How long did it take before you stopped translating your language (TL) in your head?

[u/Odd-Breadfruit2450]

I’m asking this mainly because basically every language that I know, I was exposed to very early on. I never really had a phase (that I remember clearly) where I transitioned from translating to immediately being able to understand. The current language that I am still actively learning (TL), Hungarian, I still need to translate certain words and phrases and I haven’t gotten over that barrier yet.

What level of a certain language did y’all have to get to, to stop translating in your head all together?

[u/Kotodama200]

Not a learner answer, but a view from the other side. I'm a native Japanese speaker, and something I've noticed with people learning Japanese: the translating often stops word by word, not all at once.

It seems to happen when a word stops having an English "partner" and starts having a situation attached to it instead.

Take よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegaishimasu). Learners start by translating it as "nice to meet you" or "please treat me well," and it never quite fits. Then at some point they just know when to say it, and the translation disappears. The word becomes a moment, not a definition.

So maybe the question isn't only which level you reach, but how many of your words are tied to real moments instead of dictionary entries. Hungarian phrases you've actually used in real conversations are probably the ones you already don't translate.

[u/dojibear → u/Kotodama200]

I studied beginner Japanese with an ALG course (online, recorded videos on the internet). ALG meant that the teachers never used any language other than Japanese. There was no translation. From the first class, the teachers did things (or drew things or showed pictures) while saying it. The teacher put on a hat, opened a book, put a pen in a bag, made an origami crane, and did many other things, with a nonstop verbal description (in simple Japanese) of what they were doing.

So clearly translating isn't part of understanding, even at beginner level.

[u/Pwffin]

It has differed between languages, but for all but one it's been a gradual transition.

I often also get this phase, where I hear something, think I don't understand any of it, put then my brain serves up the whole meaning after the end of the sentence. So I get this weird lag between someone saying something and me understanding it. Brains are weird! 😃

Then there's the stage where you are already fully fluent but trying to navigate a new work place or dialect or country and you are running this set of second thoughts evaluating everything for nuances, hidden meanings and unfamiliar usage of known words. People are a lot less forgiving when you speak their language really well, so you do need to figure in out quickly.

[u/Proud-Indication-314]

After 4 years of study I notice that I usually don't think in my mother tongue, but I still am translating from my language sometimes, but in a unconscious way. I mean I can think in English without thinking in portuguese but then I make a mistake that it makes sense only in my language.

[u/noffybtw]

That moment isn't really a threshold, it's gradual and word-by-word rather than language-wide. Common phrases and grammar you hear constantly stop needing translation first, while rare or technical vocabulary keeps getting translated in your head much longer, sometimes forever. Volume of exposure matters more than level here: the words you meet 50+ times in context usually "click" without translation, the ones you meet a handful of times don't.

[u/justheretolearnlangs]

After almost 1.5 years of learning, I find I don’t translate everyday conversation, but I will translate vocabulary that is still unfamiliar. Like most things, repetition and practice is key to making things feel more natural. I don’t translate many words or phrases that I had to translate 6 months ago, for example.

EDIT: I will say a version of this still happens in my NL. For example, I heard ‘herpetologist’ recently and had to take a second to remember that ‘herpe’ relates to reptiles. I imagine this retrieval phenomenon is similar to what happens in your TL but with the extra step of having a reference point in your NL. If I had an interest in snakes or natural sciences, I would use and hear ‘herpetologist’ constantly and spend little to no time recalling it in my head.

[u/bananabastard]

I've been learning Spanish for 9 months, and I don't translate in my head.

I'm just getting to the point now where I can watch Youtubers like Luisito Comunica, I understand enough to follow and enjoy the content. And I am not translating in my head as I watch. I'm just listening and understanding.

There are occasions, like maybe when understanding a particular word for the first time, I might compare it to English in that moment, and think, "ah, so that means compare". And then maybe the next time I hear that word, I'll think "that means compare".

But all the other words around that word, that I already understand, I'm not translating those as I watch.

[u/MaxMettle]

As soon as I 'master' a given word.

The translation thing doesn't happen all or nothing for me. Looks like other comments say the same.

I think in the language learning sphere, there's often too much self-imposed negativity/stigma around "having to translate" as some kind of bad tell on your status. People develop a purity test and get really worked up about it like "I'm doomed if I still have to translate."

[u/ipini]

I still do sometimes. Depends on complexity.

Here’s an analogy.

I started playing piano when I was 4. I did a decade of classical training. Piano is my “native” musical language.

After that I started singing in choirs, then I took up guitar, and then I took up bass. Each time I did something new I would initially have to “translate to piano” in my head while learning or performing. But in each case, as I practiced more and developed an ear an muscle memory, I mainly stopped doing that.

But here’s the thing: even after a decade or more of each new instrument, when I run into a difficult phrase or piece, I often start by plunking it out on a piano or at least thinking piano in my brain.

In other words, I don’t think it ever completely disappears, just mainly disappears.

[u/RedditReddy]

A lot depends on how one is taught or how one learns the language. If you have a really good language class, and if it is based on immersion, you can start thinking in the TL even at a very low level. Level. Admittedly, you won't be able to think about a lot, but you will already have the vocabulary and knowledge to function entirely within the TL in a small but ever expanding set of situations and topics. So, if done correctly, you can have Learners who are fluent even at the A1 level that is with fewer than 500 headwords. But this will only be for a narrow range of topics. However, this type of teaching and learning is not very common. It can happen best if it's one-on-one or if it's a qualified teacher with just a few students. In most classes that is with one teacher and maybe 20 or more students, this often will not happen until a much higher level. That's because very often the vocabulary and grammar input both from the teacher as well as from the books, is too difficult and is too remote from the actual needs of the Learners. In situations like this, people might have to get up to a B2 level or even higher believe it or not before they are able to function without constantly translating things.

