In every human being, thought and language originate in the mind. Most exercises in this grammar course are to be done by thinking solely, to encourage mind habits.
Exercise 4. It is much easier to make progress in language if we learn to introspect and give direction to own intellect. We may begin with awareness of the mind generally.
A. Let us think how long we could stay without thinking. We may have happened to hear or even say that someone is not thinking. This is yet only a saying, something nobody can mean literally. In reality, no living person could stop his or her mind.
B. We may fix our visual focus on a single thing — a teacup, a pencil, fruit? Let us try to think about our object only and not anything else. A theory strawberry and a wristwatch can show if we cope.
C. Let us close our eyes and try not to think absolutely anything. The watch will tell us if we really can do this.
D. We think if there is language in our thought, what language it is (as English, German, French, or another), and how we think. Do we think in entire words? Could our thoughts be only pictures?
E. Back to ■EXERCISES 1-3, we try to “see” and “say” our answers in our thoughts strictly. If we like, we audibly say or whisper the answers later, or put the answers on a spare piece of paper too, at the very same time as we whisper or speak.
At first, we might feel it is really an effort to “discipline” ourselves and consciously direct own thinking. We must try. “Saying” or “writing” in our thoughts before spoken or written activity is more than likely to make our language habits stronger.
Inner language
Silent reading is faster than reading audibly. This is the inner language to facilitate the process. It is not entire words or even speech sounds. It comes with only trace features of written or spoken language.
Inner language is the highly advanced way for the human brain and mind to correlate language knowledge and skill. We do not know a language really, if it does not belong with our thought. Shaping entire words and phrases in thought is the start. With practice, the mind is going to make associations that work on language trace features solely. Silent thought is a great friend of language skill.
3. Time is like a river: verb patterns
Language has phrases as the flow of time, a course or current of events.