Translation as one of the best means to learn English

[Ahmadov]

Translation should not be underestimated when you learn a foreign language. If you want to improve your English translate FROM YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE INTO ENGLISH. I am telling this from my personal experience. Intensive reading is another way of improving your English.

[Stefanie]

[Guest]

Hello, Stefanie,

When I say translating it is not just translating but also learning how an Englishman would express particular ideas or feelings. Translating forces you to learn to speak a foreign language more effectively if you have someone who can look at your translations and correct them. Believe me that I witnessed this myself. I also like your idea of thinking like a native speaker when learning a foreign language. By translating a lot you will be obsessive about translations and this will lead you to thinking like a native speaker. I do not think that there is a very big difference in what we are advising here.

[Ahmadov]

Ooops, sorry, the author of the above post is me, ahmadov.
Thanks.

[Jamie (K)]

I agree with Ahmadov. Sometimes I get students whose English is so advanced that normal grammar and vocabulary lessons are too easy for them. So I make them translate from their own language.

Here is why this works: There are different reasons why people sound good in English. One is that they know how to say a lot of things. Another is that they know how to avoid saying things they don't know how to say correctly. Almost every foreigner's "good English" is a combination of knowing things and avoiding things.

When I make them translate, they can't avoid the things they don't know how to say. They are out of their comfort zone, have to learn new expressions, and their English grows.[/i]

[JeremyinFrance]

When I was taught French at school it was a very long and very painful process. We were given long lists of words with their translations and long lists of verbs - very little to do with communicating. I started learning Spanish a while ago and I asked my teacher only to speak in Spanish. It was amazing. After just a few hours I could chat away with her, in simple but effective Spanish. Hearing someone talk in English during my lessons broke the spell and it took a while to get back into Spanish again. Learning a new language is like developing a new brain. Give your new brain as much as exercise as you can (as Ahmadov suggests) by reading as much as possible, but IMHO, translation is not the answer.
Jeremy
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jeremytaylor/
_________________
When you're sitting in your car, complaining about the traffic, don't forget - you ARE the traffic.

[Jamie (K)]

I don't think we're talking about just getting lists of words and translating them. It's well known that memorizing or translating lists of isolated words is not an effective way to learn.

However, suppose someone speaks French that sounds very good, and you give him an article that starts out, "DINKs have begun to cry foul as the Feds tighten the screws on student loan cheats." This suddenly creates the type of communication dilemma that makes our language grow. The person has to find a graceful way to express the term "DINK" (double income, no kids) in French, he has to come up with an equivalent to that sports analogy, and to come up with an idiomatic equivalent to "tighten the screws".

One way to sound good in a language is to know a lot of the language. However, another way people are able to sound good in a language is to avoid things they don't know how to say. When you give them translation assignments from authentic texts, it forces them to confront communication problems they would normally avoid. This is why it works. Translation alone, however, and especially of word lists, is not effective.

[cooliegirly]

Well, if your first language and English are very different, like if your first language doesn't even use alphabets, suck as Eastern Asian languages, then I don't think it's a good way to learn the English language by translating single words into English from your frist language because these two languages are not designed to match one another word by word and if you learn it by translating, what you are actually saying sometimes will not be the same as what you think you are saying.

[Jamie (K)]

Working with word lists is usually not a good idea, whether you're just translating or memorizing. However, translating sentences and paragraphs helps, because you are not translating words, but ideas, and you learn to reduce the interference of your own native language, if someone is guiding you.

A simple example: A Chinese woman had passed English grammar classes up to the advanced level, but she still spoke English with almost completely Chinese grammar:

"You teach not teach this semester?"

She was also liable to say something like:

"The works in this office man not here."

This was because she had learned to do English grammar exercises, but she had not learned to translate Chinese sentences and ideas into English sentences and ideas. If some teacher makes her do this, then she can get into the habit of saying, "Are you teaching this semester?" or, "Do you like this?" instead of saying, "You teach not teach..." and, "You like not like..." And she can learn to say, "The man who works in this office..."

It trains her to think, "Uh-oh, I'm thinking this Chinese structure, so that's going to be this other one in English." I have seen this practice get very good results.

[Conchita]

[Jan]

Hi,
I am pretty sure translation may be one of ways,
but in real I believe that everybody may have his own way
effective just for him, just in place, were he is right now.
I think translation may be exellent for me in my level,
but if I won't have this "posittive vibrations" about translation I will stop it.
Study foreign language demands from a pupil thousands,
thousands hours of work. How we are able to manage that
without being bored?
My question is what do you think about to read / listen /
translate etc ... just one book? The book (audio book)the most beloved by you, which you can read and read thousand times and still have not enough??
the second option will be to marry miss Conchita and learn spanish ,english ,german etc...
Jan

[Conchita]

The second option has to be ruled out, I’m afraid. I haven’t been a “miss” for the past 25 years, but all the same, your comment is rejuvenating and one’s vanity has been tickled, thank you [this has just given me an idea for a new thread on the (almost lost?) art of paying compliments to women].

[Jan]

Hi Conchita,
all my pleasure, Mrs Conchita, it is all my pleasure.
My question is because I have found few years ago in a script of some English Philology Professor that in the history of his career on the university the best progress were doing students who were not reading just a lot of books , but a lot of times one book ??
Later he has explained that the reading process is actually
more like picking out from paper signs and group of signs
it means words and parts of sentences if the moment of decode the sense has been completed brain is dropping the case and eyes are continuously work with others words.
The process is extremely fast and a lot times we have read something and the meaning was different like originally
because brain has exchanged words with similar shape and
length and meaning was still logical or acceptable.
"For this reason people reading a lot have much less progress than people who read carefully and master one long text perfectly " just opinion

with normal reading we understand and forget what is for sure not so bad at all, but specific tongue
environment is not learned

but under one important condition
they really are "deep in love of the text".

In my opinion pretty important is to show a student
his effort works

language is like a jungle or deep ocean staying on the edge you
really feel small and alone to have something what you may
start with and finish in some imaginable time ??

second thing people learn English in school or when being sometime abroad when they had returned home after the school or from another country .It will be a matter of time when every thing will be forgotten language demands repetitions ,a lot of repetitions
even if I were on pretty high level
even my mother tongue

Well than my beloved book and:
reading and reminding all together maybe one day or something like this and words ,pictures, entire phrases, dialogues ,characters all is coming back just on hand reach.

What do you think??
I am almost 60 years old and few times allready married
but never with any Spanish Lady unfortunatly.
regards
Jan

[chocolatee]

I think translation is only the first step of learning english. First we have to know the words that corresponds to our native language, but we also have to check if we have correctly constructed the sentence in english.
_________________
looks just fine!