want to get something like this but a bunch of different examples of this will help you really understand what it means and the more examples you get this is what I call naturally varied review we want to get lots of varied examples not just repeating the same thing and that will help you understand the thing all in the language you're learning.

6. Overcoming Doubt and Achieving Fluency

• The speaker shares his experience of becoming fluent in Japanese after 15 years of failure.
• The key was realizing that the problem wasn't vocabulary but doubt.
• "What actually got me fluent after failing for 15 years is just realizing the problem is not really knowing the vocabulary, it's having doubt about it."
• Erase doubt by understanding words well, achieving an "aha" moment of understanding.

7. Incomplete Understanding and Unpredictability of Communication

• Two core problems in language learning: incomplete understanding and the unpredictability of communication.
• Incomplete understanding leads to doubt when speaking. Traditional lessons often provide definitions but not native-like understanding.
• Communication is unpredictable due to accents, speaking styles, and vocabulary. Classroom language differs from real-world language.
• "If you want to speak fluently, you have to have complete understanding... and you also have to be prepared for the unpredictability of real communication."

8. Fluent for Life Program

• The Fluent for Life program aims to provide complete understanding and prepare learners for real communication.
• It offers 100 lesson sets covering various topics and exposing learners to different native English speakers.
• The program focuses on eliminating doubts about vocabulary, pronunciation, and word usage.
• "The specific topics are less important than the actual way you get fluent."

9. Learning Japanese Through Japanese

• The speaker shares his experience of learning Japanese through English versus learning Japanese through Japanese.
• When I stopped doing that I started learning Japanese in Japanese uh that's when I became fluent so again like there's learning a language and that could prepare you to pass a test but you can still have trouble speaking that way often because if you're if you're learning through translations then you have to think through through translations as well when you take a test especially a written test you have time to think and organize sentences and translate things and guess in your head but when you're speaking you need to be quick you don't want to have time like oh no let me let me think about what that means and translate it in my head and organize some sentences first you want to be fast you want to be able to respond quickly so you have to be able to learn the language in the language if you want to speak I've not met anyone that that speaks really well who is like learning the language all through transl ations now it might be possible to do that and if you can think really quickly like you can translate stuff really quickly maybe that's possible to do but I've never met that person before like it that didn't happen for me so maybe it's possible but um when I made that switch from learning English or learning Japanese through English to learning Japanese through Japanese that's when I started getting fluent all right so you can learn a language in many ways but if you want to get fluent you really need to understand the language in the language because again the goal is communication it's not just knowing words it's being able to use them fluently if that's your goal so for me I want to be able to speak fluently that's the goal.

10. Conclusion

• The key to fluency is understanding a language directly, like a native speaker, rather than relying on translation.
• This involves connecting sounds with situations, learning abstract words in context, and getting multiple, varied examples.
• The ultimate goal is to eliminate doubt and feel confident in communication, which can be achieved through systematic learning and exposure to real-world language use.
• The speaker advocates for learning English in English, emphasizing that this approach, while initially challenging, ultimately leads to faster and more effective fluency.