slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6674 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English
| Message 1 of 4 08 February 2009 at 4:15pm | IP Logged |
It's something old, but powerful.
1-Find a text (target language, L2) at your level.
2-Direct translation: translate this text from L2 to L1 as literally as possible.
3-Inverse translation: translate your own translation (L1) to the original (L2)
4-Check differences between the original text (L2) and your final text(l2)
It's a good training and you get the feeling of your target language.
It's possible to use this method as a ACTIVE phase with Assimil.
Good luck.
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 2 of 4 09 February 2009 at 5:57am | IP Logged |
slucido wrote:
It's something old, but powerful.
1-Find a text (target language, L2) at your level.
2-Direct translation: translate this text from L2 to L1 as literally as possible.
3-Inverse translation: translate your own translation (L1) to the original (L2)
4-Check differences between the original text (L2) and your final text(l2)
It's a good training and you get the feeling of your target language.
It's possible to use this method as a ACTIVE phase with Assimil.
Good luck.
|
|
|
It is an old method indeed, around since at least the 16th century. Roger Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth I of England in her youth, used the method, particularly with translation to and from Latin, but perhaps other languages as well. Elizabeth was an impressive linguist so the method must have worked for her.
A little time is supposed to elapse between points 2 and 3 so that immediate memory of the text fades, before you attempt to translate it back into the L2.
Edited by William Camden on 09 February 2009 at 6:00am
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6674 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English
| Message 3 of 4 09 February 2009 at 10:57am | IP Logged |
William Camden wrote:
It is an old method indeed, around since at least the 16th century. Roger Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth I of England in her youth, used the method, particularly with translation to and from Latin, but perhaps other languages as well. Elizabeth was an impressive linguist so the method must have worked for her. |
|
|
Thank you. I didn't know. However I think it's older.
William Camden wrote:
A little time is supposed to elapse between points 2 and 3 so that immediate memory of the text fades, before you attempt to translate it back into the L2. |
|
|
Yes, you can use a few variations. For example, after you have done the literal direct translation, you can use it for inverse translation several times in a distributed practice way.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 4 of 4 10 February 2009 at 4:35am | IP Logged |
It probably is older than the 16th century. Ascham was a well-known academic, which explains why he was appointed to teach Elizabeth, but I doubt whether he used any particularly new techniques and as far as I know he made no special claims for himself.
1 person has voted this message useful
|