How to create a second brain in a foreign language- no more translating!

Have you ever experienced this before? You want to say something in your non-native language, but you always feel like you need to translate it first from your native language to your non-native language. If you want to become fluent in a language, you need to think in your non-native language. If you're struggling in your target language, this video is for you. [Applause]

Hi guys, it's me, Judy. Today we're going to talk about how to create a second brain in your target language and stop translating all the time in your head. Before talking about the tips and tricks, let me explain my definition of fluency because fluency can really differ according to your goals.

For example, let's say if you're learning a language in order to pass a certain exam, then your language goals should be more focused on learning the maybe grammar or like some exams require essays, listening practices, reading practices, or I don't know, interview practices—maybe about those types of things. Or if you're learning a language for business purposes, rather than focusing on daily conversations, maybe it's more important to focus on business terms in your niche.

If your focus is to socialize with people from different countries and use daily conversation, then it's better to focus on daily conversational vocabularies and terms. So for me, the main reason to learn languages is being able to communicate with people. If I'm saying something and if you're understanding it, for me personally, grammar mistakes or using really difficult vocabularies are not that important.

According to my goal of being able to have a smooth daily conversation, I measure my fluency according to the level of my secondary linguistic personality. What do I mean by secondary linguistic personality? Have you ever experienced this? When you switch languages, your personality slightly—or maybe not even slightly—like major changes in your personality can occur.

For example, in my case, I'm much funnier in Japanese, more logical, and also a bit shy and distant in German. According to my really close friend, I'm more sarcastic and friendly in Turkish but more confident and businesswoman-like in English. So if your personality changes when you switch languages, that is the real fluency. Because in order for secondary linguistic characteristics to develop, you need to experience the culture, interact with natives, and see how they use their gestures, how they think.

You know, you need to understand their values because languages have a really close relationship with culture. So if you learn a language, you don't only learn about the vocabularies and grammar rules; you also learn about the culture, the way they think, and the value system of that language.

When I'm learning a language, my ultimate goal is not to be taken as a foreigner when I'm talking in that language. If you think languages are only about the accent or about the vocabularies—like how difficult vocabularies you use and your grammar rules—you're completely wrong. The gestures, the way you understand the culture, and the way you actually think really proves whether you know that language very well or not.

When we learn a new language, we've learned actually a new way of thinking, new values, and almost like the way you look at the world changes. Actually, when I learned German, I realized really different ways of thinking from the way that Germans structure their sentences because it sounds so different from the other languages that I knew.

I don't know, it just gave me some sort of a new way of thinking—it's more logical, it's more structured, and it has more rules. But I really loved it. So why is developing a secondary linguistic personality important? These examples are just my opinions, so take them with a grain of salt; but I think you have better and smoother communication.

Let's say you're learning Japanese. If you ignore the whole Japanese culture about, you know, for example, keigo—the way we show respect when we are talking—if you ignore this keigo and like respecting the older person culture, even though you're talking perfect Japanese, if you don't understand this culture, you might sound grammatically correct but it might be a bit disrespectful.

To avoid those miscommunications and misunderstandings, I think developing a secondary linguistic personality is really important. The second reason is to be confident in that language. If you realize that your whole personality, your identity, is changing in that language, how cool is that, right? It shows your dedication and the amount of work you put in.

The third reason is to have a better understanding of people from that language. If you're developing a secondary linguistic personality, it means that you have a good understanding of that culture. Even if you can understand somebody—like what they're saying—if you don't understand what is behind that—what type of culture is that—you might think that they're rude or disrespectful. But maybe in that culture, it's not disrespectful; and disrespect and disrespectful really depend on culture and on the value system.

Understanding these will allow you to avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding. Okay, so one of the tips I can give you is that don't translate everything in the beginning. Of course, it is important to know the meaning of the vocabularies in your native language because otherwise, how can you know, right? Translation allows you to have a quicker understanding of that vocabulary.

So in the beginning, it will actually save you quite a lot of time to translate some words. Even if you want to translate in your head, don't abandon translating or using a translator altogether. It's all about how you use them and how much you use them because as a beginner, one of the fastest ways to learn a language is to look up the translation and memorize it.

But as you progress, you will need to translate words less and less, so just trust the process. So how can we decide what to translate and what's not? What I was doing when I was learning German and also English was that instead of translating word by word, firstly try to guess the meaning of the vocabulary from the context of the sentence.

In some situations, when you read the whole sentence, you can kind of like guess the meaning of the vocabulary, but you might not be sure. After guessing it, you can check on the translator whether it's true or not. In that way, you can associate words with the sentences, and you can also clearly see how they're used. From your guesses, I think it's much easier to memorize because, let's say it's something really different than you guess, it's much easier to memorize.

If you're getting a bit comfortable in that language, like you don't need to look every word word by word in order to understand sentences, stop translating words in your native language and, rather than that, look their definition in your target language.

So let's say if you're an English native speaker and if you're learning Japanese, like stop looking the meaning of the words in English and look the definition in Japanese. Checking the translation might be much faster than looking the definition and trying to understand the definition. However, over time you'll get better at guessing or understanding the meaning of the vocabulary.

By looking at the definition, you will learn new vocabularies and maybe a different way to use the same vocabulary. In the beginning, it will take a lot of time because instead of translating, you're looking to the definition every single time and it might be a really boring and tiring process.

But don't forget learning a language is a long journey. We're not rushing here— even if you're rushing, it is a journey, so take it seriously when learning about new vocabularies and also new sentences. Since the journey is so long and might be boring sometimes, you can feel really lonely and also almost like depressed.

