Awesome video, Kambiz! And a lot of good points in it.
If I could put in my two cents beside what you said or complementary to it:
If someone wants to think in English, essentially they have to ask themselves the following two questions:
- How bad do they want this?
- How long is it that they are learning English actively?
Beside our mother tongue and English, I also speak German. But let me tell you, my German is no where as good as my English and I’m not as comfortable using it as English. I only know the language because I lived in Germany. That’s all! Do I watch TV, listen to music/podcasts/radio, etc. etc. in German? Not so much.
Now, can I expect myself to be able to think in German perfectly and all that? No, that would be ludicrous of me.
But on the other hand, I really badly wanted to learn English. I would say “actively” I started learning and practicing English, since the age of 18. So, look, I don’t even consider all those crappy English classes that we had in our school system in Iran and my poor effort to learn the language before 18 part of my “active learning process”.
But since 18, English took over. I almost did everything in English. That’s how bad I wanted it. I was not afraid of making mistakes and embarrassing myself in front of natives and other people. I would come home after school/work, and watch a 10 minute Youtube video over and over for a million times and understand every single word said in that video and search and read on all the grammar that was in the video that I did not understand. And before I knew it, it was time to sleep and the night was over and all I had done that day from afternoon till night was just focusing on one 10 minute video! And mind you, I did this for years.
So, step one is that you have to be honest with yourself and ask yourself how bad you want this (I’m honest with myself and I know I don’t want this so bad for my German now haha
) and step two is that you have to do this for a loooooooooong time. When you did that, voila, you would naturally think in English.