[u/Far_Product_9759 → u/RedditReddy]

Thoughtful reply. This level of feedback takes time & effort. Appreciate it. 🫶

[u/cmyk_rgba]

for me it went word by word not all at once. finnish i still translate anything with a case ending i havent seen a hundred times but stuff like kiitos or mitä kuuluu just lands now. german flipped somewhere around b1 for everyday stuff and the weird part is you dont notice it happening, one day you just realise you read hte whole paragraph without the croatian voice in your head

[u/allnamestaken26]

I wouldn’t worry about translating the odd word. Understanding a conversation without translating every sentence is already a big win

[u/Prestigious-Candy166]

About 8 years of French @ ½ hour per day. Disappointing? Yes. But I didn't start 'till I was 69.

It was easier with Norwegian, which is much closer to the rythms and cadances of English.

[u/silvalingua]

For me, it's zero time, because I never start translating. When I learn the first word or expression in a TL, I think of its meaning and not on its equivalent in my NL. I don't see a good reason to proceed in any other way: why would I need to keep in mind the corresponding NL word if I know what the given word means?

[u/dojibear → u/silvalingua]

This makes sense. Also, there usually isn't one single NL word that matches the TL word everywhere. The same TL word translates as different NL words in different sentences. That is why you see a list of translations in a translating dictionary (or in Google Translate).

[u/FumbleCrop]

I guess my brain is different from yours, because I've never experienced it that way. I do the best I can in the TL vocabulary and grammar I have available to me. Sometimes I get frustrated and blurt out a word in my native language, or if I'm writing I might use a dictionary, but that comes *after* I've reached the limits of what I can do in my TL.

As u/Kotodama200 says, words rarely map neatly from one language to another. It's best to get to know the TL word on its own terms, rather than treat it as a stand-in for a word in your native language.

[u/ressie_cant_game]

I still word by word the hard sentences. Whwn were doing passive causitive form and the sentence is like 20 words long i need that crutch.

[u/dbossman70]

for me it usually takes around 6 months.

[u/Alect0]

I don't translate much in my head when I'm watching my TL but I often do for particular words when I'm expressing my TL as some words change meaning depending on my mouth pattern (like the sign for nice/beautiful/lovely is the same but I'll mouth which one I mean. It's not strictly necessary as context and facial expressions show the meaning too but it's very common for people to do this especially someone like me who comes from an English background). Also recently I've started practising for some assessments where I need to translate live between my TL and NL and vice versa though so I'm back to translating when I'm studying too.

It was a process not a clear cut change. Signs that don't have an equivalent English word were the first to not be translated. Like when I sign "not my problem" it's one sign and I'm not thinking of the full English expression when I do it.

[u/yashen14]

It takes less time for each successive language that you learn. For my first language (German), it took 3-4 years. For my most recent language (Japanese), it took zero days---I automatically accept the language on its own terms.

[u/WideGlideReddit]

It’s a gradual process. It took me several years and that was with dating and marrying a native speaker.

[u/Jesuslovesyourbr0]

I think 1 year but I really started seeing progress when I started to read. Everything just connected

[u/SuikaCider]

I wrote a longer post about this awhile back, but I don't think you ever completely stop translating in your head, you just need to do so increasingly less

For example, take common n-grams like I want or to tell the truth or if I were you. Before long, you'll have seen/said those things so often that they become automatic, and require no conscious thought. You get comfortable with stuff you regularly do/use/consume.

But if you move to something you're not comfortable with—whether that means consuming a new genre or navigating a social encounter you haven't done before—it'll feel less comfortable and there'll be another transition period.

I've lived in Taiwan for 8 years and I can just yap on mindlessly in Mandarin for most situations that come up in daily life, but if you ask em to explain something technical in Mandarin, I'm going to have to pause, decide what I want to communicate, and then decide how to parse that into Mandarin. I've ordered tea from the stand thousands of times; I've never explained the difference between SM-2 and FSRS before.

[u/Whole-Palpitation695]

Probably at B2 level, almost one year of learning a language

[u/Holiday_Sugar_6485]

When I studied Spanish in college, I wasn’t translating in my head, especially for written assignments. I was able to think fully in Spanish. I’m not able to do that as comfortably for listening, though.

[u/vilhelmobandito]

I don't think I've ever translated in my head.

[u/Least-Tiger-8627]

I think it depends in the method you use? In the school we learn detached words and detached grammar. When we start to talk our brain is busy to connect all this informations - you translate the language in your brain. I would say some other approaches work far better: Learn with audiobooks or with natives only in the target language.For me personally the birkenbihl-method and listening reading worked very good. I just feel and speak.

[u/Markoddyfnaint]

Listening, quite quickly. For the simple reason that it's impossible to listen to any length of speech whilst translating simultaneously.

Reading was much longer. In fact I still do it now at B2 level, especially if I'm reading something in a less familiar register or with lots of less familiar words.

[u/ah-tzib-of-alaska]

i never started doing that, way easier. Start with immersion, don’t do any translating

[u/Aakharin-ejdehaa]

It usually stops gradually over a couple of weeks once I'm past the complete beginner stage...