In order to learn vocabularies in a fun way and also produce some grammar practices, talk with native speakers. I would like to recommend you guys today's sponsor, Busuu. Busuu is a language app that you can download for free, and also you can upgrade if you would like to access the premium features.

In Busuu, you can log in how many minutes you're going to study in a day and which fluency level you want to reach. Busuu gives you approximately the time when you can reach that goal, and it also gives you daily exercises. Busuu teaches the world's most popular languages like French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, English and many more.

Also, a great thing about Busuu is that it breaks down every lesson into small achievable pieces. It's not like you need to do a ton of activities in a day in order to achieve your goal, but like start with small activities every day so that you can build the momentum and reach your goals faster.

Another great feature about Busuu is that they have a community where you can get feedback from native speakers and also give feedback in the languages that you're native in. Sometimes you Google something, but it does not show up. You know, it might be a really daily conversational small thing about some sort of language, but maybe on Google you cannot find it.

But you can post it on Busuu and people will answer it. I think having a community and the feeling of not being alone makes the learning process much more fun and easier, in my opinion. The vocabulary and grammar review tool also allows you to understand where you repeatedly do mistakes or the areas that you know pretty well so that you do not study again and again.

I really love Busuu; and also from my previous collaborations with Busuu, you guys seem to like it as well. So check out Busuu from the link down in the description below. You can sign up and start learning languages using Busuu for free and also start using the premium version for free for seven days using my link down in the description below.

So thank you so much, Busuu, for sponsoring this video. Okay, so we've stopped translating in your native language, and we are reading the definitions in your target language. After learning a certain amount of vocabularies, it's better to move on to sentences rather than focusing on word by word.

In the previous stage, we were trying to understand the meaning of the vocabulary, and we were guessing it and then we were searching it up. But now we will focus on the meaning of the sentence rather than the vocabulary itself. The importance of this step is that sometimes you can translate a sentence word by word, and even if you translate it, it doesn't really make sense in your own language because the way you tell it might be different.

Therefore, it's important to focus on sentences rather than the vocabularies. After a certain amount of time, where you build a bit of a base for calories in your target language, when translating the sentences, start with simple sentences. You're trying to learn more complicated sentences than make them simpler.

So let me give you an example. Let's translate this sentence into Turkish: "I don't want to have kids because they cost a lot of money." Let's make this sentence simpler: First sentence: "I don't want to have kids." Second sentence: "They cost a lot of money."

Now we make the sentences simpler, and let's translate these sentences. "I don't want to have kids" to Turkish: "Çocuk sahibi olmak istemiyorum." And "They cost a lot of money" translates as "Pahalıya mal oluyorlar." Now combine these two simple sentences with a simple conjunction, so like "because" in Turkish: "Çocuk sahibi olmak istemiyorum çünkü pahalıya mal oluyorlar."

When translating sentences, the key is to make the sentence as simple as possible. What really communication is, it's not really about the sophistication of your message or how difficult vocabularies you use, but the ability to transfer the message you would like to give, right?

So talking in simple sentences and simple vocabulary is totally fine if the other side is understanding you and if you're able to communicate, then that's fine. When you're speaking and if you feel like you need to translate in your head, stop overwhelming and break down the sentences in your head into the most simple structure as possible.

Say them separately and, later on, if you need to add some details, you can always add them later on. A lot of you guys might be thinking when will I reach this level. It will take you quite a long time to reach the level where you stop translating in your head and thinking in your target language.

You need to do massive input in your target language; you need to be exposed to that language so much in order to be able to think in that language just like a native speaker. Try to expose yourself as much as possible to that language. For example: reading books, watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, following newspapers, reading online articles, signing up for newsletters, or something.

There are so many ways to do inputs these days. The more you integrate these into your lifestyle and your daily life, the more likely you’ll be to think in that language. For example, every single day, I listen to German rap for at least 30 minutes in order not to forget German.

Also, I do business in English, I talk with my dad in Turkish, and with my mom in Japanese. I also have Turkish and Japanese friends, and also international friends. So I use all of these languages in a day, and making this a habit will allow you to, firstly, not forget that language, and also improve in that language.

If you, for example, compare my old videos to my current videos, my English has actually improved quite a lot. I'm not saying that I'm perfect in English or I sound like a native speaker or whatever, but I'm able to sustain my life while doing business in my non-native language, which I think is pretty impressive.

When I was learning English, I was watching YouTube videos six or seven hours a day, so I was doing massive input in English. And with time, it took quite a long time, like a year, a year and a half, but after a bit of time, I slowly started to be able to think in English. And now, when I'm trying to say something, I don't think in Japanese or Turkish; I just say it directly in English.

You know, while I'm talking, I think in English, but it's due to the massive input that I've done and also that I've been doing. You can learn languages just like having a lot of conversations, but in order to be able to think in that language, you need to be more strategic.

So the conclusion will be, if you're a beginner to that language, translating the vocabularies word by word to your native language is completely normal and it will allow you to progress faster. Since you build the vocabulary bank in your target language, you will require translation less and less because from the sentence context, you will be able to understand the meaning of the vocabulary or guess the meaning of the vocabulary with time.

From translating word by word, it will move on to the sentences, which will allow the process to be much faster. Doing mass input is important to be able to reach the level where you think in that target language. But at the same time, if you only do inputs, you will be able to understand maybe, but you might not be able to speak.

I actually have a video about it, which you can watch here. Do massive inputs in the beginning and then gradually start to do outputs, and then balance them together so that you will be able to understand, think in that language, and also speak and write in that language.

I hope you guys find this video valuable, and see you guys in my next video. Bye!