Thinking in English: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It Matters - The Art and Craft of Cultural Communication

Learning English| Speaking English| Writing English| Business English| Social English

August 13, 2026•5 min read

One phrase that English learners the world over hear constantly (and dread) is that they need to “think in English” rather than translating what they want to say from their native language into English before they speak. I gave this advice one day, as I had on so many other days in the classroom when I was still teaching children. To my surprise, one of my students threw his hands up in frustration and said,

“Miss Rossiter, what does that even MEAN? How can I think in English when I don’t know what I’m doing?”

That’s a valid question. As a teacher, being confronted with it made me realize that I had to think about it for a minute before responding. I had to quell my instinct to repeat the trite responses I always received as a student of other languages - my favorite one coming from my high school Latin teacher, “If you translate, you’re gonna get hurt,” he would tell us as a reminder not to form our thoughts in English then translate them into Latin before speaking.

So, rather than simply repeat a simpler version of my Latin teacher’s advice, I explained that how we learn to communicate, how we learn to understand and interpret the messages coming into our brains is determined by so many cultural factors that, as someone who is learning someone else’s language, we need to learn about those other factors and how they affect the message we’re sending. I continued by having my students think about the following things:

Think about how you talk and behave when you are with your family in your house. What are the types of words you use with each member of your family? What are some basic behavior rules that exist in your family and your culture? What happens when you don’t follow those rules?
Think about these same things in relation to other areas of your life within your culture, for instance, when you are in the classroom, or at church, or at a special event. What do you notice that is the same about how you communicate in these situations? What do you notice that is different? How do these similarities and differences affect your ability to communicate clearly what you want to say or how you feel? How do these similarities and differences affect the way others respond to you and your message?
Now, think about these same things from the viewpoint of an English-speaking person. What do you know about the way English-speaking people think and behave? Is your understanding based on personal experience or from someone else’s experience (and is it accurate or simply an assumption)? With what you know, how do you think an English-speaking person would interpret what [student’ name] said to me earlier in class?

And so on through a further series of questions about what the students would need to know about English-based cultures in order to convey this student’s message in a way that an English-speaker would understand without confusion.

So often I see in the media and hear it from the people I encounter throughout the day about peoples’ opinions of others from different cultures. More often than not, these opinions, which are stated as absolute fact, are based on a person’s personal negative experiences, a family member’s negative experiences or long-held belief, or revolve around a local controversy which usually focuses on the cultural issue rather than the actual problem. We, as the human race, are so eager to find fault in every other subset of the human race, yet will spend inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to justify our behavior when we are doing the same thing that we denounce in others.

When we choose to do this, we are also refusing to “think in English/the other culture’s viewpoint”.

Ultimately, when we are thinking in any language (truly thinking) it means that we are looking at the world through the eyes, heart, and mind of the people from that other culture and that we are actively trying to understand what they think, how they feel, WHY they think and feel this way, and what effect this has on them - on their interpretation of the messages coming into them; on their ability to see the situation clearly and from a practical, unbiased viewpoint. When we think in a language, we need to be viewing the world actively from that wider, cultural perspective as well as from the perspective of the individual with whom we are communicating - always remembering that communication happens with the combination of what we say, what we don’t say, and with everything we do or do not do.

As we move into the weekend, I challenge you to ask yourself the same questions I asked my young learners and to put your honest answers in writing.

Then, if you are serious about transforming your ability to think in English, take a look at the areas in which you need to improve.

If you’re brave enough, please post your findings in the comments. Let’s get this conversation started.

For more insights on this post (and to learn more about mastering the skill of how to think in English, join me in my FREE community to watch the replay of this week's Wednesday's Weekly Live-stream.

What was the most surprising surprising aspect of “thinking in English” that you learned today?