What is "English thinking"?

Having "English thinking" is the dream of English learners!

Even "die-hard" English baristas are looking forward to the day when the God of Luck can come and let them have the legendary "English thinking".

"English thinking" has such a bright aura that countless students miss it so much.

First, what exactly is "English thinking"?

The so-called "English thinking", in a broad sense, is the language thinking and expression of English-speaking people.

Once you really have this "English thinking" ability, it means that your English has completely broken away from the so-called "Chinglish" English, and your English thinking and expression ability is close to the level of native English speakers.

So how do native English speakers acquire language thinking and expression?

In the fifth lecture, we introduced that we inherited the language thinking of our mother tongue from our parents through "heredity".

English is not our mother tongue, so we can't acquire "English thinking" through "inheritance".

Although many people try to input and output through a "massive" language and dream of the miracle of "quantitative change to qualitative change", it is a pity that this practice method lacks the important links of "inheritance", "revision" and rumination, so that this "massive" input and output practice has become an extremely time-consuming and low-quality learning method.

We can't acquire English thinking through "inheritance", so we have to settle for the second best and acquire "English thinking" by learning English grammar.

What is the relationship between English thinking and English grammar?

English grammar is the law of English language, and English thinking is essentially the external expression of English language law.

The so-called "English thinking" is the law of English language in a narrow sense.

This tells us that we can get "English thinking" if we thoroughly understand English grammar. However, there is still a certain gap between the "English thinking" obtained in this way and the "English thinking" obtained through "mother tongue inheritance", because the former is "deliberate" and the latter is "natural".

Although there is still a long way to go compared with the way of "mother tongue transmission", we are quite close to the real "English thinking". After all, Chinese is our mother tongue. After all, we are from China.

Then how to establish English thinking becomes how to learn grammar.

The fifth lecture mentions "establishing a complete and systematic grammar framework system at the macro level" and "thoroughly understanding the principles behind English grammar at the micro level". Do "know what it is, but know why it is", and do "achieve mastery through a comprehensive study, respond to changes with constancy", and your English thinking will gradually become clear.

Ok, now that we understand what "English thinking" is, how to establish "English thinking", what about the so-called "English language sense"? Why do so many people pursue a sense of language?

Third, what is "English language sense"?

The so-called "English language sense" is a vague English language sense!

"Feeling" is often unreliable!

The so-called "English language sense" refers to the "fuzzy perception" of English language rules, which is a "perceptual" experience of language established through certain language practice.

The "English language sense" with a sense of language and inertia of thinking is helpful to our study, but it is often unreliable because it is not a "language law" in a complete sense.

English language sense is not the same as English grammar, and naturally it is not the same as English thinking.

Therefore, we don't need the mythical "English language sense". We should treat it more rationally. On the premise of deeply understanding the essence of English grammar, with the help of correct "thinking inertia" and through a lot of practice, we can obtain a truly correct "English language sense".

Next class, we will enter the study of "English grammar" with "tense" as the core.

The author of this paper, Kitty Tse, is the author of "English Thinking: Deciphering the Principles of English Grammar" and a series of video courses "English Thinking: Building a Perfect Grammar System in Ten Lessons".