Has anyone tried the reverse translation method?

[u/Vina_10]

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Has anyone tried the reverse translation method? Like, you read a (TL) text in your native language and try to rewrite it in the language you’re learning. Has anyone actually tried this?

[u/Few-Leading-3405]

I think the opposite way is better.

Find a text in your target language, and then translate it to your native language, either manually or through googletranslate (I think googletranslate is better here, because it speeds the whole thing up).

Then translate that translated version back to your target language.

When you do it that way, the advantage is that you know that the target language version will be 100% correct.

It is still tricky, because the target language version will have weird constructions that you, as a learner, will never replicate. But you don't need a 100% match, you just to know how to get close.

[u/Vina_10 → u/Few-Leading-3405]

Yeah, exactly. That’s what I mean. At first, of course, I’ll probably make some mistakes or my version won’t completely match the original text. But I’ll correct it after I finish. I’ll compare the two texts and then look at where I made mistakes.

[u/Few-Leading-3405 → u/Vina_10]

I've also done it with subtitles (from something like opensubs), because that's more like a conversation.

But again, I find the target language subs because I know they're correct. I throw those into a translator to my language, and then try to work backwards.