At what point?
Does one start thinking in Spanish? From what I have read, after memorizing plenty of nouns and verbs, you start thinking in Spanish. I have been memorizing verbs and nouns for a while and still cannot come up with a correct sentence in Spanish. Is it even true that it will eventually click or is it something that's just gonna take months and months of memorizing?
7 Answers
I think it's a very gradual process. I'm about half-way (I think), after about two years of pretty intensive study. Everybody is different. I wouldn't be surprised if others may say that something clicked at some point, and they were thinking in Spanish.
Still, a good vocabulary is essential, since thinking in Spanish with a restricted vocabulary will be almost as frustrating as not thinking in any language.
After more than three years, I am beginning to think in Spanish in certain situations. First, I started practicing....trying to think in Spanish for a few minutes at a time while I did things in my life that didn't require a lot of thought, like washing the dishes or brushing my teeth. My thoughts, in Spanish, were things like "I don't like this toothpaste" or "These plates are dirty". (Fascinating conversational skills, I know!)
Now, when I am immersed in a Spanish conversation, thoughts come to me in Spanish without translating---sometimes. Or part of the thought comes to me and I have to spend a little time revising the other part. At other times, I am surprised to find a random thought that pops into my head in Spanish.
I wish it would just "click" but I think I would have to be fully immersed for that to happen. Since I am not, the process is gradual.
Keep studying and practicing!
I guess if you had enough vocabulary to think whatever you wanted to think, you will.
When I came back from a 32-day holiday in a Spanish speaking country, the first person who spoke to me was the immigration officer in my own country. And I answered him with a 'sí' when really I wanted to say 'yes'.
Try not to just memorise lists of nouns or verbs etc, but try to use them in context. That way you will start to get a feel for what the words are actually trying to convey.
Don't get me wrong I am nowhere near being able to 'think' in Spanish, but recently I have started to more instinctively see and and recognise groups of words / phrases in Spanish and automatically know the meaning without consciously translating to English.
Hopefully the next step for me is the 'thinking' part, but that is probably a long way off yet lol.
¡Buena suerte!
annierats says:
If I have English and Swedish family together, however, my brain gets totally confused
Goodness this is how I feel sometimes too, I speak 2 languages and people around me speak 5 (combined of course, some this, some that). I'm able to think fluently in both languages that I speak, and I can easily adjust from one to the other based on whom I am addressing.
In short, if my mother doesn't speak English I would feel weird speaking to her in English, and will automatically use Chinese. Same goes for my cousins. We all speak both languages but somehow it is just more natural to speak English to people of my own generation.
But when I'm alone my thoughts get mashed up in countless languages and I can think a full sentence in 3 different languages. Like for example
"Eres" ?? "you are" ??
I think it takes time and practice. I try to do exactly what Mlucie does, whilst doing some tedious manual task ( cleaning out the stables) I try to think in Spanish, even if the thoughts are rather dull. So what. I also sometimes talk to the dog in Spanish, at least he's not very critical.
. Although I'm Swedish I normally think in English but if I go to Sweden to visit family I think in Swedish. If I have English and Swedish family together, however, my brain gets totally confused and I speak to what I perceive as my nearest and dearest in Swedish ( that's my husband and children. They don't understand much Swedish!) and to people whom I see rarely, in English. So I end up speaking English to my mother, who feels very hurt.. Obviously if I went to Sweden more often, the brain would adjust. At least I hope so.
It's a gradual process. When someone says a common word like hola, chao, or adiós, you probably don't translate into English to understand it. The same goes for simple phrases like ¿Cómo estás?: you hear it and respond in Spanish with no English thinking involved. With time and practice, the amount of the language you handle this way increases to the point that you can be considered to be thinking in Spanish.
