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Translation tasks as practice | ||
Tags: Translation | Learning Technique/Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| podjan Newbie Canada Joined 5789 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 9 of 12 13 August 2009 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I like the idea, but how can you be sure of the (grammatical, idiomatic) accuracy of your translation? Or is the aim mainly to expand vocabulary?
I've done this in the past with grammar books etc. where I can always check my work, but it would be nice to work with something a little more interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6194 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 12 13 August 2009 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||
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When I do long translations or pieces (including single sentences) I generally try to find someone to check for grammatical accuracy before submitting the writing to whoever I tend to give it to, be it homework, an Email, or even an instant message. Every so often I'm completely wrong and what I wrote isn't comprehensible or I might just be unnatural enough that I can learn a good deal.
I agree that translation is a good activity in order to work on writing skills in the target language, and it of course also aids in one's translation skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5917 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 11 of 12 13 August 2009 at 9:34am | IP Logged | ||
I usually translate texts from L2 into L1 (I use English as my base language even though I'm not native) and then back into L2. That way I can check myself against the original text, assuming it doesn't have any errors in it (which they sometimes do and which I usually notice) I can be sure that what I'm learning is correct. You can pick up a lot of things about how they actually speak by doing this, because every language has its own manner of expression and things you would say and things you wouldn't and so on, so to me it makes little sense to translate an original L1 text into L2 because you might need to do some tweaking, but using L2 texts as your basis at least you can know that you're not translating the untranslatable. From doing some translation work myself between English and Norwegian, I know there are a million things that are a real pain in the neck to translate and it can take a lot of linguistic sensitivity to do this right (which I frequently lack even between my native language and English!) so I wouldn't want to do it with my L2. I don't want to put myself in a square peg round hole situation with L2 because it would be training myself to speak according to L1. I want to be able to think and function within the boundaries of L2 anyway, and not be an L1 thinker speaking L2, but I have found translations to be really helpful the way I do them - it's just what works for me. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| podjan Newbie Canada Joined 5789 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 12 of 12 14 August 2009 at 1:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey, Liz, qklilx, thanks for the great responses!
I just recently discovered lang-8.com, which looks like it could be pretty useful in this regard as well. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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