Learn a language through translation
One thing I’ve found that has helped me learn a lot in my language study is translating. Part of immersing yourself in a language is by reading a lot of everything in that language. There is no point in reading something you don’t understand; this is why you need to translate.
How to benefit from translating:
- Choose your reading
You can choose to read anything. You can read children’s books, primers, newspapers, magazines, novels, or anything in that language. Don’t worry about it being too hard for you. The more you do it, the easier it will get.
- Get a dictionary
Make sure you have a good dictionary that you will be able to find any word you come across. You won’t be able to understand text with vocabulary you can’t understand.
- One sentence at a time
When you begin, look at the first sentence. Do you know any of the words? Look up any words you don’t know. If you are completely new to the language, you might stumble across a lot of the grammar. That’s okay. It might take you a little while to look up verbs that are conjugated.
After you’ve translated all of the words, try to put it together in to an understandable sentence. If you have a grammar text, try to see if you can figure out the meaning of the verb by figuring out its conjugation. When you really think about it, you will probably be able to understand it.
Write out the sentence completely once you’ve figured it out. In addition, you might want to keep a list of all the new vocabulary.
- Move on.
The next sentence might be easier because it might have some of the same vocabulary words and will hopefully be in the same tense.
- Be consistent
If you decide to work on translating daily, you might decide to spend 10 minutes a day or translate 3 sentences a day. If you do it once or twice a week, you might translate for 30 or 40 minutes a day or do 10 or 15 sentences. As you get faster, increase your quota.
In the beginning, even if you think you understand one sentence, it might not seem to make complete sense, especially in a novel. That’s okay, it will get easier. If you don’t want to jump right into a newspaper or novel, feel free to use an easy reader. As you progress, choose harder literature.
To add practice to it, try reading the sentence aloud a few times. This will help with your pronunciation and speed in speaking. Overall, your reading comprehension and overall understanding will get better and better and you will be amazed at how well you know the language.