If you are struggling to make sentences using a foreign language, why not try this secret technique? It is so simple yet many of us take it for granted. It is a personal secret of mine which has proven successful regardless of age and language. Share it with your friends, use it to teach your toddlers and make use of it when you are speaking a foreign language for the first time. It works like magic.
Think of an action or a verb like take, eat, run, walk or jump. There is a very simple reason for this. If you ask yourself what it takes for you to connect with the outside world, you are actually asking yourself to take action. Taking action means employing or using the physical body to move from a resting point. So “I walk home.” would mean you carry your legs to a place to your house. That is an action that connects your with the outside world. “I eat meat.” means you are stating a fact about what kind of food you eat.
🙂 Express Your Intention
Before taking an action, you must definitely start with an intention which you agree with. For instance, you may say to yourself “I need coffee.” or “I want coffee.” Words like want, need or desire express an intention. They are not explicit unless used as main verbs. For instance, in “I need to eat.” Need agrees with the subject and take the infinitive ‘to” in order to modify its verb form. So when a need is met, that is, “I eat …”, an action takes place and the intention is fulfilled. In other words, the hands feed the mouth to fill up the hungry stomach.
Simply put, “I eat meat.”, is a simple 3 word sentence that is now a statement.
You can make up a list of 3 word sentences using this technique. It is a secret used by pre-school teachers when they introduce new vocabulary terms to develop the students’ language.
Personal Pronoun + Verb + Noun
“I eat meat.”
“I like chocolate”
“I drink coffee.”
“He takes coffee.”
“She goes home.”
“I teach English.”
“I have money.”
“You have control.”
A statement formed in a 3-word sentence is explicit, understandable and most importantly, it delivers results. It states a fact which is finite and leaves no room for doubt, which makes it easier to remember.
Disagreement Is Communication In Process
Make The Verb Disagree With The Subject.
The repetitive use of the first two words “I eat” allows you to ignore the need to remember or memorise it after a few attempts. The next thing is to add the subject to complete the sentence. Even if the verb does not agree with the subject, it does not matter. In fact, if you want to go a step further, you can make the verb disagree with the subject.
“I eat meat” becomes “I do not eat meat.”
“I teach English.” becomes “I do not teach English.”
Learn In Small Bits
The steps to perfecting your sentences are now diced to tiny bits. On average, I take about an hour to learn 3 new vocabulary words. In a day, I will make at least 6 new sentences and depending how many new words I want to learn, I can form more sentences accordingly. I play with these sentences the entire day. Sometimes I hear the same word used while watching the news, reading the subtitles in a movie or stumbling upon it while surfing. It maybe just a sip of water, but it goes a long way to quench your thirst.
