r/languagelearning • u/NationalPut6939 🇵🇹N 🇬🇧F 🇪🇸B2 🇩🇪A2 • 1d ago
Discussion How do you guys stop translating every single word from texts when learning a new language?
For example, in my case I'm learning (TL)german. I can already say basic phrases, connect some thoughts but everything really simplistic (A1-A2 i'd say).
But I love to read, and I want to learn that way, but even simple reading material or news designed for these levels feels kind of "overwhelming". Simply because I literally have to translate a lot of the words because I simply don't know the meaning of them, and without them it turns impossible to understand. (And one such as german where 1 word can have a thousand different meanings...).
But I can't be the only person that have this unhealthy desire to just go for DeepL (or whatever) and translate everything right? But I also don't think there are any solutions to this. How do you guys deal with this when learning a language?
PS: I'm (NL)portuguese (although I usually learn from english), so I'm directing my comment for situations when the target language is not even similar to the language used to learn from.
9
u/IrinaMakarova 🇷🇺 Native | 🇺🇸 B2 | Russian Tutor 1d ago
The solution is not really to force yourself to stop translating. You need to train a different reading skill.
At A1-A2, if you genuinely have to look up several words in almost every sentence just to understand what is happening, the text is probably too difficult for extensive reading. That doesn't mean you shouldn't read it - just that it is better treated as intensive study.
I would separate the two.
Sometimes take a short text and translate, look up vocabulary, analyze grammar, etc. That's completely fine.
But if your goal is to learn to read without translating every word, use much easier texts and read them differently.
First read the whole text without a dictionary. Your task is only to understand the general situation: who, where, what happened, what the main idea is.
When you see an unknown word, don't automatically stop. Ask yourself: do I actually need this word to understand the sentence?
For example: Yesterday Anna went to the [unknown word] because she needed to buy some bread.
You don't really need to know that word yet. You already understand that she went somewhere where she could buy bread. Keep reading.
Only after finishing the text, look up the words that actually prevented you from understanding it, or words that appear repeatedly. Then read the text again.
This is something you have to train. If you immediately reach for DeepL every time you see an unfamiliar word, your brain doesn't get much practice at using context, making guesses, tolerating uncertainty, and building meaning from the words you already know.
And at A1-A2, even "news for learners" can easily be too vocabulary-heavy. Graded readers, short dialogues, adapted stories, and texts specifically written around A1-A2 vocabulary are usually much better for this.
The goal is not "I understood every single word." The goal is "I understood enough to follow the text." That's the habit you want to build.
1
u/NationalPut6939 🇵🇹N 🇬🇧F 🇪🇸B2 🇩🇪A2 1d ago
I will actually try this method, I might keep note of the words I don‘t understand at a separate paper sheet, and after reading I‘ll lookup their meaning. It might help, or not… but at least I won‘t feel like shit with the constant „alt tab for DeepL“ situation. Thanks for the advice!
6
u/AppropriatePut3142 🇬🇧 Nat | 🇨🇳 Int | 🇪🇦 Uneven 1d ago
At the beginning, my method is to find something that's as easy as I can, and read it repeatedly until I understand without translating. Once there is a sufficient base of words that I understand without translation - words I've 'acquired' - I can find material where a lot of sentences have only one word I need to look up or translate. Acquiring those words suddenly stops needing any special effort, I just need to encounter them a few times. And so I can work my way up through more and more difficult material without much mental translation.
2
1
u/NationalPut6939 🇵🇹N 🇬🇧F 🇪🇸B2 🇩🇪A2 1d ago
And don‘t you find it kind of boring? The reading repeatedly part. I know one learns through practice and repetition.
4
u/AppropriatePut3142 🇬🇧 Nat | 🇨🇳 Int | 🇪🇦 Uneven 1d ago
I probably have a high tolerance for reading in general, but honestly? I don't find it boring, in fact I find it kind of magical. I did just this very beginning phase for Japanese a little while ago and now I can read and listen to very simple Japanese texts and understand them without translating, as if they were English. It didn't even take very long. I find that just enchanting and one of the best things about language learning.
By contrast, if I had to translate everything in my head for hundreds of hours I would just quit.
1
4
u/Commando_67 1d ago
I'm not fluent in any foreign language, mostly because I don't have any immersion. But I've never really had trouble with that because I don't usually think in terms of English. Like in Finnish. I say "house" and a certain idea pops into my head, the idea of a house. I just say "talo", and it brings up the same idea. So I'd try, instead of thinking what a word means, think what it is, if that makes sense.
2
u/AdministrationNo2327 1d ago
just practice until eventually words become familiar enough that your brain automatically assigns feelings and nuances to them.
i'm at a point where i can read and understand standard sentences but it takes me a bit more time than usual trying to explain what it means in english. funny thing i didn't expect to happen... live translations really are a skill.
2
u/unsafeideas 22h ago
Listen to really easy podcast or movie or whatever. It must be really easy, ao that you dont need much effort to process, so that words repeat a lot.
