Vocabulary is absolutely vital. If you need to say “elevator” or “clown suit”, there is no substitute. This means that learning vocab is a huge priority when you are learning a language. So now you’ve learned 3000 words! But what do you do with them? This is the magical field of syntax and grammar. You have all the parts for an automobile. Grammar teaches you how to assemble the car and then how to drive. Here is a way of putting them together usefully.
Once you have learned some basic vocabulary and grammar, you can begin the task of beginning to express yourself. I find that using translation exercises really develops this capacity. I know! Many language acquisition theorists will probably try to have me drawn and quartered for saying this! ( And yet it turns!)
What I like to do, to develop my communication potential in a new language, is to first pick a topic of interest (to me) or an important life situation (cooking, buying, traveling). I then randomly speak sentence by sentence – in English – about this topic. After each English sentence, I do my best to say it in my target language. Sometimes vocabulary fails me; and sometimes it is grammar. It doesn’t matter! I just keep going. Later on, I can look up the words or the grammar I need. Doing something like this will really develop your capacity to speak.
There is another useful step. You can actually write out the English sentences and do your best to translate them correctly and accurately. Again if you hit the wall, you can look up the words and the grammar you need.
The next step after that is to find a native to validate and correct what you are doing. Inevitably, there will many mistakes to correct.
These days you can also use the Google Translate Tool – with care and a good sense of humor – and get a lot of work done. If you think the translation will be perfect, think again. With European languages – close cousins of English – you will get 75 to 90% accuracy. With Chinese or Hindi, hope for 60% accuracy. But still, if you keep your sentences short and non-ambiguous: ”The dog runs in the street” (one meaning) versus ” flying airplanes can be dangerous” (two possible meanings), it is a very useful exercise. If automatic translation can make a mess of things, realize that it probably will. So definitely check with a native to make sure that you are atually saying what you want to say. But it’s a fast way to learn vocab and sometimes even grammar.
So there you are. Translation can be an invaluable tool in your language learning development.
Tags: learn english online, learn french online, learn spanish online