Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6357 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 17 of 22 10 July 2015 at 6:49pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for expanding on what I mentioned a couple of posts above yours :)
For me the coolest part is how African Portuguese turned the expression into the default noun for breakfast, though.
Edited by Serpent on 10 July 2015 at 6:49pm
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chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3302 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French
| Message 18 of 22 12 July 2015 at 1:51pm | IP Logged |
Zegpoddle wrote:
If you throw out translation, say goodbye to many
tried-and-true language learning tools such as organized word lists, parallel/interlinear texts, and most
SRS/flashcard systems like Anki. (Please don’t tell me you can find a picture to replace every
word/phrase/sentence on the L1 side of your cards because that becomes much more difficult once you exhaust
concrete nouns/verbs/adjectives and you start getting into more abstract concepts. Let me know when you find a
good photo to immediately and precisely convey the meaning of the French relative pronoun dont.)
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When I make word lists or cards in Anki I don't use pictures and I don't use translations. I write the "situation" where I saw that word, which helps me to remember the meaning and/or usage of the word. Writing a translation of a word is sometimes a good way to recall what the word means, but not in general.
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5325 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 19 of 22 12 July 2015 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
As if by some strange synchronicity, Gianfranco Conti has produced an interesting
discussion on translation:
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/translation -part-1-the-case-for-
translation-in-foreign-language-instruction/
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Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3729 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek
| Message 20 of 22 13 July 2015 at 10:29pm | IP Logged |
chaotic_thought wrote:
When I make word lists or cards in Anki I don't use pictures and I don't use translations. I write the "situation" where I saw that word, which helps me to remember the meaning and/or usage of the word. Writing a translation of a word is sometimes a good way to recall what the word means, but not in general.
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Interesting practice. Might you give us a couple of examples of what you do? The word or expression in L2 and your description of the situation, as you call it?
(I'm afraid my questions are off-topic from the OP, but I don't quite know how to start a new topic while retaining the substance and direction of Chaotic_thought's response.)
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chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3302 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French
| Message 21 of 22 14 July 2015 at 10:05pm | IP Logged |
Mork the Fiddle wrote:
chaotic_thought wrote:
When I make word lists or cards in Anki I don't use pictures and I don't use translations. I write the "situation" where I saw that word, which helps me to remember the meaning and/or usage of the word. Writing a translation of a word is sometimes a good way to recall what the word means, but not in general.
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Interesting practice. Might you give us a couple of examples of what you do? The word or expression in L2 and your description of the situation, as you call it? |
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For example in my French class we had a few dialogues and usually situations where new words would come up. For example the character Serge in our dialogue was trying to find the office of the director and he saw a sign on the door that said "Entrez sans frapper". In that case the word 'frapper' I just write in my notebook indx:
frapper | Serge ... directuer ... "Entrez sans frapper".
This covers exactly the amount of information that I needed to reference the word in my index.
This is an example where trying to perform a translation is much harder. For example, it's pretty easy to tell from this situation that "frapper" means "knock". However, if I try to write the following in my index:
frapper | knock
It just doesn't make any sense. What does 'knock' mean? Is it the act of knocking, is it the sound that you hear (I heard a 'knock'?). There's just no way to know. Furthermore 'knock' is also a wide-ranging verb in English and can be applied to other non-literal situations (e.g. "Don't knock it.") Writing a single word without any context doesn't address any of these real possibilities.
The other alternative is to write a complete usage of your word:
knock on a door -> ??? frapper ???
The problem with this approach is that it takes much more skill to come up with a valid translation of your phrase "to knock on a door" into the language you're learning. I think this was like the first week of French class, so, although I understood the word 'frapper', I didn't understand how I could write "to knock on a door".
(I'm afraid my questions are off-topic from the OP, but I don't quite know how to start a new topic while retaining the substance and direction of Chaotic_thought's response.)[/QUOTE]
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Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3729 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek
| Message 22 of 22 14 July 2015 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the examples.
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