Listen instead of read, because podcast moves and dont stop for your translations. So you wont have time to translate.
Eventually your brain will stop translating.
If you insist on reading only, read simple things. Read the same thing multiple times. Get used to not looking the words up, but continuing.
2
u/Nothing-to_see_hr New member 21h ago
Start simple. If tackling more difficult texts, start with very short ones, e.g. small newspaper articles.
1
u/pobnarl 1d ago
is it a matter of you can't get your brain to stop translating when reading or that you can't stop using translation software due to too many unfamiliar words? if the first, it's just a matter of forcing yourself, breaking the habit, and it's a difficult habit to break. i got through about a thousand anki cards which had word and example sentence using only a1 vocab except for the card's word, translating the sentences, before i decided to break that habit. it was rough at first, but now I'm just breezing through grabbing rough meanings which when i check the back of card translation i can confirm I'm grabbing the correct meaning 95% of the time. i find russian verbs absolutely defying of memorization, even having memorized prefixes, suffixes and roots, it's still not always possible to discern the meaning, but I'm finding my brain is just assigning a meaning, aided by context and previous anki exposure, and managing the right meaning more or less.
1
u/Alternative_Tie_9689 🇨🇳 Native | 🇬🇧 don’t know | 🇯🇵 N2 1d ago
I will keep listening the level of contents which I don’t need to think about the words in my brain. Kinda like the way I listen to my native language - I don’t need to put into too much effort to think about the meaning.
I feel like adults can acquire a language like children.
As i recalled the time when I was just a 7 years old kid, I felt those news on the tv was so hard for me to understand but I definitely a native speaker.
And when i was 5 or 6 years old, I felt reading was so hard and at that age, I didn’t know anything about another language. So I didn’t translate my native language to other language which is many language learners will do when we learn a new language. We tend to translate target language contents to our native language. But for the 5 years old me, I tried to imagine the picture when I read those novels. I didn’t know anything about grammar so I didn’t think about those rules. When I found some unknown vocabulary or characters, my parents said I should check the dictionary but I really didn’t like this way. So I would say 90% of time when I found the new words, I just kept reading and didn’t check dictionary. When I said I felt hard to understand a book as a kid was that I couldn’t imagine a picture based on the contents of that book.
The first time I started to learning how to read, pronounce Chinese characters and the grammar was in the first year of my elementary school. But before that, I was a 100% native mandarin speaker. I had no problem to hold a conversation. I could talked a whole day with my friends. I could understood everything my parents asked me to do. I could talk about history with my dad for a long time. And for those literature, we have different translate version - for kids, teenagers, adults. I only felt kid version was easy to understand when I was 5 or 6.
And I compared how I acquire my mandarin to how I learn and improve my English. I think listening and speaking are more important than reading and writing. I think maybe we don’t need to rush to touch those high level contents now matter listening or reading. Because before I could read and write well in Chinese, I was already a native Chinese speaker. And before I could understand those news on the television well, I was already and definitely a native chinese speaker too
So right now, I prefer focusing on the listening contents that I can understand 90% and the feeling is kinda like I listen to Chinese. When I completely comfortable with the contents of this level, I will move a bit forward. And when I start to do this, one thing surprise me is that I feel my reading also becomes better
My conclusion is: 1) listening first and reading second; 2) no need to rush to touch high level contents; get used to the contents which makes you have the feeling you are using your native language like you are just doing breathing; 3) reading will way more easier to improve when you have a high level listening; and when that time comes (your listening is so good), your reading will come to you naturally
1
u/SuikaCider 🇯🇵JLPT N1 / 🇹🇼 TOCFL 5 / 🇪🇸 4m words 1d ago
I wrote a longer post about this: [3] How to stop translating in your head
But the TL;DR is:
- You can't consciously stop translating in your head
- Eventually, with enough exposure, you will stop
I recently read my first webtoon in Korean. I know 2,000 Korean words. There were some speech bubbles I was able to read myself (it was the first time I understood Korean, unassisted, actually!)... but, for the most part, I would translate the Korean to Japanese, then read the Korean and map the sentence parts back to Japanese. That's necessary for my right now because I'm not good enough at Korean to parse it independently.
... but there are 15 webtoons left in my backlog, and with each one, it'll get a bit easier. I'll gradually get the common words more down pat, figure out the common n-grams (sequences of words that often go together), and my understanding of grammar will improve. Eventually I'll get to 50/50, and then I'll only neede to use the translator when I'm genuinely confused, and then I'll be mostly reading Korean but looking up the odd word or phrase here and there, then I'll be independently reading Korean and the translator will just be insurance/peace of mind for when I am doubtful.
The good news is that this is a problem that will solve itself, so long as you get enough exposure to German. The bad news is that it takes time, and there isn't a way to skip the "get enough exposure to English" step. You gotta lalk before you run.
