|
 |
Does translation help speak a language ? | ||
Tags: Speaking | Translation | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4394 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 17 of 20 25 December 2014 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
First , believe me : I am not making my life miserable because of that . In spite of that , I am happy with my German , I can talk about a wide variety of topics although my speech is at times disconnected and I also make other mistakes such as: endings , word-choices , unnatural formulations and so forth . I've never tried that course , I really liked the advanced German Assimil insofar as shadowing is concerned . It provides you with a wide variety of structures and vocab , besides the recordings are generally clear and not too fast , to sum it up :it seemed exactly the best compromise for my actual level . I have shadowed inside in my room both standing still and walking . How do I feel about shadowing outside ? I think It is a good idea per say , but I don't happen to know a place here where I could shadow without getting stared at and thus without feeling ill-at-ease . 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hobom Triglot Newbie Joined 4223 days ago 33 posts - 61 votes Speaks: German*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 18 of 20 25 December 2014 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
The upper intermediate to advanced stage is where language learning becomes particularly interesting, since returns start to diminish so much that daily progress is often not noticeable. This is why your methods should be chosen carefully at this stage.
I am by no means an expert, but in my opinion translation exercises will not help you very much with your goal to improve speaking, at least in the short term. Here are my general thoughts on that: Since you say that you only make these mistakes while speaking, I assume that you are sufficiently familiar with the German grammar in theory. However, you are lacking the practice in applying it in a situation like speaking where time is scarce. I can imagine that doing translation exercises will only exacerbate this problem. When you are speaking a language at a high level, you do not think of want you want to say in your native language and translate it into your target language, you just think IN your target language. So this is why I am skeptical of translation exercises for improving speaking, while they definitely can be a great tool for other situations. Just some thoughts on your situation: You could do the self talk with time pressure. Force yourself to come up with sentences at a faster pace than usual. This will train you to come up with correct structures and endings in a shorter amount of time. Another idea: Read something in German, ideally an article you find interesting. Right after having finished a sentence, try to reconstruct it without looking at the original sentence. You will find that you remember most if not every word used, however you will have to think about the right structure and word endings, since you will fail to recall them absolutely. (Our brain tends to overlook especially the endings, since they are not essential to understanding). A great side benefit of doing this is that you do not need a hard to come by native speaker to correct you. The correct way of what you wanted to say is right there on paper! And because this article is meaningful to you, you will surely not find it to be as dull as a grammar drill. Edited by hobom on 25 December 2014 at 8:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6556 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 19 of 20 25 December 2014 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sorry, but I doubt anyone can speak a language at C1/C2 without hundreds of hours of conversing. Just because conversing makes you miserable, you shouldn't encourage others to avoid it. You need all the skills, but conversing itself is the key to being good at conversation.
For someone who gets so upset every time a polyglot gets challenged, that sure is a lame political slur.
I think the best advice I can give you at this point is to stop making up excuses and start conversing. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hobom Triglot Newbie Joined 4223 days ago 33 posts - 61 votes Speaks: German*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 20 of 20 25 December 2014 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
For someone who gets so upset every time a polyglot gets challenged, that sure is a lame political slur. To my embarrassment, I need to admit that this allusion baffles me. Why aren't "we" the French? Is it because French people like to correct non-native French speakers, but people here do not do that? 3 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
