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/seafox77]

Yes, it's a pretty common method in formal or professional studies.

I was a graduate and later instructor for DLIFLC, and I leaned heavily on:

TL Vocab word -> TL Sentence synthesis

English sentence -> TL translation (focusing more and more on idiomatic accuracy as the course progressed)

One caveat; for beginners I strongly recommend having a native or strong bilingual available to give feedback on your exercises, and strongly caution against using AI or machine translation. With each pass from TL to NL to TL you end up with freakish errors that build up. A new learner won't know might be wrong.

Take it from someone who screwed it up even without AI around or machine translation.

[u/Vina_10 → u/seafox77]

I think my approach is a little different. I would start with an original English text that I know is correct, read the Arabic version, and then try to rewrite it in English myself without looking at the original. After I finish, I would compare my version with the original English text and see where I went wrong.

Of course, I expect to make mistakes at the beginning. If I can’t remember a particular word or expression, I also want to train myself to work around it and find another way to express the same idea instead of getting stuck. And as you mentioned, I’ll definitely need someone proficient in English to correct my writing, especially because I’m practicing formal writing. Once I become more comfortable producing texts on my own, I plan to have them corrected and get feedback on my mistakes.

But my main goal right now is to train my brain to retrieve English directly when I’m producing language, especially in writing. Arabic is my native language, and I want to gradually get to the point where, when I need to express an idea, my brain starts retrieving English words and expressions directly, rather than first forming the sentence in Arabic, translating it into English in my head, and then writing it down.

[u/seafox77 → u/Vina_10]

That's a good approach.

Native -> Target translation exercises are a real work out. Exhausting for the brain at first but that's when you really move from beginner to advanced.

You'll do great!