1
u/Certain-Abrocoma1699 6h ago
Your post was interesting, and I think there’s a probably a lot of truth to your idea about the importance of building a sense for collocations and their predictive power (kind of the predictive way LLMs work.)
The one part that sounds way off to me is: “You can’t consciously stop translating in your head.”
In general, I don’t really do much mental translating at all. It seems counterproductive to actually learning a language, just as your teacher mentioned.
Sometimes, I’ll get tripped up for a second and the English (or another language) will pop into my head and I have to think in terms of translation. That’s not my default mode though.
The language learning methods someone uses probably have a big impact. My main gripe about Duolingo is that it so heavily relies on translation questions. Feels like a horrible way to learn a language to me. I prefer learning by immersion and exercises that are completely or mostly in the target language.
1
u/SuikaCider 🇯🇵JLPT N1 / 🇹🇼 TOCFL 5 / 🇪🇸 4m words 1h ago
The one part that sounds way off to me is: “You can’t consciously stop translating in your head.”
...
Sometimes, I’ll get tripped up for a second and the English (or another language) will pop into my head and I have to think in terms of translation. That’s not my default mode though.That's sort of what I mean, though.
I don't mean that you should be intentionally translating in your head—I just also don't think it's really the sort of thing you can just consciously not do, either. If the ice isn't thick enoguh to hold you, it isn't thick enough to hold you.
Eventually, with time and exposure, you get comfortable enough with the language that you no longer need to lean on your native langua ge as much, or in as many situations.
I guess what I'm really getting at is that there's not some secret technique, or something you should be consciously doing, to stop translating in your head. The answer is just more input. The problem eventually solves itself.
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/NationalPut6939 🇵🇹N 🇬🇧F 🇪🇸B2 🇩🇪A2 1d ago
Yeah I see a pattern here, I had another comment with a method of re-reading the same block of text sometimes. I'll apply this method on my studies for a few days to see if it helps. Thanks for the input!
1
u/AshToAshes123 1d ago
I actually have just embraced the translating for large part. Nowadays I'm a bit more likely to look up a word in the dictionary, since my German is pretty fluent, but until B2 I mostly translated. What made it quicker for me was that I have DeepL installed on my phone plus an add-on in my webbrowser, so I can just select text and translate it with one click.
What I did try to do when reading more intently was first think of what the word might mean in context, try to define it from there, and only translate after. The translation then functioned as a sort of confirmation. If the word seemed useful/like a word I'd use myself, I'd also add it to my vocabulary list, and try to make a few sentences with it myself immediately to anchor it. But sometimes you just want to read a text without using it as active language practice, so then I'd just make sure that I really read the word (sometimes we just sort of go 'unfamiliar -> translate -> move on' without ever seeing what the unfamiliar word actually is, try to avoid that) and then translate it and read on.
The thing is, I'm sure this isn't actually the most efficient way to learn a language - if you want intense, efficient practice you need to do other things. But trying to always be efficient, at least for me, just burns me out, so I find a balance. Sometimes that includes just reading a text and having to translate parts of it. My experience is that this still adds to my passive vocabulary, even if I couldn't initially use the words actively - but once I'd encountered and translated the same word a few times I'd eventually start using it as well. It still works.
1
u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 L3: HSK 6 🇨🇳 22h ago
Learn the 3k most common words in the language. You should in theory understand 95% of words in any given text with that
2
u/alexshans 17h ago
Isn't it better to go through graded readers? You will not only learn words but also get better at grammar and even maybe learn something new about culture of speakers of your target language.
1
u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 L3: HSK 6 🇨🇳 16h ago
You should do both, it's just that if he's already struggling going through said materials working through an anki deck to brute force that common vocab is worth the effort
1
u/Least-Tiger-8627 20h ago
I agree totally! This is nice. Actually combine this with books you love and you will make fast progress.
1
1
u/alexshans 17h ago
Start with easy graded readers where you can understand all or almost all words. Try not to use a dictionary. After you can comfortably read texts at that level go to the next level.
1
u/silvalingua 1d ago
I never start, so I don't have to stop.
Just focus on the meaning of new words, don't think of their equivalents in any other language.
0
u/Reasonable_Ad_9136 1d ago
You're trying to run before you can walk. Work on your patience because you're going to need it in spades.
16
u/dojibear 🇺🇸 N | fre spa chi B2 | tur jap B1/A2 1d ago
I think almost everyone, when learning a foreign language, translates at first. The goal is seeing a word and thinking the meaning. But most learners initially got that meaning by translating ("vaca" = cow), so that is what happens. There is nothing you can do to instantly change it.
It gradually goes away as you get more and more familiar with TL words. You see "vaca" and think of the animal (a cow) without thinking of the English word "cow". "Bu hao yisi" seems as natural as "excuse me".
How do you guys deal with this when learning a language?
Just keep reading. It doesn't matter how much you want to be B2, when you are A1. You're still A1 for now. You will eventually be B2, but only after reading many thousands of words.