Question on the bidirectional translation method

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Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby guiguixx1 » Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:51 pm

Hi everyone!

I've recently begun using Luca's bidirectional translation technique and I notice the advantages it proposes. Now my actual question: How long should this method be used? I'm currently using it with Italian, I'd say my level is B2 passive, B1 active, and I wonder if this method is intended to be used all the way to C1, with a bunch of different reading material and topics. What is your own experience?
Also, should anyone have an extensive video made by Luca (or anyone else) with more advanced explanations regarding how to maximize the benefits of this method, I'd be interested!

Thanks in advance!
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby Polish Paralysis » Wed Jun 19, 2019 7:40 pm

guiguixx1 wrote:I've recently begun using Luca's bidirectional translation technique and I notice the advantages it proposes. Now my actual question: How long should this method be used? I'm currently using it with Italian, I'd say my level is B2 passive, B1 active, and I wonder if this method is intended to be used all the way to C1, with a bunch of different reading material and topics. What is your own experience?


I would like to start off by saying that I have never used Luca's method bidirectional translation method for an extended period of time. The longest I ever used it for was about two weeks, at which point I gave up as I felt I didn't have the right material. I believe that it is highly effective for purposes of vocabulary acquisition and long term retention as well as allowing for the painless acquisition of grammatical knowledge. I'm curious which advantages you specifically had in mind?

As for using the method at higher levels beyond B1/B2, I don't have any idea. I would be interested to know the answer as well. If I recall correctly Luca mentioned that he uses this method to create a language core (where he emphasis quality over quantity as well as bidirectional translation) and then moves on to watching a lot of movies with subtitles or something to that effect i.e. his language knowledge reaches a critical mass, at which point he starts to bombard himself with greater quantities of content. It is not clear to me whether he continues to use the method of bidirectional translation at that point.

I'm also interested in exactly what type of material he translates and if he continues the process after he has finished the Assimil courses that he always talks about. Does he focus on Assimil style materials, in other words, dialogue-based content or does he just start translating anything and everything he might be interested in reading?

I'm very interested in the answers to some of these questions, so if there's anyone out there with knowledge of the principles that Luca abides by, please chime in.
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby Kraut » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:49 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4XohCz4CWA
This video from 2012! is about vocabulary acquisition, where he talks about "phase 3 - techniques des interprètes" and refers to his book
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby Ccaesar » Thu Jun 20, 2019 9:40 am

My main concern about this method is how he figures out wheather or not his translations are correct. Which he has never mentioned so far.
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby garyb » Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:53 am

I've used it in a couple of languages. I found it great at the beginner and early-intermediate level for "close" languages (Italian when I already knew French, Spanish when I already knew both of these), but once I got towards the end of Assimil and was moving into B1 territory it was becoming less useful: it was too hard to translate directly and unambiguously, so it was feeling more like an exercise in "proper" translation (a very different skill) than a tool for language learning.

I also found that it got very tedious and time-consuming very quickly in a more distant language with less of a comprehension discount (Greek), especially the L1-to-L2 part, and found that building up my receptive skills more before trying to translate was a more enjoyable approach.

I've always used it with resources that have dialogues in L2 and L1 like Assimil, so checking my answers has never been a problem.
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby Kraut » Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:42 pm

I also use it for texts of a higher level. The following is a recent example. It's a comment following a newspaper article. I also record my translation now, and then do a kind of "consecutive translation" back into Spanish in a loud voice.
Here is a YouTube video about "consecutive translation":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyvrU6FYN7o


https://www.elconfidencial.com/alma-cor ... o_1601072/

Todo esto se explica porque en España partimos de un nivel bajísimo en idiomas.
Durante décadas solo existió el francés, que mi generación sufrió con un método hiper-aburridísimo que hacía que ni un 10% acabase el bachillerato con una capacidad de expresión digna.
Luego vino el inglés a sacar del todo a flote nuestras miserias y con él estamos todavía en plena transición idiomática. Hemos mejorado, pero aún hoy, mis alumnos de doctorado tienen sudores fríos cuando les digo que hay que hacer una ponencia en inglés en un congreso.
Todo lo que se haga para ponernos en un nivel decente es loable. El denostado bilingüismo es un buen intento: hacía falta un plan de choque porque no se puede consentir que nuestros profesionales sean incapaces de comunicarse en Europa.
Lo de los nativos está bien con los más pequeños. Cierto que no hay que obsesionarse, pero mientras escribo esto tengo a mis hijos, abajo con una nativa inglesa. Que no les pase lo que veo en Bruselas cada vez que voy a alguna movida de la UE: siempre hay un porcentaje de gente que no se entera de algo o que no puede expresarse decentemente en inglés (sobre todo franceses, italianos y españoles).
Algo que ayudaría es prohibir los doblajes, porque todo lo que sea meter la lengua extranjera en la vida cotidiana es positivo.
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby Iversen » Thu Jun 20, 2019 2:40 pm

I have only used retranslation for languages where my level was so low that I had a hard time stitching the meaning of a complete sentence together in my mind. Then it can help so to say to build a mirror image of the original text in your own language. But luckily that phase rarely lasts for too long, and after that my comprehension is mostly a matter of knowing enough words and idioms in the target language. However I do sometimes make one-way (hyper)literal translations of short passages even later if they either are particularly interesting for some reason or particularly hard to understand.

There is however one big difference between my use of retranslation and Luca's recommendations: he reckons with a timelapse that can be counted in hours or days between each phase, where I think the point is to do the retranslation while you still haven't totally forgotten the original version, i.e. within a few minutes. In other words I see it the intermediate version (in your native language or another strong language) more like a help to memorizing (and understanding!) the structures of the original text than as a test of my ability to express myself in the target language. With a longer time span the retranslation almost becomes a new construction phase, and then I ask myself why I should (re)translate instead of simply writing something new myself.

However in both cases I find it important to make a base language translation that is as close to the original as possible - i.e. literal (or even hyperliteral) rather than neat and pretty (as if you were translating a book for publication). If the translation is too free then the retranslation becomes either a matter of random guesswork or a test of your ability to recall an irrelevant text accurately without too much help. And thinking through what an idiomatic expression really means in the original language must be at least as important as finding the expression you would have used in your native language in a similar situation.
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby Kraut » Fri Jun 28, 2019 10:48 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTT_vq6ZZSk
at 10'37
Here is more from Luca about what happens after Assimil and 6 months of bidirectional translation: input through reading interesting !!! stuff and getting exposed to the real thing: people, he mentions Italki coaches and travelling to Hungary to learn the language. And he used LingQ.
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Re: Question on the bidirectional translation method

Postby Serina » Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:48 am

Kraut wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTT_vq6ZZSk
at 10'37


I watched his video on the channel. Pretty interesting content. And I heard about LingQ. I also use it for learning languages. It is included in the list of the best translation software and takes an honorable second place there after the video translation service. And in the first place I always have Vidby.
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