be fluent in english

Do you know this feeling when you wake up one day and notice that something is different than before? Like when you’re studying and you can’t remember this stupid word or passage and think you’ll never be able to and then you wake up one day and there it is, all in your head?! I have it from time to time and it must have happened, yesterday or the day before yesterday, again. I don’t know how this works and I would swear that I didn’t do anything to trigger such an effect, hence I simply blame my brain (or, to be more precise, my subconscious) for it – in a positive “why-the-hell-didn’t-you-do-that-before-idiot” way ^{^^}

I figured that I don’t work out my sentences in advance anymore. How cool is that? I think I was brushing my teeth and musing about general stuff and then it suddenly hit me: “Am I thinking in English right now?!!” – I was and I didn’t even notice it until this thought jumped right on my mind. It’s like earning your own money for the first time, it’s like travelling abroad on your own, it’s like… one of the best things in life that could possibly happen to you – ever. I mean, when you use your mother tongue, you simply start talking and don’t waste a single thought on what you actually want to say – you just say it. I do this in German, too. But English was different e. g. what was the name of word xy, which tense do I have to use – damn it, that was the wrong one… etc. Now, all those worries are gone (at least regarding my speaking/thinking abilities – translating off the cuff is another story).

Actually noticing your own progress is the best reward one can get for studying – and I’m sure this has a positive effect on my translation skills as well ^{^^}

By the way, I wanted to thank all the people that cheered me on to become fluent in English – it’s a great motivation (not that I’ve reached this goal yet, but still… thanks ^{^^} ).

Financial Times changed its e-paper. Now, I can only read 3 articles per month!!! Before, it had been 3 articles per day. I could subscribe, but then it would only be 10 articles per month – at least if I don’t intend to pay a monthly fee (I don’t have money for that right now, otherwise I would). Well, at least the FTD (Financial Times Deutschland) is utterly free, which is good for my interpreting off the cuff from German to English.

My translation skills have also improved. It’s just like reading an English text and automatically having the German sentence on my mind (and I’m talking about business/economic/political texts with a high level of difficulty – I had only been able to do this with texts of medium difficulty before). This means that my vocabulary knowledge has expanded and I have become more secure in using words with whom I had trouble with before.

You know when I know that I’m fluent in English? When I dream in English ^^ (I’ve dreamt in English before, however, it’s very rare). In addition, I need to stop working out my sentence before I actually say something out loud…

I try, I really try to become fluent in English atm. It’s tough, however, I hate to struggle for words when I want to say something. You know, it’s like when you looking for a certain word and it’s on the tip of your tongue, but it won’t come on your mind. It already annoys me if this happens in my mother tongue! But to know that you definitely know this word… it just drives me crazy – and I can’t think of another word or term for this expression at these moments either!

Therefore, I’ve started to read the Financial Times online, three articles every day (you need to pay for more articles afaik). Even though the FT got bad grammatical structures, the articles are on a high English level, which is good for my making progress.

Plus, due to my genealogy research I found out that I got relatives in the US, with whom I exchange emails on a daily basis – at least I try, can also be every two days now and then. And it’s really stunning what I achieved by nothing but writing emails in English. I became more fluent than before and I wasn’t even aware of this until 2 weeks later xD

This is really helpful as I have my final translation exam in March and it’s not only for the exam but for me!!! I’m really fond of the English language and if my family could speak it too, I’d stick with it forever ^^ Now, it only has to go on like this and I’m happy, happy, happy!