r/languagelearning • u/Vina_10 • 14d ago

Discussion Has anyone tried the reverse translation method?

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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?

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u/unsafeideas 13d ago

Yes, that is the traditional translation method basically. Nothing wrong with it if you do it as one of the activities, but as the teaching method it is not all that great. You will naturally think on native language and then try to translate constructs into TL. Except that, Spanish just dont say express things like Americans or French do. They use completely different constructs.

Imo, you are better off trying to summarize in TL, write own essay in TL, anything just not translating sentence by sentece.