Just like when you're in the country, you can't use the dictionary for every interaction, but you will see that some key words will need be known in the future, so you improve your basic vocabulary according to your specific needs and desires. So that's the theory. Now to put it into practice, I've struggled myself, and seen 99% of my students NOT doing it, while they know it is an essential step in their learning, and thinking is probably THE easiest thing to do. It requires no material, and can be done anywhere, anytime, without anybody knowing what you're doing. So this week, I discovered Skype can be used on my phone (yep, call me 20th century retard! for me Skype was just a very heavy software I would use maybe once a month, to speak to my family for hours when I was leaving abroad). And everything changed. I now have a REASON to think in the language, because I get the messages straight away, so I have to answer whenever I can, which is exactly what I needed to TRIGGER the thinking (I had a hard time yesterday trying to translate the idea of "trigger" in Russian BTW), because I needed to answer my messages. So now I'm promoting Italki, because that's the best way to find a language partner, and get skyping. What this does also, is it forces you to include this exercise (the thinking) into your daily life, with the recurrence factor being the last key to unlock your polyglot skills. The very last important thing that you get whenever you're living surrounded by natives, and that you can reproduce thanks to the internet. Now while I think a lot of people would find it easy to just keep using their phones everyday, simply changing the language they're using in their text messages, I am sure some people would benefit from other ways to trigger this NEEd to interact, and that's where I will stop my very long post. Now I will start thinking about alternatives, to try and help those who can't/don't want to use Skype/VIber/etc texts or calls

This is exactly the idea I am focusing on now with some students. Every language learner whom I know or have heard of, has done this, before they could reach a fluent or native level. It seems essential, and there are variations to this : thought comes before action, or in language learning, expression. Expression is usually in written form at school, which is good... for people who enjoy reading/writing. Some prefer oral expressions, and even here, there can be different forms of interaction depending on the character. Now to get to the point, here is what I have just become aware of this week : while I believe every polyglot will have this inner dialogue at some point, and choose to write/talk depending on their preferences, every polyglot has been in their target language's country. This may not be enough for everyone to pick up the language, but it provides an infinite number of REASONS to interact with people. So when you NEED to communicate with NATIVES, this is when the thinking makes sense. Because you might work in a shop, for example, and a customer asks you the question. You NEED to answer, so you NEED to use the words you already know in order to convey meaning. Your brain is more efficient in the "NEED" mode, but if you have troubles finding the right words, rephrasing, using proper grammar etc. you will then RETHINK about a better way to say it ("oh my god, that was bad, I need to know how to say it better"), and you inner dialogue will organise the knowledge you have, and point out the knowledge you need to get (grammar, vocabulary), to fill the gaps in your inner dialogue (rephrasing, using what you know should account for the vast majority of this exercise, if it doesn't, you might not have enough basic vocabulary to start doing it). (followed>>)