Translation Practice - Yay or nay?

[Soclydeza]

I've read mixed things about this: some say that practicing translating (from NL ---> TL) is great, others say it's really only good for getting better at translating and won't be of much help for general language study.

The only real translation I've done was during the 2nd wave of Assimil. I guess you can consider figuring out how to say something in your TL that you are thinking in your NL to be translating, but I'm talking about actually practicing with sentences, articles, etc.

What are all of your thoughts on this?

[iguanamon]

I've been doing translations from L2 to L1 in my log for a couple of years now. I enjoy it. I'm probably a mediocre translator at best but it's fun. It helps me to focus on meaning and it's the only way I can share some of the cool stuff I read in Haitian Creole, Lesser Antilles French Creole and Ladino. It also helps people to see that these languages aren't so exotic as they may have thought and some of the process. Perhaps, one day, someone learning these languages may see my translations and gain something useful from them. You never know, occasionally a learner comes along who may want to learn a less commonly learned language.

I don't find translating from L1 to L2 to be all that useful for me, because I don't really have a way to check it and I don't want to fall into a trap of thinking I've expressed something correctly when, in fact, I haven't. Learning a language isn't just about knowing the words it's also about knowing how to phrase thoughts in the L2 without interference from one's ingrained L1. When I write in L2, I am already thinking in L2. To me, that's the point of learning L2. When my inner voice is in L2, I know I have got to where I can get better thourgh L2, if that makes any sense. YMMV.

[Expugnator]

I find translation/version exercises into L2 great especially for grammar, and to a lesser extent for noun vocabulary. With verbs you usually feel unsure about whether you're using the right tense even when there is a key. Whatever type of translation you are working on as an exercise, you should always have a critical view that there are different genres of translation. When I read in parallel, I am sometimes with translations that are totally loose and so less effective for helping me compare and learn vocabulary, but nonetheless those are the news that help me the most with understanding which are the most natural and idiomatic paths for expressing some thoughts in that L2 ( I recently wrote how much verbose and explanatory Georgian is compared to originals in English, French or Portuguese and even with translations from of these 3 into another).

Duolingo is widely based on translation, mostly into L1 but largely L2. And even when it is frustrating that sometimes you express the same idea but differently and is granted an error, I still find the method effective for activating an early intermediate language that is mostly passive. Actually, if there were more computer-based translation exercises, for typing fast at the desktop, I'd be a heavy user (I don't like SRS and I tend not to retain much when I write down on paper in a rush, with indistinguishable orthography, and the process is too slow anyway). I learned most of my transparent languages (French, Spanish, Esperanto ) through translation methods at Assimil or old Teach Yourself and the reason it didn't work for languages such as Russian or German is that when I tried it my vocabulary level was too low, with too much info to learn within a sentence : 6 out of 8 words unknown plus the grammar involved. So I'd mostly skim through such exercises and learn too little from both vocabulary and grammar. Today I'd do things differently. For Russian, for example, I don't plan to go back to any of the Assimils but I expect Duolingo to nearly level up my active skills, currently a middle A2, to an average B1 which is where my passive skills are .

[Serpent]

I'm one of those who don't like translation tasks. I think it largely stems from the idea that language skills don't automatically equal an ability to translate, and that many people expect linguists and/or polyglots to be good translators. Translation tasks are overused in the classroom because it's the easiest way to test people in a meaningful way (multiple choice is even easier but too predictable).

That said, translation IS a language skill. It can be very useful in multilingual environments and when communicating with language geeks and discussing nuances (of your L1, too).

But how much it improves your other skills, other than forcing you to pay attention to details? Not much, imo, and I tend to think it's better to learn to notice them yourself, especially at a more advanced level.

Also, if you enjoy translating, and especially if others benefit from your translations, by all means, do them.

[vm_nm]

I don't mind occasional L1>L2 translation exercises for practicing grammar, e.g. if they happen to come up in a class or if a work book offers them alongside other types of exercises like substitution and transformation drills. I feel they can add variety. I wouldn't be happy if a class or text book focused on them, though - to me that would seem too many missed opportunities to practice thinking in the L2.

At an advanced level, I also enjoy translating (L2>L1) difficult texts occasionally, e.g. when I read a newspaper comment and feel like it's beautifully written but I don't quite get the finer points, then I might read it a second time, look up unknown words, and basically do a translation - at least in my head, and maybe also in writing if I want to mine context sentences for an SRS. I don't do this very often, and it has to be a text where really like the author's style, but when I do it, I enjoy how it forces me to fully understand every detail.

[Serpent]

One more thing is that L2-L1 translations simply don't feel like L2 time for me, they feel like L1 time. But I can imagine how for most people who use L1 a lot it would feel like L2 time, and of course everyone's priorities are different and many do wish to make an effort to become better L1 users (also to understand it better and possibly be a better exchange partner/see the connection to related languages).

[Iversen]

I don't believe in doing 'pretty' translations - unless you are trying to become a professional translator who writes stuff for those who don't have time (or are too lazy) to learn the original languages of the texts or whatever they want to experience. And people who want to write such translations obviously have to train that skill by writing tons of 'pretty' translations.

I have made lots of translations during my school and study years, including heavy stuff like Gaspard de la Nuit and articles by Lacan, and quite generally I don't find it particularly difficult to translate from my target languages into Danish or other languages like English .. and precisely for that reason I also doubt that I learn much from that activity.

In some cases I have made hyperliteral translations from a weak L2 into Danish or other languages in order to get 'under the skin' of a new language - the idea being that IF I have to translate something into Danish to prove to myself that I understand it, then it would be utterly counterproductive to translate the constructions and expressions of the other languages in ways that are dictated by my own language. Simple logic tells me that I learn more from taking them at face value and translating them into something that reflects the way the other language is organized, not the way MY language is organized.

Take the expression "under the skin" which I used above. There are a number of expressions which can be used in the situations where this is used in English, and in the mind of most teachers I should choose the one that fits the concrete context best. My logic is different: my memorization of the expression is helped better by ALWAYS translating it into "få ind under huden", even though there cases where "lære på rygmarven" or "gå på nerverne" would be more precise. However once I have developed a sense for the foreign language I don't need such memory crutches in Danish any longer and I can stop using them.

Or take a foreigner who wants to learn Danish and needs to come to grips with the postclitic article. If such a person (who can't yet think fluently in Danish) translate "husET" into "houseThe" every time it occurs then that must be less confusing than mentally reorganizing it into "the house". And the fact that it sounds weird in English makes it even easier to memorize. Once you have got our postclitic articles under your skin you can kick the deliberately incongruent "houseThe" out of your mind forever. As the saying goes: "The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go".

Translations from base language into target language have a value insofar that they mercilessly show you how much you still need to learn. But it is not self evident that the best employment of your time would be to find and learn certain words or expressions just because they occur in some goobledegook text sample which a teacher orders you to translate from Danish into English or any other language. But in case you get complacent by reading and understanding texts in another language a few simple translation exercises can serve to show you that you aren't nearly as advanced as you think - and they do so admirably.