How do you start thinking in japanese

Bruh, it’s too early :laughing::laughing::laughing::joy::thinking:

Be careful not to hit the wrong button though, or you might get stuck in Latin mode

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I’ll never forget the night I dreamed I was writing kanji on cases of Coke on the docks in Japan, and talking Japanese. I had no idea what I had been saying when I woke up, though.

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I remember the first time I thought in Japanese–I was visiting Hiroshima after living in the country for five or so months, pretty much only hearing and using Japanese that weekend, and realized after the fact that I’d thought about asking someone something at a restaurant in Japanese, including how I would ask the question–basically, I’d had a whole little mental thought process with zero English, and it didn’t occur to me until a few minutes afterward.

But it comes and goes, and you can’t really control it. You can try to prompt it, though, by forcing yourself to construct Japanese sentences in your head, and eventually you’ll find yourself doing it more naturally, or find a mental phrase that might trigger a flow for you, etc. It’ll definitely feel rare and frustrating at first.

Now, understanding Japanese without mental translation will come much more readily, and is just a matter of exposure. Similarly, I guess responding in conversation without doing mental translation also counts as thinking in Japanese? For some reason I never think of it that way and only think about mental narration in all Japanese as being “thinking in Japanese,” even though they’re really the same thing. That’s also just a matter of practice. It’s all connected.

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Don’t try to make sentences. Imitate imitate imitate until it becomes natural.

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For me it’s been a gradual process. Though I am in a sort of unique situation because I talk to myself constantly, so there’s more opprotunity to hone that skill. But generally some actions I just immediately note them in Japanese rather than english and then switch back and forth. And I sometimes have to fight the urge to respond in Japanese when there’s a more precise response available lol

But yeah there isn’t really one moment where I went “Oh I’m thinking in Japanese”, you’ll begin to do it unintentionally.

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