How to think in English and stop translating

Why translating slows you down

Translating word by word takes time and produces sentences built like your first language with English words in them. Fluent speakers don’t build most sentences from scratch; they use chunks they know as one unit, like these:

“It's a matter of how much knowledge you have, how much you practice with that knowledge,”

Patrick Winston (MIT) · Practise this line →

“You know, it used to be that in order to have a polite conversation,”

Celeste Headlee · Practise this line →

Phrases like “it’s a matter of” and “it used to be that” are never translated in the speaker’s head. They are stored whole, with their sound, and pulled out when needed.

Four steps

1. Learn the phrase, not the word: when you hear a phrase you like, repeat it whole, in the speaker’s voice, until it comes out in one go. That is what shadowing line by line does.
2. Say the line without reading it: in Shadow mode there is no time to translate; either the phrase is in your memory in English or you fall behind. Sada measures how far behind you were, so you can watch the lag shrink. The rest of the routine is in how to speak English fluently without hesitation.
3. Narrate your day in simple English: while cooking or walking, say quietly what you’re doing: “I’m making coffee. I’m running late.” Short sentences you already know, no dictionary.
4. Stay at your level: translation comes back whenever the material is too hard. Practise with speech you mostly understand, like the B1 talks, and move up gradually.

Practise one line, step by step

1. Open an exercise from this guide. Choose a captioned video for this guide’s topic and a line whose meaning you understand.
2. Listen and read the caption, then say the line after the speaker in Repeat mode.
3. Try saying the line with the speaker in Shadow mode, following the rhythm and pauses.
4. Record a take, then open Compare and play your recording and the original. Review words and timing; Sada does not grade individual sounds.
5. Say the line’s meaning aloud in your own words, returning to the original if you need a phrase.