One of mistakes made by English learners, including myself, is to translate from their L1 into L2 when they want to speak or write in the target language. Having an English mind is very important but very difficult. That is why I set up this as my first advice.
Let's have an English mind, not your first language mind.
Good luck with learning English wherever you are.
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It is very hard for bilinguals to speak correctly. For example, I speak 3 languages. When I speak Spanish, I use English semantics, and vice-versa. When I am unclear how to do say things in French, I either use my English and Spanish to translate it. Some people are puzzled the way I speak, but it comes out naturally and that is the beauty of languages :D......So don't feel bad about it, it's perfectly normal.
ReplyDeleteHave an English mind. That is great advice if one can manage it. I always wondered what language people think in. I know I think in English and must translate to another language. Perhaps the ultimate indicator of fluency is to measure how much the L2 learner is able to think in the target language. Wonder if there is a way to test that...
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